Alaska Day 19 - Denali Highway to Anchorage

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There is an almost rainbow outside my window this morning as I rouse. I don’t know how much rain there was last night but it is drizzling yet this morning. I keep watch on the almost rainbow for it to become a full-fledged rainbow but that never happens. It is beautiful all the same.

Breakfast is yet another delight – pancakes, sausage, and fruit on yogurt, coffee, and juice – virtually any benefit of hiking to weight loss is unfortunately offset by the wonderful food served every meal with very generous portions. Kate cooks, Jason serves and they work in succinct harmony accomplishing everything else. It has been my pleasure to get acquainted with them and a delight to partake in their food handiworks.

Everything is packed up and I am ready to take on the Denali Highway. I bid farewell to Kate and Jason. Unfortunately when I look for Mike and Rowdy, they have already headed off for whatever job is to be done today. I trust they know and felt my deep sense of gratitude for touching my life through Mike’s prior intriguing conversation and Rowdy’s diligent attentiveness. I am sorry I will not meet his wife Annie as I hear she is a treasure. I am compelled to move forward to the next part of this journey.

I am probably about 40-50 miles from the start of the Denali Highway. It is difficult to determine whether I am passing mountains or hills because the cloud cover fluctuates constantly without necessarily revealing fully what it drapes. There is traffic but none to the point of negatively impacting my travel or visibility. The twists and turns require my definitive attention at times and I do make that my priority of course. It is a peaceful drive with subtle modifications to the country side as I drive along.

I get to the start of the Denali Highway at Paxson to find the station I was planning to get gas from has a sign out “no gas.” I have ¾ tank which should work for the 134 rugged miles but I’d rather not be concerned about gas during the drive since it is another grave/dirt, no service road. I believe I’m seventy some miles from the nearest town with gas per the ­­­­maps, etc. so I go inside to inquire. They tell me gas is available on the Denali Highway, twenty one miles from there. I purchase a cup of what would be the worst coffee I’ve had in Alaska. I am certainly not a coffee connoisseur but it definitely tasted like two day old coffee reheated. I could not even drink it. I am happy to find out that Tangle Lakes not only has gas but they have great coffee and what ends up being the best cinnamon roll I’ve had in a long, long time (it had raisins and nuts so it was healthy 😉. The waitress even warmed it up which made it that much more delicious. The gas was $4.59/gallon and I’m sure as cheap as any around. Plus it removes any anxiety about having enough to get through so it is goodness.

Mt. McKinley National Park was established 2/26/17. Denali Highway originally opened in 1956 and connected the Valdez Creek Mine to supplies and market. It also created a connection between the Alaska road network and the wonders of what is now known as Denali National Park. Other options ultimately became available for visitors accessing the Park including the George Parks Highway in 1971 but many still preferred the rugged experience, solitude, and beauty of traveling the original route along this Denali Highway. It was incorporated into the Denali National Park and Preserve in 1980 and remains a tourist attraction road for folks like me. Keep in mind this is not the road that goes into the actual park. This is the original road prior to visitor access on the current Denali Park Road closer to Mt. McKinley. The first parts of the Denali Highway are rather unspectacular but keep in mind the mountain peaks I have been seeing and other extraordinary scenery in comparison. I fear I might be getting complacent such that this mellower backdrop is not as exciting as what I have already seen. It is different and it is blanketed by clouds and what might be fog so I may not be seeing it for all it is worth. The paved road ends and the dirt and gravel of the unfamiliar road begins. There are plenty of potholes, mostly small, sporadically placed along the road that makes watching the road carefully a must. It takes away from being able to watch the changing scenery as it unfolds. One thing that is definitely affecting my positive viewing is that almost every single turnout is consumed with RVs or campers. There are some that you can still use the turnout as a viewpoint but the vast majority are blocked. There is traffic both ways including bicyclers and three or four wheelers so stopping in the middle of the road is not a great idea. I guess I’m spoiled by the roads I’ve travelled having had such low traffic that I could feel like I was on my own personal journey rather than a part of someone else’s. So I skip many of the viewpoints that I would have liked to have stopped at and just continue the drive. In the long run, it is likely the better thing given how long the drive will be but I miss the explanatory signs and the ability to just stop and enjoy a view that RVs and campers blocked. I do not fault them for being there and using camping as a means to enjoy and appreciate it. I just wish they were confined to the really large waysides or off road campgrounds rather than taking the scenic pullouts out of commission. And yes, I’d like a little cheese with that whine please!

