Rainy Vanlife Camping in Remote Alaska Town

Well, good morning everyone. My name's Trent and I'm currently traveling all over Alaska in my van here. And in today's video, we're picking up right where I left off in my last episode, which if you haven't seen it yet, make sure you go watch it right here. As you can tell, I'm parked up right on this beautiful pond here with this gorgeous view of these mountains. And I've been camping at this spot for a couple of days now. We're just right outside of a town called Whittier, Alaska, which is a town I definitely want to go explore tomorrow. But I think for today, I'm just going to hang out at the camp, maybe do some fishing in the pond here and cozy up in the van and maybe make some food, game, and just enjoy this cozy rainy Alaska day. All right, let's do some fishing folks. And if you guys saw my last video here on YouTube, you would have seen when I drove all the way up to the Arctic of Alaska, I met a guy up there who actually taught me how to fish. He caught some fish, cooked it over a fire for me and we ate and it was really, really cool. Highly recommend you go watch that video. But anyway, he gave me a fishing pole so I could start fishing here in Alaska, but it broke on me. So I went out and bought my own little setup here and I ended up catching my first fish on this thing about a week ago. And I filmed a video about that. It's on my Patreon. If you're a supporter over there, you'll get access to that. But yeah, I have been having a blast trying to learn how to fish out here. I'm still a beginner, but it's just so much fun. And this pond, I did some research here, this pond is actually stocked with rainbow trout. So we may or may not catch anything today, but I'm going to try my best. All right, first cast of the day. Let's go. So I'm not really feeling that spot over by camp right now, so I'm going to walk further in the woods here. I thought I saw a nice little spot just over here where I feel like I'll have a little better luck. But we'll see. You coming Millie? Good girl. This forest is beautiful though. Like oh my gosh. I don't know if the camera is going to pick this up, but look at this mountain peeking through these trees here. That is gorgeous. Oh wow. Oh, this is a cool spot. However, I think I'll probably have a hard time fishing here with all these logs. I don't know. Maybe not. Let's give it a shot. Well, it's been a couple of hours of fishing and I haven't had a single bite. I saw a couple of fish jump out there, but I guess they're just not biting today, which is unfortunate. Or maybe I just suck at fishing, who knows. But I think it's time to head back to the van. Well, I guess since I didn't have any luck catching any fish today, I guess I'm not cooking any fish for dinner. But that's okay because I've actually got some factor meals that I need to cook, who happens to be today's video sponsor. You guys know me. I love the convenience of having factor meals here in the van because after a long day of driving and adventuring or fishing with no luck, the last thing I want to do is come in the van and spend a bunch of time preparing and cooking a meal from scratch. All right. Which one do I want to eat today? Ooh, Indian style butter chicken. Count me in. Let's do it. For those of you guys that don't know, factor meals are fresh, never frozen, ready to eat chef crafted meals that are delivered straight to your doorstep and they're perfect for situations like this. I don't have to spend a bunch of time at the grocery store meal prepping. All I have to do is pop this meal in the microwave for about two minutes or in my case, I heat mine up in the oven or sometimes the stovetop and boom, it's ready to eat and it's delicious. 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That's TrentTheTraveler50 at Factor75.com to get 50% off your first factor box and 20% off your next month of orders. Thank you so much, Factor, for sponsoring this video. Now I'm going to enjoy the rest of this meal and play some classic World of Warcraft. Hello. It will be $13. Okay, great. You will be waiting in line up on lane three, okay? Great. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. This morning I woke up, packed up the van and hit the road because last night I was camping about 15 miles right outside of a town called Whittier here in Alaska and if you've watched any videos on Alaska or done any amount of research on Alaska, you've probably heard of this town because this town is often referred to as one of the most isolated towns in the entire United States and that's because the only way to get to this town by car is by traversing through a single lane tunnel for two and a half miles that goes through some mountains and under a glacier and on top of that, there's several other things about this town that makes it really interesting and we'll get more into that once we get into the town, but right now I'm waiting right outside the tunnel in line waiting on my turn to go through. As I said, this is a single lane tunnel, meaning it only operates in one direction every 45 minutes or so and right now people from the town of Whittier are leaving the tunnel, so we're just waiting on our turn to go into the tunnel, but one big thing I need to consider about visiting