Camping on the Denali Highway

We went camping on the Denali Highway for 4 nights over the Memorial Day weekend. We left Thursday night and came back Monday. We didn't get to do any fishing since the water was so high, but we did a lot of 4 wheeling.

The Denali Highway is about 135 miles long with almost 100 miles of gravel road. The highway goes from Paxson to Cantwell. This used to be how visitors reached Denali Park until the Parks highway was built in the early 70's. The highway is closed in the winter and usually reopens by the middle of may. This is a great trip to take and spend a few days fishing and wildlife viewing. There are Princes lodges buses that make the trip and a lot of motor-homes. There are a couple of lodges to spend the night, but very limited services.

Here are some caribou that Jen took a picture of.

I was able to catch this one up on the ridge checking me out.

Seattle Creek flowing very high.

A place Mike has named "Land Before Time"

Jen doing a little water crossing.

Wood for a few fires.

A couple of caribou that tried to run me over.

Catch!

Ahh I found snow, this is how summer should always be.

Kodiak and I.

The compound from above.

The spoiled mutt. Glad she is using that packers blanket and not a Broncos one.... lol

Alyeska Hill climb

A little late on this update but things have been moving so fast lately. Back in the last weekend of April we went to the Alyeska Motor Madness. I went down Thursday night after work with the company of Kodiak, and our friend Mike and his dog Sadie. We left after work and headed down Turnagain Arm to Girdwood. Jen and Krista came down Friday night. On the way I took this picture of a boat in the inlet.

This became home for the next 3 nights. I know it is a parking lot, but we still had a good time. The first night there were people arriving all night long.

Can you tell these two are food motivated?

 The next morning we went up to check out the finish line of the hill climb, pretty steep at the top. I was second guessing my decision to enter at this point.

Ok so I give it a try and end up a little out of control, no damage that the chiropractor can't solve.

It was a little cold and rained all day Saturday, but we did manage to get around the fire just a bit. Here is a good picture of Krista sporting her new Summer Sucks Racing hoodie.

On Sunday we woke up to some nice blue sky with the Vintage snocross race scheduled for the afternoon.

Enjoying the sun while watching the Extreme sports show. Notice the awesome attire we all have on.

Here I am doing a little vintage racing on the sno-jet.

We had a good time, wished the rain would have stopped a little earlier. So far to this point we have spent 4 nights in the camper and everything seems to work well. Really enjoying it.

Here are a couple of helmet cam videos of the hill climb and the vintage snow cross race.

Hope you all enjoy, take care.

Northern lights

Ok so here is a few pics of the northern lights. I am still trying to get this new camera settings so they aren't the best. It sure was an awesome night. Don't forget to click on each picture to get a bigger view.

Driving the Denali Highway

Jen and I decided to drive from Palmer up to Paxson and across the Denali Highway to Cantwell and then back to Palmer. This trip was just over 500 miles. We took the tent and sleeping bags with the intention of stopping and sitting up camp for the night. We had never made the drive, but heard it was an awesome trip.

We got up at 5 am and hit the road. Here is a link to a map of the trip.  Map of trip

The Denali Highway is about 135 miles long with almost 100 miles of gravel road. The highway goes from Paxson to Cantwell. This used to be how visitors reached Denali Park until the Parks highway was built in the early 70's. The highway is closed in the winter and usually reopens by the middle of may. This is a great trip to take and spend a few days fishing and wildlife viewing. There are Princes lodges buses that make the trip and a lot of motor-homes. There are a couple of lodges to spend the night, but very limited services.

This is a photo of the highway just a few miles outside of Paxson. Paxson has a small lodge and sometimes has gasoline. Don't always count on them having diesel or gasoline.

Photo looking down into the Mclaren river valley.

The Mclaren Glacier

Took most of the trip to finally find some Caribou.

This lake is was just absolutely beautiful!

Jen and I kept driving all day in the August light, which in Alaska is close to 15 hours. We ended up getting to the end of the Highway before the end of the day, so we just pushed on home. Made for a long day, but such an awesome trip.