Denali Highway Road Trip, 2022

 

 Below is a map of the major highway system in Alaska.   As you can see, we have a paucity of roads in a huge state.

 It took me all day Monday, June 13, to get ready for my annual trip to the Denali highway, illustrated in brown in the center of the map below.   My friend Leilani, and Carrie, her visitor from Florida, planned to drive to Paxon on the east end of the Denali highway, and drive through to Maclaren River Lodge, at aboout Mile 40 of the 130 mile road.

It took me all day because I kept losing things that were on their way to being packed but somehow never made that final destination.   In fact, my new Wingspan binoculars, the ones I bought to replace the previous pair that apparently fell off or out of my kayak into Tern Lake,  not only never made it to Packing Central, which is what I call the spare bedroom when I'm preparing for a trip, but still have not revealed their whereabouts.

 The first leg of the trip, for me, was to drive about 150 miles to Palmer where I would overnight at Leilani's.

On the map, look at the Seward highway shown in blue and the town of Seward.   Follow that road up to where it makes a sharp westward turn that leads to a black dot.    That is approximately where I live.

So, my journey began at that point, went through Anchorage where it joined the green Glenn highway and paused overnight in Palmer.

 Contrary to what some think, we were not going to Denali National Park.   For that trip, it's best to drive up the Parks highway (maroon on the map) and the Parks highway was not named for the national park, but for George Parks who was Alaska's first resident territorial governor back in 1925-1923.

However, the Denali highway WAS THE ONLY road to get to the Park up until the Parks highway was built in the early 1970s.   Except, you could always go by the Alaska Railroad.    Needless to say, the park did not have nearly the amount of visitors back then.

 

Now, the Denali highway is a scenic 130-miledrive through tundra south of the Alaska Range of mountains and northwest  of the Wrangell mountains.   There are lots of hiking trails and fishing spots, but few, very few,  accommodations.   No gas stations, except you can buy gas at Maclaren River Lodge, no B&Bs, until you're almost at the western end near Cantwell.

The first 22 miles are paved.   The rest is hard-surfaced with chip sealing.   Much, much better than it old gravel road and was often pot-holed and washboarded.

Got it?

Denali, the mountain as seen from an overlook along the Parks highway.

 

 Before I left, however, there was a mandatory stop near my house to check on all the baby birds at Tern Lake.

 

 

The resident trumpeter swans were hatching their six youngsters.

 

This photo was taken recently after the eggs started hatching.   Grebes carry their young on their backs for a while.

 

 The red-necked grebes had five eggs that were still incubating.   So, all was well.

 

 

Three construction zones and a rock abatement project* later, I arrived in Palmer late afternoon, in time to take a few photos around this  historic agricultural area.

As for Palmer, it's located in what is called the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, so-named for the two mighty river that run through it to empty into the Knik Arm of Cook Inlet.  They neglected to mention the Knik River.

 

Pioneer Peak and plowed fields in Palmer.

Something interesting about Palmer:  

"In 1935, the Federal Emergency Relief Administration created an experimental farming community known as the Matanuska Valley Colony as part of the New Deal resettlement plan. Situated in the Matanuska Valley, about 45 miles northeast of Anchorage, Alaska, the colony was settled by 203 families from Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. The colony project cost about $5,000,000 and, after five years, over half of the original colonists had left the valley. By 1965, only 20 of the first families were still farming the valley.^"    

^{So sayeth Wikipedia.}

^{Tomorrow morning, Leilani will awaken us early early early and we will be on the road forever and a day until we reach Maclaren River Lodge, with multiple stops for birds and construction areas.} 

^***

 

 

^{*Rock Abatement Project is a multi-year contract aimed at eliminating rockfalls along Turnagain Arm on the Seward Highway near Anchorage.   It involves drilling, blasting, and clearing problem rock areas, as well as installing stanchions with rock-catching draped net material.   It's ugly, but if it prevents anyone getting killed with a VW-sized boulder falling on their car, all is forgiven.}