The day after the incredible kayak trip around Columbia Glacier, I decided to take Valdez in. The population is about 4,000 and so an easy walk from one side of town to the other.
Here is a fun fact, Valdez calls itself, “The Switzerland of Alaska“. Not because it is a safe haven for Nazi loot, but because it is surrounded by the tallest coastal mountains in North America. The mountains rise up from sea level to above 7,000 feet in elevation. During the summer, I would call it the Hawaii of Alaska: most of the kids in town ride long-board skate boards on the streets, the surrounding mountains are a cool luscious green, and generous waterfalls flow on the slopes that you can see from the middle of town!
I spent a couple of hours in the Valdez Museum, exploring the city’s rich history. The museum covered everything from the native people in the area to the Valdez oil spill in 1989. The oil didn’t spill in town, but the town did host most of the clean-up effort. One of the more interesting things in the museum was the history of the 1964 earthquake. The earthquake registered an 8.6 on the Richter scale, but that was the highest the scale went to, so scientists had to reevaluate the quake and gave it a 9.2! And it lasted 5 minutes! WTF! Growing up in California, we had lots of earthquakes, but they lasted 30 seconds or so and felt like an eternity. There was another exhibit in town that showed a scale model of Old Town Valdez before the earthquake. It showed which of the buildings survived and which were moved 4 miles down to the present day location of Valdez.
The food in Valdez was hit or miss. I can heartily recommend Rogue’s Garden for lunch and The Alaska Halibut House for lunch or dinner. We were there for two and a half days and all of the other food venues were either just ok or sucked outright.
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