Alaska Guide Co — Attraction in Valdez

My wife and I did a hike with Alaska Guide Co.’s Zach. We hiked up to Worthington Glacier. Zach is one of the co-owners of the business. He was excellent and we had a memorable time…and a vigorous workout!

We were on a cruise and wanted something more invigorating/challenging than the cruise excursions. We set up our trek with Alaska Guide Co. about six months in advance. Zach picked us up right where our ship docked and was careful to get us back to our ship on time, as the hike was about a 30-minute drive from the Valdez port. Our hike lasted four hours…two hours up and two hours back.

Zach is interesting and well-mannered and has excellent communication skills. He is very experienced in challenging hikes, having led thousands of them in the area over the past 15 years. His top priority was clearly our safety, one example being he would offer optional routes to get to a few points on our hike that we could choose from, after he explained the terrain and degree of difficulty of each option.

When we crested the lookout point for the glacier we literally exclaimed wow! My wife went a little further with Zach from that point, repelling down about 30 feet and actually going under the glacier (that was a bit much for me). But that is how close Zach got us to the glacier…we touched it!

We highly recommend Alaska Guide Co and Zach if you are looking for a personalized experience beyond an everyday walk in Valdez.

By the way, Valdez is spectacularly beautiful. The mountains, glaciers, and other scenery are some of the best I’ve seen. It is definitely the prettiest place we saw of the six Alaska stops we made on our cruise. And Zach was very knowledgeable about local history and culture as well.

One recommendation is to bring a little food and water as Zach is loaded down with...

We had originally booked the Valdez iceberg tour during our stay in Valdez as part of our trip through Alaska. Zach and his brother Chester were incredibly insightful and engaging, and struck a perfect balance of safe adventure for our family of 5 (including three kids under 11). We had so much fun that we asked Zach if he was booked for the next day. Luckily for us his morning was free and we were able to book a Worthington glacier trek. Zach navigated us through the park, across the river, up the mountain, and around the glacier. We were able to hike, climb, and rappel while learning fascinating details about the history of the glacier and surrounding area. Absolutely the highlight of our time in Valdez, and according to unanimous consent of our entire family, also a "tied for top three" activity of our entire Alaska trip.

Bonus that Zach is an avid photographer and took some professional photos of the family throughout each adventure.

We traveled across the country to see Alaska but I would (and hope to) come back here again, even if just to tackle more mountain adventure with Zach and his team. Can't recommend...

We booked the Valdez Glacier Ice Canoe tour with Alaska Guide Co. per recommendation from a friend. Zack was our guide for the tour. The tour was amazing to say the least, and so was our guide Zach. He was very jovial, kind, enthusiastic and a great source of knowledge about Alaska. He navigated through and around multiple icebergs and upon request found an iceberg for us to walk on. Even though it was slightly cloudy that day, we got amazing views of the mountain ranges surrounding Valdez Glacier Lake along with the Valdez Glacier itself. The whole ride was very peaceful and serene. The most exciting part was whenever we found an iceberg caves to ride through. Throughout the ride, Zack told us about the iceberg formation, breakage and how they move around making the sceneries around change so fast! He also shared nuggets of his thrilling life experiences in and around mountain which left us amazed at his skills! I would recommend this canoe tour with Alaska Guide Co. to anyone...