Jeff Engelhardt
Vast Amounts of Not Beautiful
One of the things that really surprised me about the drive, all the way from Vancouver, BC area to Anchorage is that a significant majority of it is . . . worthless. There are hundreds upon hundreds of miles of low rolling hills of wet tundra or "muskeg." It's not arctic tundra, which is at least "interesting" in that it is often very pretty (great for macro shots), vast, or at least walkable so you can get out and hike a little.
It's not that kind of tundra I'm talking about. Muskeg is mushy, sometimes wet, but very soft - so much so that it can barely hold up trees (even small ones). The only trees that grow out of it are black or white spruce - trees that even when they're 100 years old are often only 5-10 feet high and never more than a few inches wide. This is why I'd recommend most people *fly* up and then only drive to the good places.
Vast Amounts of Not Beautiful
One of the things that really surprised me about the drive, all the way from Vancouver, BC area to Anchorage is that a significant majority of it is . . . worthless. There are hundreds upon hundreds of miles of low rolling hills of wet tundra or "muskeg." It's not arctic tundra, which is at least "interesting" in that it is often very pretty (great for macro shots), vast, or at least walkable so you can get out and hike a little.
It's not that kind of tundra I'm talking about. Muskeg is mushy, sometimes wet, but very soft - so much so that it can barely hold up trees (even small ones). The only trees that grow out of it are black or white spruce - trees that even when they're 100 years old are often only 5-10 feet high and never more than a few inches wide. This is why I'd recommend most people *fly* up and then only drive to the good places.