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a single day to explore the vastness of Alaska, Megan
Edwards skipped the package tours and picked up a rental
car. Her solitary road trip along Alaska's Highway 1 reveals
America's last great frontier in all its autumn glory
-- birch trees, glaciers, moose and all. |
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Alaska's
Highway 1 in late autumn: golden leaves, snow-capped
peaks, and unpredictable weather |
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Equipped
with nine-foot circular rotor blades, snow plows
like this one were used to clear snow from Alaska
Railroad tracks along the Turnagain Arm and in
the Kenai Monutains |
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The
highway and the railroad skirt the Turnagain Arm
south of Anchorage |
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A
glacially fed stream in the Kenai Mountains
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The
payoff of a rainy day: one of dozens of rainbows
that followed each cloudburst |
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Mountain
mushroom: stopping by the side of the road to
look at the foliage revealed some photogenic fungi. |
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The
Alyeska Tramway soars high above the resort hotel |
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Hike
at your own risk! "Unexploded artillery shells
from avalanche mitigation..." |
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The
price of a rainy day: Windshield wiper almost
wipes out moose! |
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It's difficult to talk about Alaska without overusing
superlatives. Of all the states, it has the tallest mountains,
the longest coastline and the biggest bears. It's the largest
and the wildest, the darkest in winter and the lightest in
summer. I was in Alaska recently for a conference, but I had
only one day free to experience this vast, majestic and awe-inspiring
place; for the rest of my five-day stay, I'd be holed up in
a hotel in Anchorage. What would be the best way, I wondered,
to spend a single autumnal Wednesday in America's "last
frontier"?
Surfing the Web for ideas, I discovered an appealing
array of one-day package tours departing from Anchorage. I
could tour Kenai
Fjords National Park by boat, catch a plane to Fairbanks,
or take a train
trip into the mountains. In the end, though, it was a
single ribbon of asphalt that won me over.
Alaska has fewer miles of paved road per square
mile than anywhere in America, but the roads it does have
are legendary. Alaska's
Highway 1 (Route 9 for the last 37 miles) is a prime example.
Heralded as a National Forest Scenic Byway, an Alaska Scenic
Byway and an All-American Road, the highway passes through
fabulous examples of Alaska's signature scenery on its 127-mile
run south from Anchorage to the port town of Seward. It parallels
the tracks of the Alaska Railroad most of the way and crosses
the Kenai Peninsula before heading down to the coast and Resurrection
Bay. As tempting as the package tours were with their offers
to pick me up at my hotel and provide me with a lovely lunch,
I couldn't resist the siren call of a rental car and a tank
of gas.
Although it was fall, I had nearly 12 hours of
daylight to enjoy my one-day Alaskan road trip. I set out
around 8 a.m. and found I had timed my departure to coincide
with the daily rounds of buses delivering children to elementary
schools. The buses matched the leaves on the birch trees lining
the streets -- bright yellow against an otherwise gray morning.
I headed south out of Anchorage on the Seward
Highway, which runs due south to the shore of Turnagain Arm,
an offshoot of Cook Inlet. Captain Cook called it the Turnagain
River during his quest for the Northwest Passage in 1778 because
he was forced to "turn again" in the shallow waters.
Captain Vancouver later renamed it -- for accuracy's sake
-- Turnagain Arm. It looked like a placid lake the day I was
there, but the Arm is famous for its unusual "bore tide,"
which can cause 10-foot waves and a 33-foot rise in water
level as the incoming tide is funneled into the narrow arm
of the inlet.
Right where the road meets Turnagain Arm, a sign
pointed the way to Potter
Point State Game Refuge, and just past that another sign
announced that I had entered Chugach
State Park. I paused at a view point along the Alaska
Railroad tracks to marvel at a huge old railroad snowplow,
then continued southeast along the shore past the turnoff
for the gold rush town of Girdwood
and the Alyeska
ski resort.
