America’s most jaw-dropping road trip is 127 miles of Alaska you’ve never heard of

It’s America’s wildest road trip

You can drive 127 miles from Anchorage to the harbor town of Seward and never run out of things to pull over for.

The Seward Highway crosses the Kenai Peninsula through Chugach National Forest and the Kenai Mountains, and it holds triple designation as a National Forest Scenic Byway, Alaska Scenic Byway, and All-American Road.

Life magazine put it on its list of most scenic drives in the world back in 2012. The road is fully paved with passing lanes both ways, but what’s outside your window will slow you down.

The highway took 28 years to finish

An 18-mile stretch from Seward to Kenai Lake came first, back in 1923.

But a key bridge everyone called “The Missing Link” didn’t go in until 1946, and the full road wasn’t done until Oct. 19, 1951. Before that, you could only reach Seward by sea, rail or air.

Today, much of the route passes through the Kenai Mountains-Turnagain Arm National Heritage Area, a federally designated heritage corridor Congress established in 2009.

Spot salmon and swans at Potter Marsh

The drive starts just south of Anchorage at Potter Marsh, a 564-acre freshwater wetland where more than 130 species of migratory and nesting birds have been recorded.

A 1,550-foot boardwalk takes you through the habitat without disturbing anything. Canada geese, northern pintails, trumpeter swans and bald eagles are the regulars.

From May through August, you can look down from the boardwalk into Rabbit Creek and watch spawning salmon push upstream.

Turnagain Arm runs beside you for 50 miles

For the first 50 miles south of Anchorage, the highway hugs the base of the Chugach Mountains on one side and the shore of Turnagain Arm on the other.

Tides here swing as much as 40 feet, among the largest in North America.

Captain Cook’s crew gave the arm its name after they had to turn around again and again while hunting for the Northwest Passage.

Silty gray water stretches across to the sharp ridgelines of the Kenai Mountains, and multiple pullouts give you safe spots to stop.

A six-foot wave rolls in with seals on it

Turnagain Arm produces one of the few bore tides in the United States. It forms when rapidly rising water gets forced into a narrow inlet and builds into a single wave.

That wave can reach six to 10 feet and move 10 to 15 mph. The best viewing runs between Beluga Point and Bird Point along the highway.

Harbor seals sometimes ride the wave in. About 30 minutes later, once the water deepens, beluga whales may follow.

Beluga whales surface at milepost 110

Beluga Point, at milepost 110.5, is one of the top spots to watch for endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales. They show up most often from mid-July through August, following salmon runs into Turnagain Arm.

Above the highway, Dall sheep cling to the mountain cliffs. Look for them on the rocky slopes between Beluga Point and Bird Point, about 20 miles south of Anchorage. Bald eagles, moose and black bears also turn up along this stretch.

Pan for gold at a mine from 1896

A turnoff at mile 90 drops you into Girdwood, a mountain town sitting at the base of the Chugach Mountains. Crow Creek Mine has run since 1896, making it one of the oldest gold mines in Alaska open to the public.

You can pan for gold in the creek yourself, and the historic buildings sit on the National Register of Historic Places. The mine lines up along a section of the Historic Iditarod Trail.

The original town of Girdwood had to move after the 1964 earthquake dropped the ground and flooded everything with saltwater.

A glacier that keeps backing away

Five miles off the highway at mile 79, Portage Glacier sits in one of Alaska’s most visited glacial areas. The Begich, Boggs Visitor Center on Portage Lake has exhibits on glacier formation and the 1964 earthquake.

But the glacier itself has retreated more than three miles since 1914, and you can no longer see it from the visitor center. Nearby Byron Glacier Trail is a short, family-friendly hike to the toe of an alpine glacier.

The five-mile Trail of Blue Ice follows a paved path through forest along Portage Glacier Road.

Turnagain Pass trades ocean for alpine meadows

Past Portage, the highway climbs into the mountains through Turnagain Pass and tops out around 1,015 feet. The scenery shifts from coastal waters to alpine meadows, dense spruce forest and snow-covered peaks.

Summit Lake, near the top, draws migrating swans in spring and fall.

The Johnson Pass Trail follows the path of the old Iditarod Trail for 23 miles through mostly level ground. This section of highway is some of the quietest and most remote driving on the whole route.

Tiny towns line the turquoise lake

Moose Pass is a small community known for birdwatching and its Trail Lakes Hatchery. The highway runs on a thin strip of land between the mountains and the turquoise waters of Kenai Lake.

At Tern Lake Junction, the Seward Highway meets the Sterling Highway, which leads deeper into the Kenai Peninsula.

If you take the 18-mile side trip from Canyon Creek Bridge, you’ll reach Hope, a historic gold mining town. These communities give you a look at what daily life in rural Alaska actually looks like.

Walk up to a glacier that named itself

Near Seward, a spur road runs 8.4 miles to Exit Glacier, the only part of Kenai Fjords National Park you can reach by car.

The glacier flows down from the 700-square-mile Harding Icefield, the largest icefield entirely within U.S. borders.

It got its name in 1968 when the first mountaineering party to cross the icefield used it as their way out. A 2.2-mile loop trail leads to views of the blue ice face, and parts of the trail are wheelchair accessible.

Markers along the way show where the glacier stood in past decades.

Seward sits where the road and the ocean meet

The highway ends in downtown Seward, a harbor town of about 2,800 people on Resurrection Bay.

From here, boat tours head into Kenai Fjords National Park, where you can see tidewater glaciers, humpback whales, orcas and sea lions.

The Alaska SeaLife Center runs as both a research facility and an aquarium focused on North Pacific marine life.

Every Fourth of July, the town hosts the Mount Marathon Race, a steep mountain run that goes back to the early 1900s.

Drive the Seward Highway in Alaska

You can start this drive right from Anchorage and reach Seward in about three hours without stops, though you’ll want to stop plenty. The entire 127-mile road is paved and open year-round.

Summer gives you the longest daylight and the best wildlife viewing.

Most of the route passes through Chugach National Forest and the Kenai Mountains-Turnagain Arm National Heritage Area.

The big highlights along the way are Turnagain Arm, Portage Glacier, Exit Glacier and the town of Seward on Resurrection Bay.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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