Saturday, February 10, 2018: Anchorage to Glennallen, Alaska

Breakfast found us at a local restaurant, South Restaurant, located on the south side of Anchorage.  Joining us were two of Cal’s former students, a gal and her brother from Mt Pleasant.  We have not seen them since they graduated from high school.  The gal came to Alaska soon after high school to work as a dog handler at kennels who raced dogs.  We did not realize her brother was here in Alaska, but we had a wonderful visit, catching up on their lives. 

It was approximately 11:00 until we were ready to hit the road. Due to the cloudy weather we decided to drive east to Glennallen on the Glenn Highway, and hopefully get away from the weather system that has moved into Anchorage area. 

On our way northeast to Palmer, we drove on the Old Glenn Highway – the back way.  It was a curvy road, and right now the drive was beautiful.  Since it is located along the Knik River, the trees were covered with hoar frost (frozen fog). We were so glad we exited the main road. In Palmer we returned to the Glen Highway. The clouds were just above the mountains, so the mountains were clear, but the sun was not shinning - it was a black and white world.  About half way to Glennallen the sky did clear, and the sun was on the mountains. Soon after leaving Palmer, there was hardly any snow on the ground – not enough for snow machines. As we reached higher elevations the snow began to accumulate to the point of at least 2 ½ ft. 

Ice Fishing

Matanuska Glacier

Left: Mt Sanford, Right: Mt Drum

The sun shone beautifully on Mount Drum, Mount Sanford & Mount Wrangell in the Wrangell-St Elias National Park as we approached Glennallen.  These mountains were straight ahead of us on the road.  On this drive we kept our eyes open for moose.  Finally, we saw one! 

It was approximately 3:00 when we reached Glennallen. At this point, a decision had to be made as to which way we go.  We decided to stay here in Glennallen overnight, but before the sun set at 5:30, we would drive south on the Richardson Highway for at least 45 minutes, then turn around to return to Glennallen for the night. The sunset on the Mountains were simply beautiful.  We also took the back road into the wintertime ghost village of Copper Center.  We enjoyed this drive and saw 2 more moose at dusk. 

Glennallen is in the middle of nowhere!! Thankfully a hotel is here (we had called ahead and made a reservation), but no restaurants are open, so we went to the IGA deli for items to take to our room for dinner.  

Sunset on Mt Drum