There’s a cannot-miss, 24-mile, scenic drive from Blueberry Lake to Valdez!
The bare-boned peaks of the Chugach Mountains rise above the highway as it winds its way down Thompson Pass and into Keystone Canyon before reaching Valdez.
Long patches of wildflowers line the road – white daisies, purple lupine, yellow dandelions and hot pink fireweed – and waterfalls trickle down the crevices of every green hillside. The road follows the Lowe River in the rock lined Keystone Canyon so we crossed several bridges along the way. But there’s more than just natural scenery, there’s also a lot of history here.
Moving people and supplies from Valdez to the interior of Alaska was a priority as early as the late 1890s when the Port of Valdez was a launch point for gold rushers headed inland over Valdez Glacier. By 1898, the US Army cut a trail through Keystone Canyon, providing an alternate route to the Interior. This alternate route is known as the Richardson Highway. In 1907, a shoot-out between two rival railroad companies fighting for the Kennecott copper mining business ended Valdez’s hopes of becoming a railroad town and the half-completed tunnel is visible in Keystone Canyon.
Once well into the canyon, there are two popular stops with some impressive waterfalls that blanket the highway in nearly fairy-tale fashion – Horsetail Falls and Bridal Veil Falls. Alongside are several other unnamed falls. We went through the canyon in the morning, so photos were challenging. We’d recommend driving through in the afternoon or evening for the best lighting.
Bridal Veil Falls (looks like horsetail) picture and video on right.
Horsetail falls (looks bridal veil to me)
Before arriving at the huge “Welcome to Valdez” sign that crosses over the highway at the entrance to the town, it’s worth taking a short side trip to Dayville Road. We had planned to bicycle this as there’s a paved bike path alongside the road, but it was not crowded so we just drove the short, 13-miles of it instead.
The road runs along a southern estuary. Some people were parked at the John Hunter Memorial Trailhead, but we were more interested in the Solomon Gulch Fish Hatchery along this road. Near the hatchery, there is a dramatic view of Solomon Gulch Falls, information about the hydroelectric electricity generation from it and a self-guided tour of the salmon fish hatchery.
The “fish ladder” at the hatchery works with the salmon’s natural instinct to swim upstream. During spawning season the ladder lifts ~20,000 fish into the spawning area daily.
Nature is fantastic, strange and brutal. You probably know for Pacific salmon, spawning is the last act of their lifecycle. They move from the salt water ocean into their fresh water natal stream, which often requires migrating for thousands of miles. How they find their natal stream is still a bit of a mystery, but it happens!
This brutal journey takes its toll and males, in particular, stop feeding and undergo a color and a shape change when they transition to fresh water. As a result, they are super ugly when they finally reach their destination to spawn. The fish hatchery has a video that shows how once the exhausted fish are in the “fish ladder” they are collected. The females are cut open for their eggs, and the males are squeezed for all of their sperm – neither task qualifies as a fun job. This hatchery can incubate 270 million pink salmon eggs. Later in the year, they pump the hatched fish into net pens off the shore and feed them until they reach a target weight of 0.5g before releasing them to complete their life cycle in the open sea. They call this “ocean ranching”.
In addition, to learning about the hatchery, if your timing is right, which ours wasn’t, this area draws bears, birds, seals, and otters all in pursuit of a salmon feast as they make their way upstream.
If you’re driving to Valdez, this section of Richardson Highway through Keystone Canyon is the only way in and out, but if you arrive by air or boat and have sunshine for the day, it would be worth this short trip just outside of town to see these sights.