Spectacular mountains rise both on the far side
of Turnagain Arm and on the east side of the highway. The
gold of changing leaves covered the lower slopes, and rugged
snowcapped peaks soared above. The views were so distracting
that I pulled over often to get out of my car and stare. Fortunately,
the road has plenty of parking areas, view points, and pull
outs -- important because traffic on this route can be a challenge
at the height of summer. Signs make it clear that if five
cars pile up behind you and you don't pull over to let them
pass, you're breaking the law. But on this early October weekday,
I doubt that five cars would have piled up even if I'd stopped
in the road for an hour. Whether the views are more arresting
when you see them in solitude, I can't say. I can say I felt
very small.
Just past Portage
Glacier, the Alaska Railroad veers away from the highway
to head due south along the Placer River as it makes its way
across the Kenai Peninsula. The highway takes a slightly more
circuitous route along Canyon Creek past Lower Summit and
Summit lakes. I moseyed along through intermittent rain showers
that would have been depressing if it hadn't been for the
multiple rainbows that appeared in their wake. One rainbow
would have been lovely, but as the clouds shifted and the
sun broke through, I saw double and even triple arcs in the
sky. The rain and subsequent sunlight also turned the autumn
leaves an even more startling shade of gold. By the time I
got to Seward, I felt as though I'd watched a feature-length
film about spectacular scenery. "No," I had to remind
myself. "It's not a movie. It's real."
After a quick tour of Seward's
vintage downtown area and a look at the docks where the cruise
ships pull in, I joined a group of construction workers in
a grocery store to buy a sandwich and coffee. If there were
other tourists on the Seward Highway that day, I didn't see
them. Workers, on the other hand, were everywhere, taking
advantage of the last few weeks of temperate weather and sunlit
days.
As I headed back up the Seward Highway, I realized
that I had enough daylight left for one side trip. Three good
possibilities were Portage Glacier, Potter Point State Game
Refuge and the Alyeska Resort. I think I would have picked
the glacier if I hadn't chatted with some locals the night
before in the bar at my hotel.
"The Alyeska
Tramway is great," a woman had told me. "It's
like being on top of the world."
I was wondering, given the dearth of tourists
on the road, whether the tramway would be operating. But when
I arrived at the resort, it was not only open, but a shuttle
bus was waiting to transport me from a parking area to the
tramway's depot. Mine was the only car in the parking lot,
and I was the only person in the shuttle, but the driver assured
me that I'd get a ride up the mountain.
"We're open all year," he said. "Hikers
and sightseers in the summer, and skiers in the winter."
And one solo road tripper on the Wednesday in
between, I thought to myself.
I bought a ticket, climbed into the large, empty
car and waited. Eventually, I was joined by the tramway operator
and a cook from the Seven
Glaciers restaurant in the lodge at the top of the mountain.
Both gave me suggestions about where to stand to see the best
views, but it would have been difficult to find a bad one.
The tram climbed up the face of Mount Aleyeska, reaching the
lodge at 2,300 feet. Turnagain Arm stretched to the west,
glittering in the late-afternoon sunlight. Mountains and glaciers
were visible in all other directions, and again I had to remind
myself I wasn't looking at a fantastic scene from "The
Lord of the Rings."
Apparently, I'm not the only person to have this
sensation. A hand-lettered sign near a trail heading to a
glacier read, "Remember, you are on a mountain in Alaska.
Take it seriously." Other signs warned of unexploded
ordnance in the area left over from "avalanche mitigation,"
and I can't say I was sorry I didn't have time for a hike.
Back on the road to Anchorage, I was surprised
to find myself slowing behind red taillights. After a day
of solitude, I'd actually hit some traffic? But then I saw
the antlers. A moose had decided to stand in the road. Eventually
he strolled on across, almost managing to avoid getting his
picture taken by timing his movements to coincide with those
of my car's windshield wipers.
I was back in Anchorage in time for dinner, and
the next day my conference began. On Friday, the weather was
sunny and perfect, and I couldn't help wishing I had another
day and another tank of gas. Not only did I long for more
dazzling views of otherworldly scenery, it would have been
really nice to get a decent picture of a moose.
Megan Edwards
12/7/07
