Day 18: Anchorage to Tok, AK (318mi, 7061mi total)
Leaving Anchorage, we passed through Mat-Su County, a region named for its two spectacular glaciers, the Matanuska and Susitna, which form the two main rivers of southeast Alaska. It was a tourist experience again, basically, but I got to see and almost approach the Matanuska glacier. (Leave it to my parents to stay off the ice, even the part on the tour, on trumped up fears of falling through!) From a distance, the glacier looks almost like a snowfall.
But not so much standing at its icy face!
This was as close as they would have me to the ice. Even though the rest of the tour got to go on the glacier and walk quite far into the ice.
What may or may not be a pingo, a small pyramidal hill caused by expanding and melting ice
This is the entire Susitna valley, glacier and all, a few miles away from Matanuska. Both glaciers begin in the St Elias mountains, the second highest in North America.
Fuck. Not this again.
The dirt road continued most of the way to Tok, alternating rough gravel and broken pavement. At least every day southward gets us closer to civilization and normal road.
Day 19: Tok, AK to Lake Laberge, YT (398mi/640km, 7501mi/13072km total)
Today was just another long drive through beautiful mountains… and still more wishing I could climb them. There isn’t even much to say about them, I don’t know what the mountains are called, how high they are; even the wildlife was mostly missing.
If or when I ever come back somehow, this is where I’m camping. Even though it’s 50 feet from the road, this has to be one of the best views in Alaska
This little guy was waiting for us just past the border checkpoint into the Yukon. I’d love to take one home with me…
Judiciously avoiding Whitehorse this time, we stayed instead at an eco-tourism resort north of the city along Lake Laberge, best known perhaps for its appearance in a Robert Service poem. It is, however, a beautiful lake with radiant blue-green water!
