We're talking about the ruts. Not the occasional pot hole. Big, bad, bodacious ruts that run off and on for miles, definitely "on" enough for your life to flash before your eyes.

"Oh, they're terrible," said Lee Carpenter of Eagle River. "Crazy terrible. Makes you look like you're drunk."

In some stretches, ruts worn into the asphalt are so deep, tires can lock in, then ricochet back and forth and back and forth, leaving the car wobbling as if you've filled the tank with bourbon. And is that ever a blast at 65 miles an hour.

The only thing that might add to the fun is for the grooves to fill with water, then freeze.

There's no denial going on at the Alaska Department of Transportation. "Yeah, they're bad. We hear about ruts every day," said Jack Fullerton, central region chief of maintenance and operations.

So they're going to get fixed, right?

"I hate to be the bearer of bad news," he said.

The earliest they could be fixed is next summer -- and that's only if there's money available to do the fixing.

Don't count on it.

Funding for this kind of repair work comes out of what's called a "deferred maintenance" fund, an annual shot of state money, and it's never enough to go around.

Fullerton says DOT wanted to repair one of the worst stretches on the Glenn this summer, the ruts between the North and South Birchwood exits. But there was only enough money to do the northbound lanes. And that was just adding a layer of asphalt, a temporary fix that cost $130,000 and ate up the entire pavement-rehab budget for the Anchorage district, Fullerton said.

At least he has some good news. Sort of. The ruts on the Glenn Highway aren't the worst on his list.

His territory is huge; it includes state roads from the Mat-Su Borough to the Kenai Peninsula, to Kodiak Island to all of Southwest Alaska including the Aleutians. Of the two top super-rut sites, one is on the Sterling Highway about four miles this side of Soldotna. The other is on the Parks Highway between Wasilla and Big Lake.

As commuter Jeff Olsen points out, the worst of the worst on the Parks is between Church and Pittman roads, a section of the commuter treadmill that already has one of the highest accident rates in the state.

These two stretches have repair funds committed to them. Fullerton can't say the same about any of the other trouble spots.

"I have a list of 45 roads that need to be fixed," he said. "And I'm just talking about ruts. If we looked at other problems, then the list is going to get bigger."

He attributes rutting to a combination of factors.

"It could be studs, it could be just wear; our traffic volume is way more than it used to be 20 years ago. It could be the material in the asphalt itself."

Just how deep are they?

If anyone has an intimate knowledge of the Glenn Highway it's Lee Carpenter, owner of Arctic Express Towing and Recovery in Eagle River. He makes his living off this road. Hitching up a customer recently, he found himself eye level to the pavement as a snowplow went by. From this perspective, they looked like the Grand Canyon. That blade wasn't getting anywhere near the bottom.

When talking about ruts, "deep" doesn't require much. At a mere inch, you notice them, Fullerton said. He estimates the ruts between the Birchwood exits to be about twice that. And that's not the only worrisome spot on the Glenn. That stretch on the Parks? In its worst spots, they're about 4 inches.

The ruts have him worried. They're dangerous. When it rains, they fill with water and can cause a vehicle to hydroplane. And when that water freezes. ...

"We'll try to keep them sanded and plowed as much as we can," he said.

"I've advanced that list to the commissioner of DOT so we can get the word to the governor and Legislature that we're going to need some money to fix some of these roads. We're trying to show there's a serious need here."

"Oh, nice," said Janis Macomber upon learning we're going to be stuck with these ruts for a while.

Macomber commutes into town from Wasilla in a Jeep Wrangler, which has a wheel base narrower than the grooves in the road. She relies on the popular "straddle strategy" to avoid being catapulted into cars on either side. But there's a problem: If a guy the next lane over does the same thing at the same time, she's going to lose some paint.

"They say, 'Stay out of the ruts.' I'm trying to stay out of the ruts," she said.

"It drives me crazy. And I don't drive 75 miles an hour like the rest of the maniacs."

Find Debra McKinney online at adn.com/contact/dmckinney or call 257-4465.