Two days in VALDEZ, Alaska! (Salmon Hatchery, Thompson Pass, Keystone Canyon, & MORE!)

In our last video, we spent a fun and beautiful day driving over five and a half hours from Anchorage to Valdez. Valdez is a coastal town located at the head of a fjord on the Prince William Sound and is popular for both commercial and sport fishing, boat tours, and gorgeous scenery. In fact, some people refer to it as little Switzerland. As you can see, the weather isn't exactly what we hoped for today. It's very cloudy, very foggy. It's probably going to rain later, but we're not going to let that rain on our parade. We're still going to have a blast out here. Over the next two days, we're going to explore both the town and the nature nearby. And first up, you already know what we're going to do first. We got to get some coffee. We grabbed some coffees at a spot in town called the Coffee Co. and they have some fun weekly drink specials. And I got the hipster mousse mocha, which is milk chocolate, pistachio, and maple spice. A combination I would have never thought to ever try. Smells so good. Oh, oh yeah. Oh, that is so chocolatey and decadent, but you really get the pistachio flavor. I love pistachio flavored stuff. That is so good. You look like such a hipster, Adam. That is so good. Yeah, I'm not giving this back. No way. We're supposed to be sharing our two drinks. We always like to get one drink that's not sweet, and then one drink that's very sweet, and then share them. But I have a feeling we're going to be fighting over this one. No, no, give it back. Valdez is known as the southern terminus of the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline, which runs from Prudhoe Bay, 800 miles north of here. Normally from town, you can see the massive oil storage tanks across the water that hold nine million barrels of oil each. And you may have heard of Valdez in the news back in 1989 from the Exxon Valdez oil spill, which at the time was the largest oil spill in U.S. history. It soaked the Prince William Sound in 11 million gallons of crude oil after the tanker cargo ship ran aground. This killed thousands of wildlife and had many negative impacts on the area. It took three years to clean it up, and the area is still being monitored by scientists today. Another sad piece of Valdez history is back in 1964, a 9.2 magnitude earthquake struck Alaska, which is the largest magnitude earthquake ever recorded in North America. This earthquake destroyed the town, and they actually moved the town four miles away to higher ground where it is now. But today things are quite a bit happier here, and this place is an outdoor lover's paradise. There are mountains, fishing, fjords, waterfalls, and glaciers, and it's one of the most beautiful town settings that we have ever seen. On a clear day, behind all of this fog right now, there would just be towering mountains. It is pretty insane. You'd be able to probably see at least five glaciers just from this spot right here. We always get a little sad when the weather sucks when we're visiting a place because we're not going to be able to do this place justice in this video, so we're just going to take our word for it. An important part of the town of Valdez and the area is the Solomon Gulch Fish Hatchery, which is North America's largest pink salmon hatchery. Its mission is to ensure sufficient numbers of wild salmon return each year to increase the harvest of both sport and commercial fisheries in the Valdez area. They incubate, rear, and release 250 million pink salmon fry and 1.8 million coho salmon smolt each year. The salmon return to the hatchery to spawn between July and October, and we read that the best time to view the wildlife and the salmon is at high tide, so we're here for high tide to hopefully see some sea lions and some seals feasting on some salmon. This is one of the coolest things I've ever seen in my entire life. I have never seen so many fish in one place. They're all just flopping around, and then we saw this giant stellar sea lion, which Adam thought was a bear because of how big it was, and he was just dipping down, grabbing salmon, and munching on them in front of us. It was like National Geographic. So they have a free walking tour you can go on here, and after walking around a little bit, this is basically what I've learned. So this is basically a a salmon ranch. They start incubate the salmon in these buildings here, so they start as just little eggs, and then they grow into the next stage of life, and then once they get big enough, they get pumped out to some pens out in the water out here for them to grow more, and they feed them out there, and once they get big enough at a certain stage, they release them out into the ocean, and then the fish go on a 1,500 mile journey. It says they go out to the Aleutian Islands, do a big loop down through the Pacific Ocean, and then come back up the coast of British Columbia, and I think it's about after about a year, they come all the way back to the same spot here at the hatchery here to spawn again, and the salmon just know how to do that. It is so cool to learn about, so amazing to be here, just like you look out in the water, and there's just these giant clouds of salmon basically under the water, just giant pools of salmon everywhere you look. This is one of the most fascinating and interesting wildlife nature experiences