Wednesday 8/4/99
Day 7: Denali Park, Talketna & Palmer
We lelft Moon Lake at 4:30 am. The sun wasn't up yet, but it was light out, cool and sky was clear. We drove west on highway 2. The town of Dot Lake was pretty small. We saw several moose this morning between Dot Lake and Delta Junction. We drove through Delfta Junction at 6 am. This was a small town with several buildings. We turned south on the Richardson Highway, (Highway 2). A little farther north of Delta Junction at Big Delta was the Big Delta State Historical Park and Rika's Roadhouse, which is a living history museum and an old restored roadhouse. The Fort Greeley Army Base was nearby as well. This highway followed the Alaskan pipeline off and on and also had some nice mountain views. We turned on to a gravel road called Coal Mine Road for a little ways. This road was not used very often and was difficult to drive on. Dale took it just long enough to drive under the pipeline before turning around. We passed the old Black Rapids Lodge which has been abandoned since 1936 when the Black Rapids Glacier just across the road was threatening to destroy it. However it never did. At 7:45 am we reached the small town of Paxon. We stopped for gas at a
large building which was a restaurant/post office/lodge/gas station.
At Paxon we turned west on to the Denali Highway. This highway is closed durnign the winter and will come out just south of the Denali National Park. There were several lakes and lodges over the first 20 miles. The pavement ended at mile 21. There were lots of low, green shrubs, small lakes and ponds, mountains and trails that were muddy. It was cold and windy. It probably rained in the last few days as well. Dale stopped at the Maclaren Lodge for a cup of coffee. We stopped at the unofficial campsite where we had spent the night 2 years ago. This was at about mile 120, just after the BLM sign and before the Nenana River leaves the highway. We reached Cantwell at 11:30 am where the Denali Highway and the George Parks Highway (Highway 3) meet.
We decided to go north to Denali. We've alrways been disappointed with Denali because Mt. McKinley is visible only about 20% of the time, they restrict private automobiles to the first 14 miles and they have so many rules (ie only people with 3 day passes can camp at one of the campgrounds which you can only get to by bus). We drove as far as Savage River before we came to the ranger station and they made us turn around. By this time we were all starving and tried to find a restaurant. We were not at all impressed by the park's hotel, which didn't seem to have any restaurants. Next we went to the visitor's center, which also had no food. We decided to head back to the main highway and head south. We took the turnoff to the small community of Cantwell. There was a large building with a sign that said restaurant and bar, but it didn't appear to be open,
We continued south and stopped at Igloo City, which was a convenience store/giftshop, next to an eye-catching building shaped like an igloo with lots of windows. The clerk told us that orginally it was buildt as a hotel, but has never been used as one. It is just used for storage and to attract tourists like us. We decided to go to Talkeetna which meant going 14 miles south of Trapper's Creek, taking a turnoff and travelling 14 miles back north. We stopped at a visitor's center at the turnoff for Talkeetna. This town of 300 used to be a supply station for gold miners. Today it's a very touristy town with boardwalks, dirt streets and lots of giftshops and restaurants.
There was a film crew there that just so happened to be eating at the same restaurant we choose, the West Rib Barbeque. They seemed to be following this one girl who looked like a cross between Rachel Welch and Loni Anderson, but younger. We never figured out who she was or what they were filming. We checked out a few shops and toured the Talkeetna Historical Society Museum which was housed in several small historic buildings. There was quite a bit of information about famous mountain climbers who had climbed McKinley.
We headed back to highway 4 toward Anchorage. We thought we'd look for a hotel in Wasilla but coudn't find anything. So we went on to Palmer and found a room at the Gold Miner's Hotel. The place was busy. The barmaid was also the hotel clerk. After looking at a room we had to wait for one couple to get help, who had brought down the door handle to their room. Apparently it had come off when they tried to unlock the door. Later when went down to the bar and had an interesting conversation with the barmaid and the bar manager who used to live north of Seattle and grew up in Pittsburg, CA.. We discussed everything from racial discrimination to installing urnals at home and customers crawling under the pool table.
550 miles today
3050 miles total