Generally when Mark and I travel any great distance, I read to him.  It passes the time and helps him stay awake.  However, there have been times when he’s commented on how much I’m missing while I read.  We took the same route home today that we took to get to Valdez on Sunday, but this time I was captivated from the very start by the scenery I had missed on the way down.

Most of the time when we drive in any direction from Tok we can only see trees on both sides of the road, maybe a foothill or a river.  It gets pretty boring after a while.  However, from Valdez to Slana (beyond Glennallen as one heads north) we were skirting the Wrangell – St Elias National Park.  We both commented on the similarity between what we were seeing and what we imagine the Alps to be like, or the Rockies.  There weren’t always places to pull over to take pictures so I shot some through the windshield, but whenever possible we pulled over and tried to get proper pictures.  We were fighting a bright sun so the sky washed out a little, but I think you’ll get the idea from some of these pictures as to the beauty of the place:

Self portrait with falls

Three falls

Looking up, the peak on the right reminds me of the Matterhorn.

Looking down in the valley

The bent poles on the side must be to mark the road during heavy snow!

A glacier

Another view through the wind shield

About an hour south of Tok