Driving the Parks Highway

28 February 2012
7:48 PM

Sunrise at	8:05 AM	in direction	107°	East-southeast
Sunset at	6:03 PM	in direction	253°	West-southwest

Duration of day: 9 hours, 58 minutes (6 minutes, 47 seconds longer than yesterday)

Both drives between Anchorage and Fairbanks are spectacular.  The first route, from Valdez to Fairbanks is now the lesser traveled as most tourists arrive in Anchorage, Kenai, or Fairbanks and make their way along the Parks Highway to the Denali National Park entrance.  Being a busy route, most of the expansion of South Central, in particular the Mat-Su Basin (Matanuska-Susitna), has occurred along that route, so there are sections where I find myself just waiting to get past the Talkeetna turn off so traffic will drop off.  One does get very crotchety about all these dang people and their automobiles after living in Fairbanks for a few years.

As traffic increases, collisions with moose increase, which is another downside of that region growing as rapidly as it is.  The region is among the most appealing to moose, and they, like many non-human living creatures on the planet, are losing ground to encroaching civilization.  It's a huge state, so you wonder how I could even say that, but the populations of moose, bear, wolf, and salmon are not as great as you'd think.  Only so many individuals among the wild life population can thrive due to the long winters.  And the general tendency of humans is to kill what's in its way.  We are a very destructive species.

Yet, as with everything in life, there are up sides and down sides.  Shifting focus from the down side to human-wildlife interaction, road kill of moose is handled positively in Alaska.  When moose are killed on the road, the meat is harvested and used to feed those in need.  The spirit of minimizing waste and making use of all available resources is still alive and well here.  My son, Lorien, is the News Director at KTNA, the public radio station for Talkeetna.  One of his interview spots for the community covered the activities of the Su Valley High School Moose Club. Alaska Public Radio often re-broadcasts unique aspects of living in Alaska, and his story was picked up by APRN - Alaska News Nightly, 27 February 2012.

And, as I said, once you are past Talkeenta on your way north, traffic drops off appreciably - even in summer.  The Milepost guide - printed anew each year - has provided details of Alaska travel since 1949.  It is invaluable when driving the Alaska Highway through Canada to Delta as it provides cryptic, but clear indicators of stops, hazards, things to watch for and what to expect, such as the following notes listing viewpoint stops for Denali: 

Formal mountain viewpoints are: Denali Viewpoint South, Milepost A 134.7: Denali Viewpoint North, Milepost A 162.4, and Denali View North Campground, Milepost A 162.7.  There is also a Denali viewpoint on the Talkeetna Spur Road, 12.8 miles from Milepost A 98.7.

The guides are thorough with excellent maps included.  The notion of describing sections of the road based on mile posts is extremely useful when in regions where the only recognizable marker of man (besides the road itself) is the milepost sign.  An overview is provided online, Milepost - Parks Highway and includes a brief, but nice YouTube slide show.  Watching it reminded me of why I really like that drive.

Alaska's George Parks Highway (Great Drives) highlights certain regions along the highway and treats the drive as if it were started from the Alaska Highway.  It provides details of how to loop from the Alaska Highway and back.  The route follows the Alaska Highway to Delta, Delta to Fairbanks, Fairbanks south to Anchorage and the Kenai Peninsula, and then Anchorage to Glennallen and Tok where you could return to the Alaska Highway.  DOT (Department of Transportation) includes the Parks Highway in its Alaska's Scenic Byways series of web pages.

Remember Alaska - Parks Highway has some very nice photos of Broad Pass.  The pass, as its name suggests is a wonderfully broad, relatively flat region that runs between the Talkeetna Mountains on the East and the Alaska Range leading up to Denali itself on the West.  The passage through the Alaska Range itself gently follows the Nenana River from Cantwell to Healy.  Driving in Alaska - Alaska Highway 3 - Parks Highway, in fact, is a short view of that stretch of road, shortly after leaving Cantwell.

Gary drives down the Parks Highway to meet me and my mother there on Thursday.  We both will drive back on Monday.  We won't see it like these photos, though, as it will still be snowbound everywhere along the way.  Rest assured, I will take photos on the return trip.