Driving the Glenn Highway, Part 1

September 10. It is hard to believe that our two weeks in Alaska ends tomorrow, as we leave Kennecott after another great breakfast. Our destination today is Anchorage, where we will spend the night. To that end, we will fly from McCarthy to Chitina, get our car, backtrack to the Richardson Highway, travel back up this highway to Glennallen, then head west along the Glenn Highway towards Palmer. On the way, we stopped back at the visitor center for Wrangell - St. Elias National Park to see the Alaskan Indian exhibition, which was really interesting.

The Richardson Highway turns out to be perhaps the most beautiful stretch of road I have ever driven on. There is a jaw-dropping photo opportunity around every bend. I could have snapped hundreds of photos along the way, but lucky for you, I did not. Even so, I had way too many good ones to display here, and had to pare them down. Despite my best efforts, I still had too many to put in one post, and so have broken the Glenn Highway into two parts. Mostly, I will let the pictures do the talking, even thought they are not adequate to truly portray the magnificent scenery along the way.

I am pretty sure that this is Mt. Wrangell, seen from the Cesna on the flight out of McCarthy:

The Chitina airport, with our little red Toyata Matrix parked and waiting for us:A mighty glacier cuts throught the Chugach Mountains, to the south (left) of the Glenn Highway:

Scenery along the Glenn Highway:

Panoramic view from the eastern part of the Glenn Highway:

The Chugach are an impressive mountain range. Even the "settled" parts of this huge state are so vast!