we have ever had, and we hear that sometimes during certain times of the day, there can be a lot more wildlife here, a lot more sea lions, some seals, sometimes bears, bald eagles, so I think we're going to come back in a little bit and see if we can have even better luck with the wildlife, so we're going to fast forward to then. All right, we're back, and there are more sea lions this time. This is 10 times better than the first time we were here today. There's at least 10 sea lions just right here, and then off in the distance, you can see about 15 to 20 of them all huddled together, and these things are massive. They're just roaring and ripping apart salmon. We do apologize for the gore in this part of the video, but this is about as real and raw of nature as you can get. It's the circle of life. If you are here between July and October, you have to find your way out here. It is super entertaining. We came back into town because today is a very special day. It is this person's 30th birthday. 30, 30, 30, flirting and thriving. 30, 30, 3, 0, what, what? Well, it was technically yesterday, but we're celebrating today, but I am going to surprise her with a special treat. She's going to hang out at this table here, and I'm going to go grab it and bring it right back. While we're waiting for the food, I just wanted to say how much I appreciate Katherine. We have been to so many amazing places, done so many fun things, and accomplished so much together. It obviously wouldn't be possible without her. She is the kindest, sweetest, and most dedicated person I've ever met, and she amazes me every day. I couldn't have asked for a better friend and a better wife. I love you so much, Katherine. Happy birthday. This will be very belated, but everyone please wish Katherine a happy birthday. I knew this was coming. I can look? Yeah. I'm scared. Oh yes. Tacos. Oh my gosh. Sorry. That scared me so bad. That scared me so bad. I thought it was, I thought this was exploding on me. So I went to Nat Shack, which is right across the street over here, and it's cow Mexican food, kind of like California Mexican that they brought here to Alaska. And I got her the shack tacos, which is perfect because they're flank steak tacos, cilantro, a corn salsa on there, and a creamy chipotle. It smells so good. And then I got a flight of... A flight. Yeah, a flight of dips here. There's like the creamy chipotle, there's salsa, there's pico, there's guac, and then there's, they call it cheese sauce, but we're going to call it queso. Okay. Ice cream flights are amazing, but like chips and dip flight, best invention ever. Don't know why that's not a thing. And then I got a banh mi crunch wrap. They have like regular ones, and then this is a banh mi one. Cool. Yeah. Blow out your candles. That steak is so tender, and the chipotle sauce is top notch. Good thing I have more on my flight. I love the corn kernels in there too. There's a little pop of juiciness. As I mentioned, this is a banh mi crunch wrap. It has banh mi chicken in here, pickled carrots, jalapeno, cilantro, and then a spicy mayo. Look how thick that is. It's loaded. That tastes like a perfect mix of banh mi, you know, Vietnamese food, and then Mexican, like perfect fusion. The chicken in there is super juicy and tender. Love all the rice in there. The spicy mayo is a little spicy, but perfect. Yeah, this thing is the perfect handful. The weather has gotten a little bit clearer out. You can see more mountains, but it's still pretty foggy, and it's raining on me right now, so we're going to save all of our other stops for tomorrow. The weather forecast looks to be a little bit clearer in the morning, so we're going to cross our fingers that that's actually true. So for the rest of the day, we're just going to hang out at this boondocking spot, which is right along the river. It has pretty amazing views. We actually ran into some subscribers from Ohio a couple times while at Kenai Fjords National Park, and they sent us the coordinates to this spot. So a huge thank you to them, but we're just going to work for the rest of the night and just hope that tomorrow is a little bit clearer. Today we're going to explore some of the nature east of town on the section of the Richardson Highway that we fast-forwarded through in our last video to save the views for this video. And well, the weather was much better then, but hopefully we'll be able to show you something. Just for some context, we're here in early August, and August is the rainy season here in Alaska. Since being here in Alaska, we've been here almost two months now, we've experienced really sunny days, warm days, cold days, foggy days, rainy days, all kinds of days. So our biggest tip when visiting Alaska is just be prepared for any type of weather. Have layers, just know that it could rain one day and be beautiful the next day, and just be flexible with your plans, and just have a good attitude because we cannot change that it is insanely foggy out right now, but we're still gonna have fun. I think we just might break through the clouds. Yes! We stopped a little bit earlier than planned at Thompson Pass because the views were just too good to pass up, we just didn't want to risk them going away or getting socked in with clouds, and just look at this. This is far better than I expected it to be today. I am just so happy right now. Thompson