As the highway climbs into the hills from the Susitna River Valley on its way east, it crosses from one of Alaska’s great watersheds into another. There’s no easy way to pinpoint exactly where the road crosses the divide—it’s not marked and it’s not obvious. But if you stop on the highway shoulder and push through the brush, you can find a sweeping view of the Monahan Flats, in the valley between the highway and the Alaska Range. Monahan Creek meanders along the valley floor on its way to the Nenana, flowing west along the base of the Alaska Range with its water bound for the Bering Sea. But shimmering in the distance to the northeast rises the West Fork and Susitna Glaciers, the main sources of the Susitna River, whose waters flow to Cook Inlet and the Gulf of Alaska.
