- Anchorage, AK to Tok, AK via AK-1 (Glenn Highway)
As you leave Anchorage and head up to Wasilla, you head into what is known as the Mat-Su Valley. It's a conflation of Matanuska and Susitna, two of the key rivers in the region. The Glenn Highway follows the Matanuska River.
The Matanuska is one of those classic gravel pan rivers left behind in a wide U-shaped valley as a glacier retreats. The valley itself goes from fairly gentle to fairly rugged in places.
I've seen this kind of thing done before, on the Trans-Canada Highway near the Kicking Horse River. If the rock is in the way, you can either go around it or through it.
At the head of the Matanuska Valley is the Matanuska Glacier. They call it "road accessible" because you can get fairly close by road.
It's a fair sized glacier, four miles long across the front, running 26 miles up into the mountains.
Once you get up past Matanuska, you get into the high country. This kind of mixed tundra, boreal forest is everywhere up here.
We came across the Tazlina River along the way, so we stopped to take some pictures.
While we were stopped, this fellow put on a flying show for us, riding the updraft from the highway, circling around several times, before heading off up the hillside.
There's a lot more road up here, and a long way to Tok. It started raining about halfway through our day.
Even with the rain, the views of the mountains in the distance were very pretty.
No comments:
Post a Comment