Pass is the snowiest place in all of Alaska, and quite possibly all of the U.S. It receives over 500 inches of snow on average per year, and it holds the record of the snowiest day in Alaska at 62 inches in one day. Holy cow! The views from the pass are incredible on their own, but to get some even better views of the Alpine area, we're gonna hike around a bit. This area is kind of like Denali, where there's no actual trails to follow, so you can kind of walk around and choose your own adventure. When we first drove through Thompson Pass the other day, I gasped so loudly when I saw this view. It just takes your breath away. There are so many glaciers off in the distance, so many mountains. My favorite though are these mountains right back here. They're kind of like towers, and they're super super pointy. There's one in particular that's just a narrow point at the top. It's unlike any mountains I've ever seen. We started on the west side of the Richardson Highway, and we kind of came out on this knob or this ridge out to this area here, and there's sort of a little defined path out here that a lot of people have taken that we followed, but now we are gonna cross the highway, go up to the top of that ridge there. Doesn't look like there's any kind of path to get up there, so we're just gonna make our own and see what we can see from up there. The vibe on this side of the highway is completely different than the other side. The other side was a lot more green and lush, and this is a lot more just rocky and rugged. It's really reminding us of the off-trail hike we did at Denali National Park, and the fog's kind of rolling in, so it's giving it just some moody vibes. It's crazy how much different the scenery can be just up the road from where we were first. Just up the road from Thompson Pass is the Worthington Glacier, and this is one of Alaska's most accessible glaciers, as it's just along the side of the road. There is a state recreation area here, which costs five dollars, but unfortunately right now there isn't a ton to do there. There is a trail that would normally take you up closer to the glacier, but it's closed right now because of a rock slide. But from our experience just driving in the other night, you get amazing views of the glacier just right here from the road. We're heading back towards Valdez, and not only do you have the Worthington Glacier and Thompson Pass on this drive, we have a grand finale of Keystone Canyon. This is a narrow gorge that winds for a few miles and has waterfalls that just plummet off the side of the canyon walls. It is such a stunning drive. Our first waterfall of the canyon is Ruttleston Falls, and what makes this spot even cooler is just on the other side of the parking area is an old railroad tunnel that you can walk through. Back in the early 1900s when copper was discovered at the Kennecott Mine near McCarthy, there was a race to build the first train tracks through the canyon to the port town of Valdez. A handful of companies attempted to build these train tracks through the canyon, but there was a gun battle just near here that stopped the progress on the tunnel, and it was never finished. It's pretty wet in here. There's a big pool of water with some rocks to step on to avoid it, hopefully, but we're determined to go all the way to the end. We made it out of the tunnels! All right, the next waterfall is Bridal Veil Falls, which is probably the most popular one. It is just on the side of the road. In the wintertime, the canyon and those waterfalls, they freeze over, and so they hold an annual ice climbing festival out there. We'll have to come back in the winter to try out our newfound ice climbing skills, but speaking of ice, we've got one more stop in the area, and it should be pretty icy. This behind me is Valdez Glacier Lake, which is home to the Valdez Glacier, which is tucked way behind the bend there, and it's a 20-mile valley glacier that terminates at this lake. You used to be able to see the glacier from the lake shore, but it's receded so much that you can't anymore, and the glacier has actually started to recede from the mountainsides on both sides, which makes it incredibly unstable. Large chunks of ice fall off of it, some the size of city blocks, which makes it very unsafe to get within 100 meters of the glacier. You can hire a guide company to take you safely out to the glacier, or you can rent some kayaks from some places in town if you just want to paddle around the icebergs. I cannot think of a better place to have celebrated turning 30. Just being here in Alaska on my 30th birthday was the best gift of all, but especially being here in this area. We loved it out here so much. I know the weather yesterday was not good at all, but today totally redeemed it. But we've got some awfully bad news. Our Alaska adventures are getting close to coming to an end. It is so sad to think about, but we're going to try to go out with a bang by visiting our last Alaska National Park for this trip, Wrangell-St. Elias, the biggest of them all. I'm so hangry right now. I'm sorry for what I said when I was hangry. The sun? Is that you? What the heck is that in the sky? It's so bright. When we first drove through Thompson Pass the other day, I gasped. Gaps. That's a hard word. Gasped. Gasped. Do the hipster moose. Hipster moose. Do the sea lion. That's exactly what the sea lion did.