For this three-week trip in Alaska, we have few reservations and just a very rough itinerary. We decided that this flexibility would allow us to make plans based on the weather and what we found of interest. Today was one of those days that we had to make a decision about where we would travel in the motor home. One option was to keep with a safe plan, driving north on the Park's highway up to the city of Fairbanks. The second option was to drive east on the Denali Road, a 134-mile gravel road known for its scenery.
We have Sabine's (the motor home's owner) blessings to drive on the gravel road. In fact, she recommended it because it would be such a beautiful drive for us. But she also mentioned that if we had any problems on that long gravel road, the rental contract said that we were responsible for fixing the problem. So if we had a flat tire, we would have to pay for the towing or for a mobile tech to change it for us. The motor home is too heavy for a normal jack, so we don't even have the option to change it ourselves. Driving the Denali Road certainly adds a level of risk and responsibility to our trip.
How will we ever decide? It's very early in the season, and we have been trying to get information about the condition of Denali Road. We knew it was open, but is it passable in a Class C motor home? We asked the ranger at the national park, and she knew someone that knew someone who had driven the road successfully in a pickup already this spring. The ranger also mentioned the drive to Fairbanks would be boring, while a trip on the Denali Road would be exciting.
With all those opinions and information, we finally made the decision. Yes, we will drive the 134-mile gravel Denali Road. We filled up with that expensive gas in Cantwell, and turned east. We savored the first 2.6 miles of pavement before it turned to gravel. Denisa snapped a picture as the pavement ended and the long gravel road began.
The gravel road was surprisingly good, even if it was a little bumpy. We had to stop at mile 4 to find a wrench to tighten the outside mirror. Is this an omen for problems to come?
The scenery was spectacular, with tall snow-covered Talkeetna mountains peeking over the water at Joe Lake. We scanned the shore line with binoculars, and found a moose at the end of the lake. We watched as he fell into a bog, and had a hard time getting himself out.
It's beautiful weather, and we decided 7 miles into our journey that we had made the right decision.
This gravel road was smoother than we expected, and it looked like it had just been graded. Then at mile 17 we saw the road grader on the side of the road. It looks like this is as far as they got. We're now on our own.
We stopped for dinner at milepost 29.8 at Brushkana River. We cooked a meal, ate it, and we got back on the road quickly. Of course the driving isn't quick. Mark can only go 15-20 miles per hour with all the holes and bumps to dodge.
Because we are going so slow, and we are meeting almost no traffic, we opted for the four-in-the-front-seat ride configuration. It's tight, but it gives all of us front row views on this very scenic road. So all four of us saw the beaver in the middle of the road around milepost 44. He was very surprised when a crazy motor home was coming down the road. It's so unusual to see a beaver on dry land, and this guy was moving fast as he ran across the road and dove into the pond. We caught the v-shaped wave on the far side of the pond as he made a lap.
We are really missing our good camera, as this was our best effort at taking a scared beaver picture with our cell phone.
One of the reasons we made the final decision to make this drive today was the beautiful weather we are enjoying. Tomorrow is forecast to be rainy, so even though it's getting late we kept driving. We are at mile 54.9 when we approached the Susitna River bridge.
Looking to the north, The Milepost tells us that we are looking at the Alaska Range. The Susitna River starts at the Susitna glacier that we can see from here between Mounts Hess and Hays.
Then we drove across the 1,036-feet-long one-lane wooden bridge. Because no one else is crazy enough to be out here so early in the year, there's no waiting to cross the bridge.
We're trying to get down the road as many miles as possible tonight, since we're not sure what this road will be like in tomorrow's rain. Mark is doing a great job of dodging as many pot holes as possible, but it's tedious work at slow speeds.
We are now second guessing our decision to make this drive. It is beautiful, but it is bumpy and slow. The sunset is reflecting off the water in the potholes, as Denisa took this picture out the back window of the motor home.
We finally decided to camp at milepost 85.9 at 10:30 p.m. We haven't met any other cars for the last two hours or more. It has taken us 6 hours to drive these 86 miles. That includes many stops, but we obviously aren't making great time going this route.
We are at a high elevation, and the lake across the road is still frozen. We are surrounded by the call of a flock of birds that keep answering back across the water. We have our nightly ice cream break, and then head to bed for a very quiet night's sleep.
Not a single vehicle went down the Denali Road last night, so it was blissfully quiet out here. We fixed a big breakfast, and were on the road by a little after 9:00. We're glad to see that the road surface has changed from gravel to a worn chip seal with fewer pot holes. We can see rain showers in the distance, but we are blessed with partly sunny skies.
We stopped at the Maclaren River Lodge so Connie and Steven could get their morning coffee and pose with their bear statue. We haven't seen as much wildlife as we had hoped, so we have to take every opportunity to get animal pictures.
To the north we can see the Maclaren glacier nestled in the mountains.
As we climb higher in elevation, the snow drifts beside the road get deeper. Six miles later, we are at Maclaren Summit, the second highest pass in Alaska.
We are able to drive faster with the chip seal road now. Not having to dodge so many pot holes, Mark can enjoy the scenery as well. The gray skies ahead means that the weatherman was right about his rainy forecast for today.
A light rain started as we made our last stop on the Denali Road.
The pavement started at mile 113 and we all breathed a sigh of relief. We made it through without any flat tires or engine problems that we would have had to solve on our own. We're back into our rental warranty once again! It was quite a journey, and now that it's over, would we recommend it to others? Probably not, unless the road was graded and smoother like it was at first. Even though it was pretty all the way, we might recommend started from the west side and driving the first 30 miles only. You would have to back-track that same 30 miles back, but we all agreed that the middle 60 miles of the Denali Road was really hard on a vehicle and its passengers.
We turned south on the Richardson Highway, ready for smooth travels. While this is usually pretty good pavement, we ran into miles of construction zones. They have removed all the asphalt, and we were once again on dirt roads through two different construction sites on this highway. We also noticed that Alaska has some of the biggest construction vehicles we have ever seen!
We have definitely driven on some interesting roads in the last two weeks in Alaska! We probably wouldn't have driven on many of them in our Class A motor home, but it has been an interesting time exploring in our rentals. This blog title asked, "Will we drive the 134-mile gravel Denali Road?" The answer is obviously "Yes, we did this time. But I'm not sure we would do it again."
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