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“Cooler hunting” may be our new favorite sport
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Cooler lovers, listen up. There’s a huge sale on Yetis happening right now in various parts of Alaska that we simply have to share. All models are 100 percent off—yes, that’s right. Free! All you have to do is pitch your body into the icy chop of the North Pacific to get one.
All along the Gulf of Alaska, denizens of the Last Frontier are living out what we can only assume are the wet dreams of old, sunburned beachcombers everywhere. Thousands of expensive Yeti coolers are washing up on shore after a cargo ship spilled 109 containers of them near Washington’s Olympic Peninsula last year. And what do you know—they’re in great shape! (The possibility of Yeti’s marketing team orchestrating the spill, and perhaps even driving the tanker, now tops our list of favorite outdoor conspiracy theories.)
By all accounts, they’re going fast. One greedy collector has reportedly nabbed 20 of them. (Why this Alaska man needs the kind of cooler space that could keep 1,140 beers cold simultaneously eludes us, but it sounds like a great time.) Before the rush is over, we wanted to share some of our favorite photos of folks gleefully unearthing their new $400 hunks of plastic from the sand.
So, without further ado, congratulations to the lucky winners. We’ll pray for an Airstream trailer ship going down next.
In October, the #ZimKingston spilled 109 shipping containers near the WA/BC border. Debris has floated north ever since, onto beaches on Vancouver Island, then Haida Gwaii, then SE Alaska, and most recently the Kenai Peninsula (top of the Gulf of AK). A debris thread… 1/n pic.twitter.com/f5aMWLY3D6
— KUOW Public Radio (@KUOW) September 7, 2022
But Alaskan beachcombers have been thrilled to find @YETICoolers in working condition. The high-end coolers retail for hundreds of dollars. 3/n pic.twitter.com/USqQ5tNmaJ
— KUOW Public Radio (@KUOW) September 7, 2022
These @YETICoolers were all found on beaches near Seward, Alaska: ~1,000 miles from where the #ZimKingston spilled containers off WA’s Olympic Peninsula. Pics courtesy Duke Marolf. 4/n pic.twitter.com/Z9oLhpDezy
— KUOW Public Radio (@KUOW) September 7, 2022
Marolf has been flying the coast and offshore islands of Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula in his small plane with fat tires this summer, looking for beached treasure. He says he needs just 200 feet of beach to take off and land. 5/n pic.twitter.com/6MPg1QFL9g
— KUOW Public Radio (@KUOW) September 7, 2022
Hannah Richter uses two beach-found coolers as a platform for cutting salmon in Craig, Alaska. Courtesy @spencerrichter. 7/n pic.twitter.com/fNrzwteqPR
— KUOW Public Radio (@KUOW) September 7, 2022
Steven Peavey finds a Yeti cooler on Alaska’s Suemez Island in April, kicking off a “fun frenzy” of cooler hunting in SE AK. Melissa Nagamine Peavey pic. 8/n pic.twitter.com/sHCpJFfJ3M
— KUOW Public Radio (@KUOW) September 7, 2022
A Yeti cooler found on a remote beach near Elfin Cove (across from @GlacierBayNPS), Chichagof Island, Alaska, in July. Courtesy Chris and Serena Lillehoff 9/n pic.twitter.com/qFgJNgcnNL
— KUOW Public Radio (@KUOW) September 7, 2022
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