Alaska Highway

So we decided to hightail it up to Anchorage; there's loads to see and do there and thereabouts. But getting there from Skagway isn't a piece of a cake. It's 900 miles, much of which is through Canada's Yukon Territory. We looked into a combination of the historic train journey from Skagway and then a couple buses, but that option costs $330 each! Mental. We definitely weren't going to cave in and fly, though, so we needed to explore other options.

We consider renting a car our second-to-last option (flying being the last). We always prefer public transportation or walking, all the better for the environment. But we found out that Avis needed to get some cars up to Anchorage. They'd only charge us $45 a day, and they'd drop their usual $300 fee for a one-way rental. That was a deal we couldn't resist!

We got our white Toyota Corolla, dodging the crazy cruise goers and stocking up on snacks on our way out of town. It was 11am, and I'd drive for 9 hours that first day. It was AMAZING. We drove past gorgeous scenery: snow or ice capped mountains draped in clouds, other mountains blanketed in trees, huge valleys, rivers, continuously lovely sights.


We were delighted when we had our first wildlife spotting: a tiny mouse running across the road! He was so cute. Luckily there was never much traffic; the wee mouse made it safely to the other side. A little while later, we saw a smallish bear running along the shoulder of the road. Iff reckons it was a brown-coloured black bear. I was too busy squealing my head off with excitement.

We got through the border into the Yukon Territory for more and more glorious scenery, as well as a switch to kilometres and a time change. It was lovely to be back in Canada for a while. We didn't stop often, just to take pictures occasionally and get some petrol. We finally stopped for the night in Beaver Creak, the last town before leaving Canada. We'd read in a guidebook that everything was expensive there, but we were delighted to find that the most expensive hotel in Beaver Creek has some hostel rooms. Our room was lovely and warm and cheap! And the restaurant even had veggie burgers. Genius!!!

In the morning, we got up bright and early for the rest of our journey. It was only 450 more miles to Anchorage, but it took ages due to road construction and many potholes along the way. But we had some great wildlife spotting. At one point, a gigantic moose wandered onto the road, right into our lane. I slammed on the brakes and swerved into the other lane to avoid her; we assume it was a female moose because she had no antlers. Who knows? Anyway, I was dumbstruck by the size of this animal...ginormous. My squeals lasted pretty long after that. Slightly smaller was the gofer that ran across the road another time, although he was substantially bigger than our first wildlife spotting! At one point, Chris noticed a bald eagle perched on a tree. We stopped to check him out. Another time, there was a huge eagle on the road, helping himself to what looked like roadkill as some crows stood near him. As we approached, he flew off with the poor animal dangling from his talons. We were shocked at the size of crows we saw along the way; they looked really menacing, but even they didn't challenge that eagle for his prey.


We had some pretty diverse scenery that second day. We saw lots of mountains but also glaciers, sandy areas, and more flat areas than during the first day. Much as we enjoyed all the sights, we were getting anxious to get to Anchorage. At least on that second day we had some radio reception sometimes. I was dismayed, though, to find a station calling some of my old favourite songs "classic rock". What??? About an hour away from Anchorage, we realised there was an old Smashing Pumpkins CD in the car, left by a previous renter, so we got to listen to that. Classic rock? Hpmh.

We got to Anchorage and had a mini adventure getting to the airport to return the car. I'd figured that there would be blatant signs for getting to the airport. Not so! We eventually found it and returned the car, just missing the hourly bus downtown. No worries, it was just nice not to be driving! And a very helpful local at the bus stop gave us directions to our hostel. Welcome to Anchorage...