this town is the fact that the only way to get in and out of the town by my van, aka the tunnel system, it actually shuts down at night, meaning if I don't leave the town by 1030 tonight, I'll be locked in until the next morning, which is kind of interesting, but I think it'll be alright because this town is pretty small, there's not much to do there, but I'm excited to see it regardless. Okay, here we go! Okay, holy crap, this is cool, but I'm not gonna lie, it's feeling a little claustrophobic. I've gotta drive through this tunnel for two and a half miles straight at 25 miles an hour and boy is it narrow. As you can tell, a train track also goes through this tunnel and it actually is an active train system and I believe this is the longest train and car tunnel system in the entire United States, which is crazy. Back in the day, the only way to get to the town of Whittier was by boat and before you could actually drive your car through the tunnel, you actually had to load your car onto the train and the train would transport your car through the tunnel. Now, it might look like I am driving so fast through this tunnel, but I really am driving only about 20 miles an hour and I think that's really because my wide-angle lens and the fact that this tunnel is just so narrow. Oh, I see the light at the end of the tunnel here! Alright, so we've made it to the town of Whittier, which is this cute, small, coastal town here off the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska and the population of this town is about 265 people. One of the cool things about this town is the fact that the majority of the population lives in one building and currently, Millie and I are walking towards that building now. We're going through an underground tunnel that will get us across the train tracks so we don't have to walk over them, but this little tunnel here is really cool. Now, because of where the town of Whittier sits, tucked in this canal within the Kenai Peninsula, this place made for a perfect secret base during World War II and that's exactly how this town got started. So this here is the now-abandoned Buckner Building from World War II, which was the barracks for the 1,000 officers that lived here and it was set to be one of the largest buildings here in Alaska to the point where it was considered a whole city under one roof and that's because on top of housing all the officers here, it also had a hospital in there, a bowling alley, a photo lab, a barbershop, a church, a bakery, a library, a radio station, rifle range, you name it. It really was a whole entire city under one building here and ever since the military sort of moved out of this area, this building has been left abandoned, which is unfortunate. However, that trend of having an entire city under one building would remain here in Whittier because as I said earlier, the majority of this town lives under one building, which is right down the road here, because inside that building there's a church, a post office, a store, and people live there. So it really kind of is like a whole town in one building and no one really has to leave the building to go do what they need to do, which is neat. Wow, as much as I want to go inside this building, this place is pretty boarded up and there's tons of no trespassing signs along with video surveillance signs. So I don't think that's going to happen, but this place is really cool. All right. So this is the Begich Towers, which is where the majority of the population here in Whittier lives, and it's actually made up of three separate buildings, even though it looks like one. You see these lines going up, separating the three buildings, and the reason for that is because of earthquake protection. It allows these buildings to sway independently to make sure there's less damage during the event of an earthquake. But even though this place is kind of just like a glorified apartment building, it's still kind of neat to me. So I want to go inside and see if we can check it out a little bit. Oh, wow. That's a really cool old picture from when the building was just built back in 1957. They've definitely gone through some renovation since then, that's for sure. Looks like there's a laundromat over here and an ATM. Oh, it's not very big. I wonder if people have a washer and dryer in their apartments here. Oh, wow, they even have a notary in the building. That's really cool. Wow, there are a lot of really cool old photos of this area from the 1940s, 50s. Wow, that's a beautiful photo right there. Look at how massive these mountains are in comparison to the town. Oh, wow. This is the post office here. It's so small. This is the post office for the entire town right here. That's really neat. Oh, and check it out. Here's the store, the Cozy Corner Store. Unfortunately, they're not open. Dang, that's a bummer. I wanted to check that out. Man, this place is really cool. There's not much to it considering I'm only really allowed on the first floor of the building. The floors up above are obviously where people live and it's not open to the public. But I bet the views at the top of this building are incredible. This here is the school, which is directly behind the building. And what's really cool about this is there's actually an underground