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The Glenn Highway is an isolated road. It brings obligations to passing travelers who come upon an accident. If you don't stop and rescue someone on the Glenn, who will? In this photograph taken several years ago, a passing motorist rushes to try to help a driver whose car has caught fire on the Glenn.
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Glenn Highway In Alaska Is A Two-Lane Road With Few Guardrails, Scant Shoulders, & Steep Mountain Cliffs
The Glenn Highway's new 65 mph upgraded speed limit has had its first casualties, as the harsh realities of Alaska winter driving has hit the fan. On Sunday, November 3rd, 2013, two Valdez residents, 71 year old Karyn Miscovich and her passenger, John Miscovich, 79, were involved in single-vehicle accident near Mile 125, not far from Eureka Lodge. The accident took place at around 12:30 pm. Troopers said the Ford Focus the couple were riding in "hit a patch of ice and rolled."
Earlier that day, at around 10:15 am, a single-car accident left 56 year old Mark Craig in bad enough condition to have to be medivaced from the site. He was driving a Ford pickup, and hauling a camp trailer, said the Troopers. They gave the very same reason: the car "hit a patch of ice and slid off the road and rolled," they said. The Trooper spokesman, Megan Peters, said there was "freezing rain" and "speed" involved in the two crashes. The Glenn Highway had a 55 mph limit for years, but this year DOT pushed through new, faster speeds on the Glenn, much of which is a two-lane isolated road, with few surrounding communities, and basic emergency services offered only by far-flung volunteers, living in isolated homes along the highway, which stretches 150 miles without a major settlement between Palmer and Glennallen.
On October 26th, 2013, a 37-year old Anchorage woman, Michelle Moncovich, was in a 2002 Saturn, when she hit black ice at Mile 137 -- in the same 12-mile patch. Her car spun out, left the roadway, and overturned. She and her 8-year old daughter were taken by Troopers to Glennallen, to stay overnight.
By August, 2014, the problems with the new speed limit were beginning to be even more evident. In a deadly patch of road on the other side of Eureka Lodge, toward Anchorage, you could see black skid marks where multiple out-of-control drivers had left the pavement -- during the warm summer months, when black ice is nowhere to be found.
Two large, flashing electronic boards had been erected, and multiple orange flags put up, warning drivers to drop to 50 mph for an especially hazardous 2-mile stretch.
Local people have always known that if the speed limit is 55, then people go 65. If it's 65, they go 75. So, hopefully, in this deadly zone on the Glenn, at least for now, they were traveling at only 60 mph. A terrible speed for a narrow two-lane road, but at least it was 15 miles under the speed limit that DOT had so recently deemed "safe."