| Campground: | eagle rest, Valdez. |
| Total distance : | 4456 Miles. |
| 4456 Miles. | 19 Miles. |
| Key highlights | Shoup Bay Trail (***) Valdez fisherman pier Valdez Glacier and lake (*****) Solomon Gulch Hatchery |
The people of Valdez claim that Switzerland is the Valdez of Europe- and they indeed have a point. It’s a magnificent place, and on a clear day (like the one we had), it sparkles in blue, white, and green – decorated with colorful flower fields.
It is a great place to bike and offers some great trails -though we did not choose our course carefully. We started the day biking to the Shoup Bay trailhead – and were attempting to drive on the dirt road for as long as we could. The first 2.5 miles were not very technically tricky – and offered good views of the mountains and the meadows. However, at that junction to the beach trail – the trail becomes narrow and steeper, and the vegetation is very dense, tall, and full of bugs. We dropped our bikes, attempting to head to the waterfall by foot- but after another half a mile – we just saw no point – the vegetation obscured the landscape, and we suffered from the bugs. It was an excellent decision to turn back
and hang on the wonderful beach for a while.
Upon returning to the city, we joined the 4th of July fair (we came just after the parade) – and stopped by the fisherman’s dock – where we saw the skilled staff cleaning and fileting giant Halibut and other types of fish.
Next – we biked to Valdez glacier – roughly 14 miles out and back. The Bike lane makes it very safe to drive to the Valdez small airport, and you share the road with some large trucks in the last 1 mile to the glacier. The Glacier lake is impressive, with numerous ice debris floating. It’s a great place to Kayak between icebergs (that we did not do – but others did) and observe the glacier up close.
The Eagle rest extremely friendly staff celebrated the 4th of July with the camp guests with complementary hot-pot style fish BBQ- tons of freshly caught Salmon and Halibut were grilled to perfection over a professional style griddle by the camp staff. The sides from the other campers (mainly the homemade BBQ sauce beans) were out of this world.
To conclude this action-packed day – we head to the Solomon Gulch Hatchery on the other side of the bay (this time, we were lazy and took the car)- to see the sea lions feasting on salmon that got stuck near the hatchery gate- as the salmon ladder was not yet working that day. A spectacular waterfall is easily accessible just the other side of the road.