The Park Road

One of my goals this summer is to walk the Denali Park Road, the only road leading into the park.  It's a long-term project, given that the road is 92 miles long, and it's not exactly a well-traveled path for hikers (or cars, which are only allowed for the first 15 miles).  My plan, basically, is to take buses to the point where I leave off, walk for awhile, then head back.  It may involve some overnight camping near the end, simply because it takes a 6 hour bus ride to travel the entire distance one way.  For reference, here is a map of the park:

 

Click to embiggen.

The first few miles of the road are paralleled by trails, so I won't be walking on the road there, but once I hit park headquarters at mile 3.5, I will be.  Past mile 15 though, the only vehicles allowed are park buses, so there won't be much traffic.  Even that amount will decrease as I get further along, since there are progressively fewer buses running to each turn around point.

Looking out of the park at the eastern end of the road.

And into the park.

I walked the first two miles, from the intersection with the Parks Highway to the Visitor Center, on Friday.  The path there is very wide and designed to be used by bikes as well as hikers.

The road itself through this area runs through woods (mostly spruce and birch, like the majority of this part of Alaska), so it's difficult to see much except at crests.  When there are openings, however, there are excellent views of the Alaska Range in the south and east, as well as the smaller and much closer Kantishna Hills to the north.

Looking east around mile 0.5.

The road is generally uphill heading west from the Parks Highway and the Nenana River Valley through which it passes toward the interior of the park.  Starting from an elevation of just over 1500 feet, it crests at around 4000 feet above sea level (above the tree line at this latitude) near mile 65, before descending back down to 2000 feet at Kantishna, at the end of the road.  The first few miles are relatively developed - the post office, visitor center, park headquarters, wilderness center (the place from which buses start), and a campground are all located within the first four miles.  Past that point, finding anything built by people will be a rarity until Kantishna, which is an old gold mining settlement that now consists of a few wilderness lodges and cabins.  Beyond that, I don't really know what to expect.  I'm going to try to make it to mile 15 within the next couple days, and there will be an update with a lot more pictures.  For now, I leave you with a view of the mountains over the Alaska Railroad station near mile 2.