7-8-04
Valdez to Talkeetna via the Denali Hwy

Today I leave Valdez heading north. Where to I don't know yet but there are a couple of hours to figure that out. I lingered in Valdez for most of the day just checking the town out and putting up yesterdays pictures. I also burned some CD's because I have been listening to the same ones for too long now. It was 5:00 when I finally got on my way north back through Thompson pass and up to Glennallen. At Glennallen I decided to continue north toward Fairbanks. There are some things I would like to see near Fairbanks that I skipped before because of the really dense smoke.  As I traveled north there wasn't much to see, mostly stunted black spruce forest and swamp land. There were also sections of thick smoke. I talked to a couple of truckers headed south and they told me that Fairbanks was still covered in thick smoke so I started to re think my plan.
At Paxson I turned off on to the Denali Hwy. This is a very lonely 135 mile stretch of road, the only people on it are people who choose to drive it as there are much better roads that go in more direct routes. The Denali hwy is left over from before the Parks hwy was built. At one time it was the only way to get to Denali.

Today's Map

Now that's an RV for me LOL

 
A glacier I don't know the name of flowing down out of the Alaska range near Paxson

After looking at the map I think the above glacier is the Augstana

A close up of the glacier and clouds
 

next civilization 100 miles straight ahead
 

The Maclaren glacier is about 12 miles distant. There is a turn off here down the Maclaren glacier road that will take you right up to the face of the glacier. it is very rough and definitely a 4 wheel drive only track. I took the turn off and checked out the little information stand by the hwy. It has a log book of sorts where travelers can report the road conditions and it also serves as a kind of safety check as you are advised to sign in and then out when you return. The last entry was just less than two weeks old and reported fair road conditions with seasonally high but fordable river conditions at all four of the river crossings. The next entry about 3 weeks old said about the same thing and cited a round trip time with 5 hours of fishing at the glacier of 18 hours, that's 6.5 hours each way to go 12 miles! Well you probably know me by now, If it's a remote desolate road I want to drive down it, so off I went. I should mention that the third and fourth entries in the log book were just shy of four weeks old and both said about the same thing that after the first river crossing at mile 4.5 the road disappeared on them, and they were on ATV,s and dirt bikes.

 
Well I hadn't gone half a mile when I called it quits, it took me almost an hour and I had high centered twice had the truck on a close to 45 degree angle side to side and driven clear off the road in to the brush twice to miss big rocks. The finial straw? A hole so big that when I eased the front end in to it water was almost immediately over the tops of my tires. That was it for me I backed up about a hundred yards till I could find a spot to make like a 50 point turn on that narrow road and head back. When I made it back to the highway (A tern I had used loosely to describe this road before my side trip) it didn't seem nearly so rough.
Clear Water Mountains of the Alaska range to the north. I really like how the clouds are creating dark areas on the landscape, the haze is smoke from the fires over 100 miles to the north.
 
The Maclaren glacier from a better perspective
 

Looking north toward the Clear water mountains of the Alaska range.
 

Susitna river valley with the Talkeetna mountains in the background.

 

Great Reflections in a pond
 

Reflections of the distant Clear Water Mountains.
 
 
 

Long lonely road coming around the end of the Clearwater's
 

Crossing the Susitna River at around 4:30 am when I took this photo
 

I think this is Pyramid Mountain, I really like the way the clouds are forming around the top.
 
The Mighty Alaska range stretches from horizon to horizon as the sky glows with the night long dusk or is it dawn now at 5:04 AM.
 
 
 
 
 
The great lady Denali at 6:30 AM I caught a rare view of the mountain. Most days in the summer the moist air is driven off of the Cook Inlet  by the westerly ocean winds and when it is pushed up the side of Mount McKinley (Denali) it forms clouds. that effectively hide the top of the mountain from view about 90% of the time. I got really luckily and caught these shots when there was a break in the clouds 20 minutes later there were only clouds to see again.
 

After Driving all night I found a gas station to bunk out behind near the Talkeetna cut off. I got to bed about 7:30am

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