We will be heading north up the Parks Highway (Highway 3) with the goal of visiting the Denali View Point South located on mile marker 134.8. Our first activity today was bike riding at the Eklutna Lake recreational area. We reserved four mountain bikes on line with Lifetime Adventures and we would have to pick up the bikes by 11:00 am. Eklutna Lake was 36 miles away from Anchorage and the drive takes about 50 minutes.
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| MM enjoying her breakfast - sourdough from the Bake Shop and muffin from the Alpine Bakery |
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| MM at the large glacier fed lake |
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| Bike shop at Lifetime Adventures, where we picked up our mountain bike |
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| We were on our way |
The Eklutna Lake Trail was 12.7 miles one way from the west end of the lake to the southeast end. The trail hugs the north shore of the lake and at time the drop off the to lake seems like a 50 foot cliff. The trail is not paved so only mountain bikes were for rent. The trail is also shared with ATV and the bikes would stay to the right when trail splits. At times, the trail would narrow down to just several feet wide and the roots of the trees along the trail made it almost impossible to ride over. Mosquito were attracted to humans when the human subjects become static along the trail. Given the challenges, we were only able to accomplished about 4 miles total (out and back) on this trail.
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| Stopping for a break at a narrower pass |
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| Emerald colored lake with mountain reflection |
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| The colorful kayaks at the lake shore |
We returned our bikes shortly after 1:00 pm and were on our way to the next stop - Talkeetna. Talkeetna is a popular stop because most of the Alaska Railroad and motorcoach tours would stop at Talkeetna. It is sort of a launching point for a lot of the central Alaska adventure or expeditions such as flight-seeing tours or climbing Mount Denali. The drive from Eklutna Lake to Talkeetna is 93 miles or approximately a bit less than two hours. The drive passes through several smaller communities along Highway 3 including Wasilla and Willow. We stopped at the Target at Wasilla to use the restroom and picked up some snacks. Wasilla is the home of the Iditarod Race Headquarter and Sarah Palin served as the mayor before becoming the governor of Alaska. Wasilla is located in the Mat-Su valley where the Alaska Mountain range feed glacier water to hundreds of small lakes in the area. The Alaska Range is in view on this drive and we kept our eyes out for wild life. We reached Talkeetna in late afternoon. The town was bustling with tourists. We were debating between the Roadhouse or the Denali Brewpub for lunch and the executive decision was made to go the Brewpub by the lined formed on the outside.
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| The Denali Brewpub |
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| The town traffic |
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| In line to grab a house-brewed root beer at the bar |
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| Trucker hat for $20 |
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| After some waiting, we got our table at the corner of the patio |
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| Basking in the late afternoon sun in 62 degree latitude |
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| Got our lunch grub at 5:00 pm |
After getting our lunch grub past 5:00 pm (the sun was still high in the sky), we strolled the town a bit and made our way to our final stop - Denali View South, part of the Denali State Park. The drive from Talkeetna to Denali View South is 51 miles and it took us just less than an hour.
Typically, a motorcoach tour would go the Denali National Park and would include a drive-in wild life safari into the 90 mile long park road which is prohibited to public traffic beyond mile 15. Our goal this trip was to explore Anchorage, its surrounding area and the Kenai Peninsula so I did not advance our accommodation to the Denali National Park area from Anchorage. The drive from Denali View South to the National Park entrance is another 2 hours. But the drive home from the National Park back to Anchorage would have exceeded 4 hours which would be too long for me. So I opted to cheat and view Denali from the southern view point.
Denali South Peak which stands at just over 20K feet is the tallest peak in North America.
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