Our next stop is near one of the icons of Alaska – Denali National Park and the highest mountain peak in the USA.
But first, the State Park …..
Again a bit of backtracking paths we have already travelled but hey, this is Alaska – it’s a different driving experience !
Cooper Landing to Denali State Park
We woke to a foggy morning and had coffee and muffins for breakfast in our cabin before packing up and getting underway.
More back tracking for the early part of the drive today back past Anchorage. However the fog lifted suddenly and for a large part of the drive to Anchorage it was quite clear. As we have found, the weather can change so quickly and we were back in overcast conditions by the time we left Anchorage again.
Most of our drive the next few days is on the Parks Highway – “Alaska Route 3” – which connects Anchorage and Fairbanks. Next major town was Wasilla and nearby we stopped at the Iditarod Trail Headquarters Museum. We watched a movie about the life of the dogs and mushers and then continued on our way.
After the spectacular scenery we’d had to this point, the driving beyond Anchorage was mainly fairly flat, wooded and even scrubby in parts – quite a contrast. Around Anchorage it was similar to the interstate system in other parts of the US – divided carriageways three or four lanes wide – but beyond that it is mainly one lane each way with passing lanes added here and there.
Further on the overcast skies and turned to rain when we arrived in a little town of Talkeetna. There had obviously been a lot of rain here as a number of streets had a lot of water laying around. There were quite a number of restaurants, cafes and tourist shops but as it was raining we decided not to stop and went on to our stop for the night at Mt McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge in Denali State Park just east of the main national park area – another run by the Princess cruise line.
We did stop before we got there for a coffee break at an overlook where you were supposed to have a perfect view of the mountain – Denali (originally called Mt McKinley). As you can imagine, rain and cloud is not perfect weather for viewing !
We arrived at the Lodge about 4pm. Similar to the Kenai lodge however quite a bit bigger and the log cabins replaced by 2 story timber buildings housing the accommodation. There is again a Main Lodge and additionally a second smaller building with an additional bar/restaurant area.
We decided to have dinner at the smaller restaurant – 20320 Alaskan Grill – the name representing the height of Denali – 20,320 feet, the highest in North America. They seemed to have gained 10 feet somewhere as most other information indicates the mountain is only 20,310 feet – but who’s counting ! For dinner we shared a spinach and artichoke dip and then a nice pizza for our main.
It has rained most of the late afternoon and the forecast is not great looking ahead – we heard a waitress at dinner saying it has been the wettest summer for some time with only about 10 full sunny days so far. So we will have to wait and see what is ahead.