Denali Highway

One of the things on my “To Do” list while in Alaska was drive the Denali Highway. The highway runs east and west right through middle of Central Alaska and is approximately 120 miles of gravel. I'm still trying to get used to gravel roads being called highways but in the more remote parts of the world, I guess that's the norm.

While I never did have a perfectly clear day, the highway didn't disappoint. The scenery was stunning the entire way. There are only two campgrounds along the highway, one at each end. Camping isn't a problem though because there are places all along the road where you can pull off and camp. This picture was from my first night's camping spot.

I found that if I take it slow and drive around 20mph that the road is pretty tolerable for the motor home and trail. Cars and trucks can go much faster. But I'm not in a hurry and why shake things up more than necessary.

The scenery all along the road is spectacular. The road suns south of the Alaska Range crossing through several expansive river valleys.

The area is hard, at least for me, to describe because everything is on such a large scale. “Ginormous” might be a good adjective. The clouds were usually high enough that once in a while the mountains would show themselves. This was the view from another of my campsites.

I'd love to know how this creek got it's name. It was too small to fish. I read in some of the tourist books that the fishing was so great in Alaska that you just dropped your hook in and out pops a fish. I know I'm not the best of fisherman, but the books have greatly exaggerated things. Now I will grant that when the salmon are running, that may indeed be the case. In fact, looking through the book that Stan got me about fishing from the Alaskan roads, almost all the fishing is fair to poor. But I keep trying anyway.