Anchorage was more relaxing that I anticipated, despite all the walking Mom and I did. After two days of checking out Alaska’s biggest city (population roughly 300,000, the next largest is Juneau with 32,750 just to give you a bit of perspective), it was time for us to head north – towards Denali National Park.
As I mentioned in a previous post, getting accommodations up in Denali can be a bit like playing one of those hardcore strategy games. If you want to stay inside the park in a campground, start putting in your reservations the second that they open up, usually a year or more out. If you want to stay in the area known as “Glitter Gulch” where there’s a small town center and a couple of hotels, either book really far in advance or shell out the cash for one of the cruise lines land add-on packages. And if you need more than one room, rent a cabin – but make those reservations at least six months out (a year is probably better). I knew that the tourist season up there was short, but I don’t think I quite realized how far in advance the lodging options fill up. Additionally, I thought I was in the tough situation of needing two rooms; but as it turned out, I really only needed one. However, I didn’t know that was going to be the case until a month or so before our departure and by that point, I had already locked in a cabin about 15 miles north of the entrance to the National Park. (I booked that back in December in a frenzied morning when I realized that I had officially run out of time to look for places.)
So back in Anchorage at our B&B, I worked a bit in the morning and then Mom and I loaded up the car and headed north on AK-1. Right outside of Anchorage on the right hand side, the mountain scenery of Chugach State Park opens up and there are very pretty views from the highway. My mom sat in the passenger seat with her digital camera in one hand and her phone in the other, snapping photos left and right. (I do not want to know how many pictures of my nostrils she ended up getting.) Right before Wasilla, we merged onto AK-3 north. Let me say, if you need gas or WalMart or something from any of the big chain stores or restaurants, Wasilla has you covered. That town has more chain restaurants than all of Austin (seriously). But also, if you need gas in like the next 100-150 miles, fill up here. Your choices past here going north are pretty limited. Fortunately, we had a really fuel-efficient vehicle so we rolled straight through Wasilla (and despite what one hometown girl stated, no, you actually cannot see Russia from there).
Between Wasilla and Susitna North, the freeway views were of rolling hills interspersed with one or two larger mountains, a lake here and there, and with generally pretty, but not amazing views. This is also where we ran into road construction that brought us to a complete halt for 15 minutes at a stretch. However, right after Talkeetna, the scenery got muscular and fast. Suddenly around every bend in the road, there was a huge snowcapped mountain looming. I think I said “Holy shit” more times in those 2 hours of driving than I had ever done so in my entire life. I couldn’t help myself. It was spectacular and it was all I could do to try to keep my eyes on the road long enough to make sure we didn’t crash into a tanker truck. (Pro tip, if you have a few people who offer to drive, take that first shift from Anchorage to Talkeetna so you can sightsee with impunity later.)
The freeway enters Denali State Park (not to be confused with the National Park further north) and there are two lookouts to try to spot Denali. We turned into the South View, both for a chance to stretch our legs and see if the mountain was going to make an appearance. There’s a paved section where everyone was congregating but I noticed a gravel path off to the right side. I looked at mom, “I’ll be right back, I just want to see where this goes”. To my surprise, she didn’t hesitate to fall in line behind me to labor up the path. It only took a few minutes to get to the top. We had an even closer view that we only had to share with a few other people. Denali was socked in with clouds but I still stood there for a few minutes longer after everyone else besides me and mom had departed. And then, the clouds broke just enough that we could see the top of the mountain, shining brightly. While we didn’t get a chance to see the entire mountain in all its glory, I also didn’t have 4 months to wait for that either.
We wandered back down the path, got in the car, and drove through some more incredible scenery. The road turned the drive into a roller coaster ride at one point. Take note, if the Alaska Highway Department erects a sign that says Rough Road or Bump, they’re not kidding. Thankfully both of us had our seatbelts securely buckled or we could have really smacked our heads a few times on the roof of the car. We had a rental car so I wasn’t too worried about blowing out the shocks but we got jostled around more than once. (I thought it was hilarious but mom, not so much…)
Right after we left the confines of Denali State Park, I saw a couple of cars parked along the side of the road. I was just remarking to my mom that there must be either an amazing view or an animal up ahead when I realized what we were passing – Hurricane Gulch. It took a second for me to react and by the time I thought about turning around for a look-see, we were already past the point where I could have swung into one of the gravel areas to park. The view from the bridge is pretty and I’ve heard that the train bridge has an even better view. I made a mental note to try to remember to stop on the back back and kept driving. We rolled through the little town of Cantwell, which had an abandoned gas station with a large concrete igloo off to the side. Sadly, the whole thing was roped off or I would have fishtailed it into the parking lot to get a better look.
After about fours and a half hours out of Anchorage, we reached McKinley Park, where there are some hotels and restaurants. There were considerably more people here than we saw the entire drive. As we drove over a bridge, my mom exclaimed, “There’s a moose and her baby in the river.” Of course, she said after we got off the bridge. Thanks Mom for the heads up. The traffic was such that I really didn’t have a chance to pull over to make sure she didn’t just see a few logs in the river (her eyesight isn’t exactly eagle strength). At this point, we were well within the time period that we needed to check into our cabin and I was concerned about missing the cut-off so we kept on driving up to Healy, about 15 minutes further up the road.
Let me say that even Google Maps directions can be wrong every once in awhile. I mean, we all know not to rely on Apple Maps but… this was one of the very few times that Google Maps failed me. I actually saw a sign for our cabin, a few miles before Google was telling me to turn. I hesitated and then decided that if someone went through the trouble to put up a sign, it must be the right way, right? So I turned down this side road and then came to a fork in the road where both ends had Dead End signs. And no further sign of where the cabin may be. Hmmm… still trusting in the omniscient Google overlords, I backtracked to the main road to follow the directions the internet gave me. Well, that was an exercise in futility because after driving narrow gravel roads where I fully expected the Deliverance theme song to start playing from speakers hidden in the brush alongside the road, I gave up and called the number provided for the cabin – only for it to go to voicemail. My mom got that weird anxious look on her face which only compounded my frustration. Finally, I decided to go back down the first side road and turn down one of the forks in a blind attempt to find our cabin. The “Dead End” road actually went on for another 3 miles and just when I assumed that we were sleeping in the car that night, I saw the sign for Healy Heights Cabins.
It took a bit more dramatics before we finally got situated in our cabin but once I got my suitcase hauled up the stairs to one of the bedrooms, I was able to relax. We had a very early wake-up the next morning so we did little more than unpack and make a small dinner in the cabin kitchen before turning in for a good night’s sleep.