Woke up to a pipeline crew taking over our rest stop, they had some cool looking air boats. Not sure what they were going to do with them.

Lots of construction delays on our way to Valdez, so it took over 3hrs to travel the 120 miles. Our first stop is the Alyesca pipeline – very cool to see it travelling for miles. Worthington glacier was awesome, the parking area not so much. On our way into Valdez, we stopped at Bridal Veil Falls and Horse Tail Falls which were very beautiful.

When we arrive in Valdez, our first stop is the fish hatchery. Here we see massive amounts of pinks and coho salmon trying to spawn, but the hatchery is set up to prevent them from going up river. Instead they are diverted into the hatchery where they separate out the eggs and sperm, mix into buckets and place in special gravel pools to hatch – over 230 million fingerlings – which are cared for over 1-2 years before returning them to the sea.

Massive sea lions hang out here consuming fish after fish – like 1 fish every minute. They mostly seem to eat just the head thrashing the fish about to decapitate it. This was fascinating to watch.

After lunch we venture into Valdez to check out the town, it’s small but quaint. After an ice cream treat, we head back to spend the night at the hatchery and look for bears.