tunnel for this building that leads straight to the school, which is perfect for the wintertime when it's really cold and snowy here. All the kids can just wake up, go through the tunnel, and go straight to school without even going outside. Yo, the halibut fish and chips, please. That's it? Thank you. Okay, I had to stop and get me a bite to eat because I am starving. I have not eaten anything today yet. And believe it or not, but it's like 5 30 right now. But I've got some front row seats to this gorgeous view right here. This is just incredible. I love this little town. Awesome. Thanks, man. Dang, that looks so good. Is that the halibut, man? It's the halibut, yeah. That's the best way to eat halibut, in my opinion. Yeah, I keep hearing good things about halibut. Gotta get the first bite, too. Right, the reaction. That's good. I told you. You did. Have you been to Seward yet? You planning on going down? No, I'm making my way down now. Yeah. As I said, I just came from like the Prudhoe Bay area, so slowly making my way south and then... Nice. If you can, go to Homer, go to Homer. It's a long drive. Yeah, people keep telling me that. What was your name, by the way? Noah. Noah, I'm Trent. Trent, nice to meet you. Yeah, nice to meet you. It's been a pleasure talking with you. Nice chatting with you guys. See you. All right, my new buddy Noah that I just met while having some dinner. What are we doing? We're gonna go fillet a chum salmon because my dad needs to show one of his buddies how to do it. Let's do it. I figured it'd be cool for you guys to see. Yeah, let's do it. Filleting salmon since I was like 10 years old. Is the weather normally like this here? It's been kind of weird the past few years. Whittier is known for not being the greatest weather-wise. Is I'll have the fish exactly like this. Yep. You know, head pointed to the right. I'll grab the tail and you just gut them and you're gonna turn the blade and you're just gonna keep on going. We fillet like this because it is the most efficient way to do it. A lot of people will try to get those bones out as they fillet. Good for them. We don't do that. So Noah lives in that building. What's that building called again? Begich Towers. The BTI is what they call it here. And he works here seasonally, even though your family owns this business. What is the name of the company, by the way? Crazy Ray's Adventures. And he lives here during the summer, basically lives out on the boat, going fishing all day long, then comes back, sleeps, repeats the process. Get back to it. No, it really is a cool life, dude. Like this is just so interesting to me. One thing I like tend to forget about when I'm halfway through the summer and I'm dead tired is like, this is like a really cool, unique experience for other people, even though it's my day to day, you know? Yeah. I mean, when you live a life like this, you kind of get numb to it all. Right. Yeah. And then if I were to go to home for you, I would probably freak out and be like, this is crazy. Yeah. It's just home. Yeah. Well, I mean, me living in a van, I'm like thinking about you like, man, you live in this cool building, you go out and fish, but you're probably like, oh, you live in a van. You can just like go wherever you want. Yeah, exactly. Grass is always greener, man. Right? Isn't that weird? Yeah. Welcome aboard. This is the boat, huh? This is the boat, straight crazy. So apparently fishermen are pretty superstitious. There are no bananas allowed on the boats here. Yeah, we don't allow it. We'll throw the bananas off and if you don't want them going off, we'll drive back to port. We don't mess around. And why is that? They're just bad. They're just bad news. They're bad news. No, you will either you won't catch fish all day or you'll have some kind of engine problem or like every time. And that's a common thing around like most fishermen. Oh yeah. Wow. This is all really hard parking. So how often are you going into town for groceries? Because there's not a grocery store here, is there? There is this building right here, but... Oh, it's probably really small though. Yeah, and they probably scout you bad. Oh yeah, I believe it. So do you make like a monthly grocery haul or what do you do? A lot of boats do. I go when I can, you know. I'll eat out a lot because of it. Dude, that glacier though, that is so cool. You can see how much it's receding. Yeah. I don't know if the camera's picking it up, but you can see a good portion of it just melted away. Yeah, and the police station and fire department and the one ambulance we have is in there. Does that ambulance take you to Anchorage? Yes. Oh wow. Yep, there's no hospital here. I had to use it once. Really? The ambulance came down and I had to get looked at because I accidentally stabbed myself. Oh yikes. Yeah, in the thigh. We thought I hit my artery. We thought I was gonna die. Oh man, yeah. Well, glad you didn't die. Yeah, so we could hang out today. Glad you caught me on a day we got in so early. I could run you around. I know, dude. I'm so stoked. All right, man, it was nice meeting you. Yeah. I appreciate you. You have a good night. Yeah, you too. See you, man. I'll keep an eye out on YouTube. Yeah, do it. See ya. Well, before I leave Whittier, I wanted to do this