The undulating hills eventually start giving way to mountains. I see a few things skirting across the road. They look like prairie dogs to me but it doesn’t look at all like prairie dog terrain. Perhaps there are Alaskan prairie dogs different from the lower 48 and maybe one of the Alaskan acquaintances I have met who are now following these travels can clarify what animal it is from the picture. I am sure one of the viewpoint informational signs that I couldn’t stop at probably covered this detail. [I later learned they were ground squirrels)

Clouds continue to hamper the views but I cannot complain. It is still beautiful to drive and experience the peaceful ambiance. I try to start absorbing some of the information on roadside displays as I try to grasp the sites. 15,000 years ago, the road I am on followed the course of a river that flowed beneath a thick glacier. Hundreds of small lakes and ponds along Denali Highway are reminders of ancient glaciers passing. As the glaciers receded they left behind blocks of slower melting ice that formed depressions called kettle holes or kettle lakes. They are home to or support Trumpeter Swans, beavers, moose, caribou, loons, yellowlegs, and arctic tern. The road begins to climb and at the same time, the sky commences a clearing that casts shadows across the foothills and expose upcoming mountain peaks that draw my attention. It is like turning the pages of a picture book, each page a more glorious vision than the previous. First are the Amphitheater Mountains and then, the jagged, snowcapped Alaska Mountain Range comes into view and the scenery is once again magnificence beyond words. Somewhere I’ve also seen the Wrangel Mountains. Altogether, it is absolutely overwhelming in an incredibly bewildering way. The pictures do not adequately capture what I see. Yet, they will have to tell you the majority of the story because words don’t capture it either. Every turn is remarkable. Every cloud movement unveils another breathtaking panorama. I learn via roadside information plaques that 200 million years ago, the land where I stand was created near the equator when the earth spewed forth magna that cooled in shallow seas. Then, slowly, cooled magma formed an island. About 100 million years ago, a fantastic collision occurred. The then massive island smashed into Alaska, ramming the Alaska Range skyward. The uplifted area was covered by glaciers for many years with the ice sharpening the jagged peaks. Today the Alaska Range is a 650 mile long monument to the hard blows, colliding land masses, and sculpting work of glacial ice. It is truly incredible…indescribable and unimaginable how these glorious sites are the result of such natural, magnanimous episodes over millions of years. It is more humbling than the realization of me as a mere pinhead under a sky of stars.

There are some scenic pullouts becoming available now but time is getting the better of me as usual. I am already devising a plan in my head to re-drive this fifty mile wonder part of the Highway when I leave Denali later in my trip, accessing from Cantwell rather than Paxson. Perhaps coming through on a weekday vs. on the tip of a weekend will make it less populated. Regardless, this last part closer to Cantwell is definitely the most scenic of all and deserves a redo coming from the other side (Cantwell) than from the Paxson side. With a 4-1/2 hour drive after the Denali Highway to get into Anchorage, I must keep moving albeit reluctantly. The snowcapped mountains give way to starkly altered mountains that blend from one to another. Tundra colors abound with more shades and pigments of color than I knew ever existed. I cannot imagine what this must look like in full fall colors. Perhaps I need to find time to redo this in September which will be the height of their fall colors as I understand it.

I leave the Denali Highway and make my way into Anchorage. There I realize what I left behind more than two weeks ago. The surrounding mountains in the dusk of day create a welcome mat. It is evident to me that the days are already growing shorter. It is only 11:30pm and the dusk like features have already settled in. When I first arrived, what is set before me would have been more like midnight or 1:00am. I will need to keep that in mind for my September travels so as not to be driving in the dark of night. I tuck that away in my brain as I tuck the rest of me to bed, exhausted from a travel day of multiple panoramic transformations and not even caring I have not had supper. I somehow have to wash and re-pack before joining a group trip tomorrow afternoon - another short sleep night. Enjoy today’s pictures!

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Photos

Richardson Memorial
Person after whom this Richardson Highway named

Biking up this steep ascent!
And after passing, noted he was not a youngster

Thought maybe prarie dog
Later learned it's a ground squirrel - one of the most sought after meals in the food chain here