Denali Highway Road Trip, 2022 The Third Day, Part One

 The Third Day, Pt. 1

The Twilight Zone, Episode One

Leilani is hot on the trail of a pika.   She can't see it yet, but she can hear it barking and this time, she isn't going to give up.

It's one of her favorite animals, those little furry critters that are related to rabbits and live only in rocks in higher elevations.   Well, we're at one of the highest elevations along the Denali Highway and parked below a massive jumble of rocks.

Leilani and Carrie got up way before I did.   I was bone tired and brain dead last night from too many nights with only a couple hours sleep.   After the long drive with two construction zones, I was spent.   I got up about seven, just in time to answer the door when Leilani knocked.   We agreed to meet shortly in the dining room of Maclaren River Lodge for breakfast.

This is part of the dining room at Maclaren River Lodge.  Leilani is not having beer for  breakfast.   This photo is from  2020 and it was dinner time.

So, after a hearty breakfast of French Toast (with homemade bread) and bacon, we set out to find Arctic warblers along with any other bird that cared to visit.   This is the area of the highway where we are most likely to find these particular warblers, so they were our primary objective.

Objectives change depending on where we are.

They had been a little ways west while I'd lingered in bed, so we headed east.  I might as well have stayed in bed.    Leilani, with her superior hearing and ability to recognize most birds calls, drove about 20 mph with her window down, listening to twitters, chirps, and trills.  As with the pika (yet to come), she could hear them, but they wouldn't show their faces.

Well, that was disappointing, but we'd be back in this area for another evening and morning, so there was hope.

And that was the situation when Leilani stopped at the mountain's jumble of boulders, intent of showing the pika to Carrie.   While she was listening and trying to determine where their little barks were coming from, I was still in the back seat.   I'd been here before on this useless search, but I was hoping she'd find one.  

Yes, this is their habitat, but for four years, no pika had appeared.   It was encouraging that she could hear them bark, though.

Wouldn't it be funny, I mused, if an Arctic warbler showed up while she's looking for those cute little critters?

I got out of the back seat and grabbed my camera.  "Leilani?"   I said.   "Look here."

And there in the willow scrub on the opposite side of the road, was a precious Arctic warbler.   It was skittish, impossible to get a lens on it to focus, but there it was.

Hold still, Stinker!

Finally, it got used to us and settled down, as much as warblers settle down.

Leilani went back to the pika.   "It's right there!"

Sure enough, a little head appeared over a massive boulder about umpteen miles away.  I switched lenses, putting a 600mm Tamron lens on my 46 megapixel Nikon camera, and took some shots.   

Pika on a rock in the boulder field.

And, once I got the photo on my computer, I cropped it and made the pika more visible.

These little fur balls, with no discernable tail, are six to eight inches long.   They live, as I said, in boulder fields in the upper elevations  above generally, 4000 ft. as they cannot tolerate temperatures above 78 degrees.    They don't hibernate in winter, but spend the summer and fall gathering vegetation and storing it for the winter.

Meanwhile, in the willow bushes, the warbler apparently realized it was no longer the center of attention and flew across the road to the boulders, where it landed in a natural amphitheater and sang an aria.

So, Leilani was happy; I was happy.   But, as we drove slowly farther east, I was left to ponder another in a long series of life-long conundrums.   Did I have some kind of  sixth sense that the warbler was going to appear?    Or did I cause it to appear?

Next:  The Twilight Zone, Episode Two

More Denali highway birds:

A pair of lesser scaup.   The male is the pretty black and white one.   Both have remarkable golden eyes.

Some Common Redpolls:

Warblers:

A Wilson's warbler with its black toupee

So tiny it fits in the cup of your palm.

 

Orange-crowned warbler.   I know, you don't see any orange.   But, when excited, the head feathers stand erect and exhibit  a definite orange color.

Blackpoll warbler.   These little birds with their extra long wings fly incredible distances non-stop for up to three days when migrating.

Denali Highway Road Trip, 2022, The Second Day

 The Second Day

 

 I'd like to say that Leilani woke us up at O-Dark-Thirty to get us on the road, but that wouldn't be correct because there is no dark-thirty at any time of day in mid-June in Southcentral Alaska.   In fact, just a few days from the Summer Solstice, there is no dark, dark-thirty or any other kind.

 Nonetheless,  she got us up at what is usually a couple hours after my bedtime, and had us on the road 5:30 or thereabouts.   First stop:   gas station a couple miles up the road in Palmer.

Then we were on the way, with Leilani and her friend Carrie in one car and me following along in my pickup.   They were going to Valdez after the Denali highway and I was going home, thus the two vehicles.

The photo above is interesting as it shows markers for the snowplow guys and travelers so they know where the highway is when they're out in a storm.  Trust me, they need them. 

 

Wrangell mountains in the distance.

