The road to Sunrise Park climbs into the foothills of Mount Rainier on the eastern side. The volcano is the biggest mountain around, and the treeless upper slopes, cloaked in glacial ice, catch and reflect the full brunt of the rising sun’s bright rays; a spectacle well worth the long drive, and the early wake-up call.

It simply isn’t possible to gaze upon Crater Lake and not be awed by the view. It’s like staring into the eye of the Creator, a heavenly vision reflected by water so clear, and so deep, and so intensely BLUE, you’ll find yourself neglecting to breathe.

The rough dirt road gave way to a newly paved modern highway. This was it, the Top of the World, and right on cue, the haze peeled back, just enough to give me a glimpse of the beauty my friends assured me would be there…

So, just exactly how big is Wrangell-St. Elias National Park? You could combine Yellowstone with Yosemite, throw in the entire country of Switzerland, and you still wouldn’t match it in terms of size.

Most of the major towns in Alaska, as well as three of the state’s incredible National Parks, can all be reached by driving Alaska’s Grand Circle: a loop route beginning in Tok that utilizes all four segments (1082 miles) of Alaska’s Interstate Highway system.

Compared to the huge tidewater glaciers that flow directly into the sea along the coast of Kenai Fjords, Exit Glacier is just a baby–a baby that’s getting smaller every year–but it’s still big enough to permanently alter the landscape through which it passes.

When I drove my Jeep to Alaska that first summer after I retired, my primary goal, the single most important thing I wanted to do, was to see Denali, the biggest mountain in North America.

Approaching the mountains, I started pulling over with serious frequency, taking LOTS of photos! Mountains, clouds, lakes, flowers—I was pretty sure I must have died and gone to heaven, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember the fiery crash.

Every time I rounded a curve in the road there was another stupendous vista; it was nothing short of astonishing! I was literally yipping out loud, and a couple of times I actually pulled over and stopped while I pounded on my chest to “re-start” my heart!

Even if you start in Seattle, the closest American city, it’s still more than 800 miles to Dawson Creek, wending your way that much further north, so far north that there will be a noticeable change in the hours of daylight. It’s the latitude that distinguishes the north country, including every bit of Alaska. Dawson Creek is where it all begins.

You’ll see glaciers, waterfalls, rushing rivers and turquoise lakes surrounded by wildflowers, all of it fed by steadily melting ice. Snowclad peaks with vibrant green flanks line the road on both sides, and every turnout, every wide spot in the road offers a new and dramatic perspective.

The centerpiece of Revelstoke is it’s namesake mountain, and the most popular activity is the drive up the Meadows in the Sky Parkway, a twisting, turning roller coaster of a road that climbs all the way to the top of the mountain. 16 miles long, and paved the whole distance, with more than 4,000 feet in elevation gain, and enough hairpins to satisfy the needs of an old-fashioned beauty pageant.

Less than five miles along, the first break in the trees offered a glimpse, a flash of improbable color followed by a larger clearing that brought me screeching to a halt. There, beyond the spread of roadside wildflowers and a verge of spindly pines was the most extraordinary lake I had ever seen, backed by an ice-clad mountain.

Banff gets four million visitors in an average year, and even though the park covers more than 1.6 million acres, 90% of those four million visitors head straight to the same spot, to Lake Louise, and the Fairmont Chateau.

The goal here is to get you thinking about the different ways to tie these iconic parks together, and the distances involved, in order to get the most out of a visit to one of the most wonderfully scenic areas on the entire planet.

Visualize a summertime journey through that part of the world, a world filled with mountains and glaciers and boreal forests, ice blue rivers, turquoise lakes, and billowing clouds that fill the sky. Imagine your vision as a beautiful piece of music. The fundamental, underlying theme of that symphony would be a gently rising swell of perfect harmony, pinkish lavender in its hue.

We could have planned our photo shoot, set up for it, and no doubt we would have gotten even BETTER pictures. But if we’d done that? We would have missed out on the jaw-dropping surprise of a completely unexpected herd of wild buffalo! At sunrise! In the Grand Tetons! That kind of a surprise? It’s almost enough to make your eyeballs explode. It’s just about the very best feeling there is, in this whole big beautiful world!