Great Drives - Alaska

As the most sparsely populated state in the U.S., one would expect Alaska to be almost devoid of highways. Fortunately for you and me, such is not the case.

The Alaskan interior and Southcentral Alaska are well-served with highway routes which lead to all but where nature intended (islands, the inland wilderness, and the remote Arctic & Bering coasts). The highways work their way around the two major mountain ranges: Brooks and Alaska.

Fairbanks is the main population center of the interior region, serviced by the Alaska Highway. The George Parks Highway runs south from Fairbanks almost to Anchorage where it joins the Glenn Highway for the final approach. It provides access to Denali National Park, and the park's chief attraction, Mt. McKinley.

Many visitors to Alaska make Denali National Park their major destination, and this route takes you there quickly, as well as farther south to Anchorage. This is the latest in the network of Alaskan highways, having opened in the early 1970s. If you intend to make the grand tour through Anchorage and back to the Alaska Highway, this is the first route on a counter-clockwise loop drive, which begins from the Alaska Highway (in Fairbanks), to Denali and Anchorage on the George Parks and Glenn highways (into Anchorage), through the Kenai Peninsula, and then returning north to the Alaska Highway (at Tok), via the Glenn Highway.

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