 

 Next stop is Glennallen ( about 140 miles)  to top off the gas tanks.  The station is called The Hub of Alaska, or just The Hub, and it's been there for many years.  It used to have a cafe and sundries, now it's sundries, restrooms, a gift shop with Alaskana,  and snacks.

Roadside wildflowers.   I don't know what they are and this part of the highway is the only place I've seen them.

Busy place.

Again we headed north, this time on the Richardson highway.   The Richardson is the neglected stepchild of Alaskan highways, a narrow, winding, two-lane road with no passing lanes, narrow shoulders, and a lot of frost heaves.    Several decades ago, I recall "driving" the Richardson and the frost heaves were so bad that your front and rear bumpers hit the frost heaves at the same time.

Slowly but surely, as the saying goes, efforts are being made to upgrade the road and we were soon going to find two construction projects ahead.   One is a 12-mile and the other is an 8-mile, both with 24 hour flagmen and pilot cars for your driving entertainment.

Before we got to those points, however, we turned off the highway onto a gravel road  that made a couple turns and led us to a small, picturesque lake.

Dingo, Dango!   Whataya know!!!   Two horned grebe now inhabited the lake.   We'd never seen them here before.   What a find!

 

The grebes can raise and lower those yellow head feathers at will, thus the "horns."

 

Their eyes remind me of ripe highbush cranberries.

  And in the same lake, a blue-winged teal, another rare bird for us.

 

 

After leaving the lake, we soon found the construction projects and  waited our turns for the pilot cars.   The construction is pretty interesting as, in the first project, they have quarried a massive amount of rock from a cut in the alignment.   They are still drillinig and blasting for  more material.

 

Note the big yellow excavator loading the huge rock trucks.

 

 The construction areas wore me out.   That and just a couple hours sleep the previous two night.   I was really happy when we finally reached Paxson, about a hundred miles from Glennallen, and made the left turn onto the Denali highway.

 

 

 The first 22 miles of the Denali highway is paved.   After that, it is chip sealed.   Not exactly pavement, but a hard, dust-free surface that is a joy to drive considering the previous times I've been over it when rain made the gravel a pot-holed and wash-boarded surface.

 

We did a lot of birding on the way to Maclaren River Lodge, about Mile 40, but for this episode I am taking you straight to the lodge where we will stay two nights. 

Maclaren River Lodge.

 

I was in the second room from the right in these duplex cabins.

The lake in front of the cabins.

My upstairs neighbor is building a nest out of little balls of med it forms and carries.   There are little balls of mud all over the deck and the two chairs that are on the deck.

I always called them mud swallows, but their name is cliff swallow.

The swallows are relentless in their nest-building.   I lay in bed that night and watched their shadows on the curtains until I fell asleep.

 

 

Next up:   Birding the Denali highway.

Road Trip! Denali Highway

Way up north of Anchorage, there is a road named the Denali Highway.  It is not part of the Denali National Park, formerly known as Mount McKinley National Park, but until the 1970s it was the only road access to the park.

For those who didn't care to chance the  137-mile-long Denali highway,  the Alaska Railroad delivered visitors to the park and it does today.   In the 1970s, the Parks highway opened offering a shorter and faster vehicle route to the park as well as to Fairbanks.

 

 Today, the old road (it's called a highway, but that's quite the reach) offers wilderness for those who want it.    People go there to canoe, hike, bicycle, fish, and hunt (in the autumn hunting season).   And bird, but don't tell anyone.

The first 22 miles from the east side at Paxson are paved and the last two-and-a-half miles on the west end at Cantwell are also paved.

The long and lonesome road is perfect for stopping anywhere to find birds.

In between, gravel, rocks, potholes, washboard--whatever conditions the weather dictates.   The Alaska Department of Transportation does maintain the road as best it can from mid-May to late autumn.    After that, the road closes to vehicles and the only access to the recreation and lodges is by snowmachine or skis.

Maclaren River Lodge, at Mile 42, has been catering to visitors since 1957 and is the only lodge that remains open year 'round.  That is where I stayed recently with my fellow birding/photographer friends.

Maclaren River Lodge

 This is a roadhouse in the style of famous Alaskan roadhouses that offer food and lodging to travelers.  Yes, it serves liquor but it is definitely not a roadhouse in that sense of the name.

Part of the dining room.

Rob is wondering what this "tuna melt" is all about on the menu.   Hot tuna?

 

 

 

 

Leilani

Our lodging was in a newly built cabin overlooking a small lake where swans and waterfowl swam, and a semi-palmated plover searched for insects along the shore.

The four of us were in the first cabin on the left, with Doug and Rob in the left room and Leilani and I in the right room.. 

I should have taken these photos before we moved all our stuff in.   My bed in the one that's almost "made."

A place for the laptop and a tea station.

And the en suite bathroom is thru that door.

The view from our balcony.

Here are some other cabins and views around the lodge grounds.

Bridge over the Maclaren RIver.   

And now, it's time to go find some birds to photograph!

"Go find birds?    Step out onto the balcony!    I'm right here!