New Roads Bucket List Drives - Go West!
A good road can turn a journey into a destination and transform a good car into a great one. Whether it’s just the road itself – a winding and undulating ribbon of engagement – or it’s the landscape that surrounds it, we all know one when we find it. You grip the wheel with a little more vigour, your focus is honed and your vehicle starts to shrink around you. It can be, in a word, heavenly. There are literally thousands of good roads connecting dots across North America, but a great many tend to call the West Coast home. Here is but a small collection of some that one can only find if they heed the wise words of The Pet Shop Boys: Go West!
that the Copper River, which this route follows, boasts some of the world’s best salmon fishing. Push just a little further and you will be greeted and gobsmacked by the Worthington Glacier – one of only a few in the world that can be driven to. The route continues and greets adventurers with a sojourn through the boreal forests bordering the Tanana River. This portion of North America’s snow forest is but a small chunk of what makes up one of the world’s largest biomes, which stretches latitudin- ally across the entire planet. For our enthusiasts wearing the stringback gloves, the Richardson – although fully paved since the late 50s – is not a straight line. Carving through the sinu- ous Keystone Canyon, the drive is nothing short of engaging. Despite its size and remoteness, there are numerous stops along the way for food, gas and lodging. And for folks who maintain the Christmas Spirit through- out the year, a visit to North Pole, Alaska – a town just before Fairbanks that Santa and his reindeer call home – is a must.
Richardson Highway – Alaska Just let the word Alaska spill from your lips and the mind races with visions of mountains, glaciers, and wildlife. Spanning just short of 600 kilometres, the Richardson Highway connects Valdez in the south, to Fairbanks in the north and promises all of these things and more. It is Alaska’s oldest highway, dating back to 1910 when Major Wilds P. Richardson worked to turn what was a mere footpath for gold rushing stampeders into a wagon trail. With its length, this isn’t a Sunday afternoon-type cruise, and the scenery it presents will probably have you linger longer than you expect. Starting at mile-marker 0, your journey begins in Valdez, nestled in Prince William Sound, where the water meets the Chugach Mountains. From there, it slinks north east via the Thompson Pass, which at an elevation of 855 metres, is renowned for being Alaska’s snowiest sec- tion of road. So plan accordingly. If rod and reel find their way into your luggage, know
40
Powered by FlippingBook