Our day travelling the very bumpy Denali Highway in Alaska
The Denali Highway is 217
km (135 mi) of very rough road. The
beginning of the highway from Cantwell, AK, driving west to east, is paved, as
are the last miles into Paxon, but the rest are gravel and dirt road with lots
of dust on our drive. We had clouds but
no rain to make it muddy today.
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| Denali Highway, Alaska |
The Denali Highway opened
in 1957 and was the only access to the Denali National Park at that time but
better highways have been built since. The Denali Highway is closed from
October until May and the only access during those months would be by
snowmobile or dogsled.
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| Sunshine behind the clouds |
They advise you to take
it very slow when you drive and that is with good reason. There were more potholes on this stretch of
highway than we’d seen for awhile and we’d driven hundreds of miles on dirt
roads on our Northern Adventure. It is a
road less travelled or maintained.
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| Moose having a drink |
The benefit of driving
these highways slowly is that we get to sightsee more if we are not the lead
driver. That one has to guide us through
the real rough areas and warn us what to watch for. We made some stops, on this stop we enjoyed watching
the moose on the other side of the lake, views were great in spite of the
weather.
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| Boreal forests, tundra and lakes |
The overcast skies made
the day fairly dark but we did see some very scenic areas of boreal forests,
tundra and lakes. We have to wonder where all the animals are hiding in these places, they are out there somewhere. The Alaska Range could
be seen in the distance with clouds hanging over their peaks.
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| Dusty roads |
This is a heavily hunted
area so we saw several roadside camps set up for those who were there to do
some hunting. As many as 16,000 animals
have been seen at once after calving season and the herds are passing through
the area on their annual migration but this was not that time. We didn’t see any more wildlife, they learn
fast and would be avoiding the hunters.
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| Maclaraen Glacier |
We could see the Maclaren
Glacier coming down from Mt. Hayes, elevation 4,216 metres (13,832’) as we
drive through the Alaska Range foothills.
The Maclaren Summit on the Denali Highway at 1245 metres (4,086’) is the second highest road pass in
Alaska. The highest is the Atigun Pass
on the Dalton Highway. Click here to see
more of the Atigun Pass.
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| Tundra, lakes and mountains |
Much of the Denali
Highway is built on glacial eskers.
These are the mounds of sand and gravel that are left behind as a result
of the moving water in or under the glacier.
That tells us that we drove on the path of the original glacial river of
so very long ago.
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| Susitna River |
We crossed the wide
Susitna River on the 1000’ long bridge.
Our view across the river shows what is left of a fire from the
past. We made our way up the long hill
to take us onto more scenic sights.
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| Alaska Range on the Denali Highway |
Our drive over the Denali
Highway was a slow but very scenic drive.
We arrived at Paxson Lake Campground at the end of our day
and enjoyed time around the campfire to talk about the sights of our day.