Alaska & Cassiar Highway

Climbing won't ruin my body, but the Cassiar will. I've driven this road eight times. The trip hurts more each time, like I lifted weights using only my back muscles, then re-hydrated with a tall glass of lactic acid. I swear never again each time. 

I take the Cassiar because its deserted. A winding road through the black spruce and mountains. It's all paved and there's plenty of gas. The Cassiar is just lonely enough to deter the weak

Sometimes, between Bell II and the Alaska Highway, I catch myself having fun. When I don't see a single car for hours and my eyes are watching the roadside for marauding animals. A Radiolab pod cast on the two working speakers is talking about a scientist who is raising a bott fly on his forehead. The Cassiar is dramatic, but please, never again.

Beta

• Portland to Anchorage via the Cassiar and Alaska Highways
• 2,444 miles
• 46 hours of driving
• 1994 Honda Civic DX
• 46 miles per gallon 

I drove down the Alaska/Cassiar in July. Here's my first night, 11:30 pm on Kluane Lake, Yukon Territories, 14 hours from Anchorage.

I started the drive home from Portland, where I was visiting my sister Kate, her girlfriend Esme and their son Oliver. Here's Kate and Oliver. 

The sign says: "Check your fuel. Next Services 65 km Stewart, 93 km Bell II." 

Two hours from home, I stopped at the Matanuska Glacier for a day of film safety work for The Ascending Path and the Weather Channel. The Mat Glacier is one of the most accessible glaciers in Alaska. Here, the talent plunges through an ice-coated glacial lake to self-induce hypothermia. He jumped in three times, then he began mumbling about hamburgers and cocoa.