Alaska is big, and the Copper River Basin proves it. Glennallen sits in a broad, flat bowl of spruce forest and muskeg, ringed by some of the highest mountains in North America: the Wrangell Mountains stand to the east, with Mount Drum, Mount Sanford and the huge ice-clad bulk of Mount Wrangell, an active volcano that steams in cold weather. On a clear day the view from the highway is almost too large to take in, and a rider is aware of being a very small thing on a very long road.
The town itself is a service hub, little more than a crossroads where the Richardson Highway meets the Glenn Highway running to Anchorage. It was named after two army explorers, Captain Edwin Glenn and Captain Henry Allen, who surveyed the region in the 1890s, in a search for a route to the Klondike and to the interior. Gold, copper and later the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, whose silver pipe crosses the country beside the road, have all shaped the area. The Native people of the region, the Ahtna Athabaskans, have lived along the Copper River for thousands of years, and the river's red salmon run is central to their culture and to the local economy.
The riding is long, open and sometimes rough. The Richardson Highway, the oldest in Alaska, runs for hundreds of miles between Valdez and Fairbanks, and it is mostly paved and well maintained, but frost heaves can toss a bike off line, and gravel patches appear without warning. Mosquitoes are ferocious in June and July, so bring repellent, and weather can change in an hour from warm sunshine to cold rain. In summer, daylight lasts almost around the clock, which makes late starts possible.
Fuel is the thing to plan around. Glennallen has stations, food and lodging, and it is the largest settlement for a long way in any direction, so take fuel here whenever you pass. Distances between services north and south can be long, and a reserve can in practice be life-saving. The road to McCarthy, a gravel track into the Wrangell-St Elias National Park, starts at Chitina, a good way south-east.
Late May to early September is the usable season. Autumn comes early, and by mid-September the tundra turns red and gold, and snow can fall.