hike. This is like the hike that you do when you come here to Whittier. This is the Portage Pass Trail, which leads you to the Portage Glacier. And this trail is about four miles out and back, leading me through the deep wilderness of Alaska. And already, it is gorgeous. Got a great view of the canal here. And it's beautiful. Holy crap. Whoa, I can see the glacier from here. And it is massive. That is the coolest thing I've ever seen. I can't wait to get closer to it. This is crazy, man. I am surrounded by absolutely massive mountains that most of them, you can barely even see because the clouds are covering them. There's even a really pretty waterfall coming down this mountain right here. You can see it going all the way from the top straight down to the bottom here. Insane. It is so cool to see how this trail changes as you hike further into the mountain range. At the start of the trail, you start on the ocean side. And as you come up the mountain and go over, it's a whole different environment. The plants are different. It feels different. All right, we made it. Oh my gosh, this is gorgeous. Wow. I am just engulfed in these massive, massive mountains. And that glacier. Holy crap. This is incredible. Let's see how this water feels. Oh my gosh, that is the coldest water I have ever felt in my life. And now that I'm looking, I can see chunks of the glacier floating out in the lake here. But I have never in my entire life seen something like this. I am so glad I did this hike. This is so, so cool. Oh, hi, Millie. Hey, girl. It's cold, I know. I'm glad I brought this puffy jacket. But I also have my personal heater, Millie, right here too to help me out. Stop, Millie. No, no. Let's go find you a stick. Oh, here we go. This is perfect. Go get it. All right, it's snack time. Brought me a little factor juice. This is the mint lemonade and an apple. Well, the mosquitoes are starting to come out. They're swarming me. Oh, check this out. This is a piece of the glacier. Millie, what do you think? What is that, Millie? She's so sketched out by it. What is it, Millie? Oh yeah, real spooky, huh? Oh, whoa. Oh, that's a dense piece of ice. Oh my gosh. Yep, solid ice right there, boys and girls. Straight from that glacier right there. And you know, the crazy thing is about this glacier is that back in the day, that glacier took up this entire valley here. But as time has gone on, the glacier has slowly retreated back and it's going to continue retreating back up the mountain. This has been a fantastic past couple of days. Exploring an incredible unique town, Whittier, getting to meet some of the locals and being shown around, eating some good food and then ending with a view like this. Doesn't get much better than this, guys. It really doesn't. And while my time here in Alaska isn't anywhere near complete, I've got so much I want to do while I'm here and I'll be here for several more months. I am planning another really grand adventure that you guys are invited to come with me on. And I mean that literally, not just in video format. I'm inviting you guys to come on a trip with me to Japan in February of 2025, where we'll all be flying in, meeting in Tokyo, adventuring around for seven days straight, exploring the incredibly unique culture of Japan, eating some great food and making some incredible memories together. And I'm not going to give you my full spiel on the trip. There's going to be a link in the description of this video so you guys can check it out. Look at the full itinerary. But basically, it's a fully planned out trip ready for us. So we just show up and have fun and adventure around. It's going to be a blast. So check out the link below and there's only 24 spots available. So make sure you guys go reserve your spot because it's going to be a really, really fun adventure and I'm super excited for it. But until then, I am going to embrace my time in Alaska. As I said before, I'm having so much fun here. And I'm so excited to see what else we get into here because these past few days have just been awesome. I feel like I'm finally getting to see the side of Alaska that I came here for. The extreme and robust wilderness and the unique ways that people live here. It's just so different here than like the lower 48. I'm excited to see more of it and just embrace it all. But with that being said, guys, I think I'm going to end this episode here. I feel like this is a very grand and epic way to close out this episode. So we're going to do just that. And I'm just going to chill out, put the camera down and really bask in this beautiful landscape that I am engulfed in. But with that being said, I want to say thank you all for watching this video all the way to the end. This has been an absolute blast and I can't wait to show you guys what I'm up to in the next episode. So make sure you guys are subscribed so you don't miss out on that episode. But of course, if you want access to bonus content from me, see more of my adventures that you haven't seen yet here on YouTube, consider supporting me on Patreon where you can get access to so many other videos. But that's it, guys. Enough rambling. I'm going to chill out and enjoy this view. I hope you guys have a wonderful rest of your week and I will see you all in the next episode.