My stopping point on Tuesday was Beaver Creek, just short of the border between Yukon Territory and Alaska. Before leaving Beaver Creek I tried to figure out if there would be a place to stay in Anchorage. The desk clerk at the motel in Beaver Creek noted that the same chain had an establishment in Anchorage, but when she called, she first found that it was booked solid for Wednesday night, and then that it cost over $200 per night. I blanched. I started trying to call bed and breakfasts, but they were all booked, too. I finally found a Marriott at what seemed to be the standard low-end price -- $200 per night. At least they had a no-fee cancellation policy. In all of this, I was constrained by the fact that I couldn’t use my cell phone, and was pretty much limited to places with 800 numbers. So I started the 440 mile trip to Anchorage, not knowing what to expect.
About 70 miles into the trip, after crossing the border and clearing customs, I arrived in Tok Junction, where the roads to Fairbanks and Anchorage split. Looking around, I saw a microwave tower, and on a hunch tried my cell phone. Much to my surprise, it worked, and I started calling some of the bed and breakfasts I hadn’t been able to get to earlier because they didn’t have 800 numbers. The first one I called was booked, but gave me the number for the Anchorage Bed and Breakfast Hotline (really!). I called, and quickly was set up with a room at the Highland Glenn B & B. The Hotline person even called the Marriott for me to cancel the previous reservation. Buoyed and relieved, I got ready to leave Tok. (Which, by the way, is pronounced like “toke,” which some of you may remember as a verb from the late 60s.) As I got ready to hit the road, I decided to go to the general store for something to eat, intrigued by a sign that indicated they sold “health food.” Second big surprise in Tok – one of Alaska’s three (count ‘em) health food stores is located here (the other two are in Fairbanks and Anchorage) – and the Tok store was remarkably well stocked and friendly. In addition to yoghurt covered peanuts and rice and almond crackers (no wheat or gluten!), I purchased a Virgil’s Root Beer, made in a microbrewery somewhere. It was probably the best I’ve had. So, all in all Tok was full of surprises!
After that, I headed down to the Hub of Alaska, the junction between the northern and southern routes at Glenallen, where I picked up the Glenn Highway. Now, most of the roads in Alaska are, at a minimum, beautiful. So I had to wonder why this one was picked out to be a National Scenic Byway. For the first 150 miles, I was still wondering. The scenery was varied and wonderful, but it didn’t quite rise to the level of spectacular. Then I rounded a bend and caught sight of the Wrangell and St. Elias ranges – snow capped, with glaciers, tips shrouded in clouds – and had my answer. The rest of the trip to Anchorage was fabulously beautiful – one glacially carved valley after another, and a set of views that could have produced a full deck of Transcendentalist Trading Cards without any problem. I tried to take some pictures, but quickly realized that the camera really wasn’t doing the scenes justice – the scale was simply too immense, and the interplay of elements too complex to be captured, at least by the likes of me. If you like what you see in the pictures I’ve included here, you should realize that they capture about 20% of what it was like to travel through this landscape. Stopping at turnouts produced one Ansel Adams experience after another – and I’m simply not the photographer he was, so you’ll have to take my word for it.
I came down off the Glenn Highway to find that the area around Anchorage is one strip mall suburb after another, but set in a magnificent natural environment. (Unlike Oregonians, Alaskans seems rather blasé about their setting, and don’t seem to mind that they’re trashing it up with what they build.) I let my GPS guide me into Anchorage, and found out another aspect of the area – it has dramatic shifts in micro-climate. I went from sunny skies to a drenching downpour in a matter of minutes. The riding was tricky in this rain, which surprised me, because I’ve been in and out of rain for days now, and am quite used to tooling along in all matter of wetness. Alaskans use studded snowtires in the winter, cutting fairly deep trenches in their highways. In heavy rain, in low-lying areas, the water pools in these ruts, and it’s easy to hydroplane. I finally figured out that I needed to be on the crown between the tire tracks, and after that the riding was fine. The downpour stopped as quickly as it had started, and I continued on the B & B.
It turned out to be the last surprise of the day. Unlike most of the dumps I’ve been staying in (except for the Guardhouse B & B in Haines, which I very much liked), the Highland Glenn is beautiful. The rooms are immense, and facilities are great (a sauna in my own bathroom, and a hot tub on the deck!). All of this for $100 per night (special sale rates – I don’t know why – but thank-you, lady at the Anchorage Bed and Breakfast Hotline!).
So, tomorrow I’ll explore a bit more of Anchorage and head south to the wildlife refuge on the road that goes to Seward and to Homer. Then up to Fairbanks, and I’ll start heading home after the weekend. But now, it’s close to bedtime, so I’ll sign off for today (Wednesday).
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