I’ve been in Alaska for 11 weeks and I had not heard of Valdez until a local told me about it while I was sitting in a family restaurant in Denali. I ventured to Valdez not really knowing what to expect as the internet wasn’t great where I was to dig for information.
The drive from Denali was beautiful as it was fall time. As I drove into Valdez, there was a road called Dayville Rd. I turned onto it and found running salmon all in the bay. There were tons of seagulls in the water and on the land. The sound waves were filled with seagulls yelling at each other, and the smell was pretty difficult to handle. There were dead salmon all over the place. The salmon were trying to swim to a creek. The creek was so tiny compared to the vast amount of fish that were all facing the same direction. There were so many that it created a huge end of the road to so many. Thousands of fish were trying to get to the other side. It was sad really, but also nature at its best. So many that people had run over them in their vehicles due to them being in the roadway. The salmon were in a stream that was across the street of the bay as the river flowed under the roadway. I have a video of the bears on my Youtube channel, Bluenomador. I was also able to find seals at the end of htis road, and several of them. The seals make some interesting noises as you are sleeping off the roadway, you will get an ear full. I can tell you the seals had as much of a difficult time sleeping as I did. They were quite entertaining as well.
There is also another really neat find in Valdez and it was off of Valdez Airport Rd. You take this road to the end and you will find Glazier Campground Rd. There will be a body of water with floating pieces of ice off of the glazier in the water. You can pull your vehicle very close to the water. When I was there, there weren’t many people out there. It was gorgeous and very unique! I would recommend Valdez over Homer and Seward, but that is because I like being about to see the bears up close and seals and actually see the ice floating in the water with mountains and water around. I wish I had taken a kayak out there and discovered what is beyond.