Once our house was rented out for two weeks and a day, we kind of had to go SOMEPLACE! As it turned out, I had a weekend course that I'd forgotten about, so we were able to stay until I finished on Saturday, cleaning our way out the door for people arriving that evening - and then went up to Palmer to stay in our friend Loogpla's driveway and make use of her internet on Sunday for my course - and she and Brian hiked "The Butte" - up and down from one direction and then the reverse - very ambitious! We had a wonderful visit with Loogpla and I brought dinner on Saturday - chicken and a pasta salad with vegetables and a baguette from Fire Island Bakery - and Loogpla's neighbor joined us with blueberry cake and homemade coconut ice cream for dessert then took us on a 3 mile hike in their neighborhood! Shrimp enchiladas on Sunday night - I prepared a lot of food ahead of time - and Loogpla made a delicious spinach salad.
Loogpla took this picture of Brian and Kira at the top of The Butte.
We drove into Lake Louise on Monday, 19.3 miles off the Glenn Highway, having started down it and then turned around because the road was so bad the year before. The road in is rough, but it was virtually deserted on a Monday and very scenic with a great view of the lake. The Point Lodge (private lodge with mainly hunters and locals with cabins on the lake) is a short walk away, and we went to investigate, then went back for breakfast the next morning (open Tues-Fri) before leaving. We liked #13, and #s 19-30 have to be registered online.
After breakfast, we left for Paxon (pop. 10) and the intersection with the Denali Highway, only 71 miles but very slow due to terrible road conditions and construction. The first 21 miles of the highway are paved - sort of, lots of potholes, but amazing scenery right from the start - stayed at BLM Tangle Lakes Campground.
First, a bit about the Denali Highway. It is 134 miles long and links Paxon on the Richardson Highway with Cantwell on the Parks Highway (a bit below entrance to Denali National Park.) When the Denali Highway opened in 1957, it was the only road link to Denali National Park & Preserve until the Parks Highway was built in 1972. The first 21 miles and last 3 miles are paved, and the rest is gravel with varied conditions along the way - slow going, but that way you get to look around!
The Tangle Lakes Archaeological District encompasses 226,000 acres with more than 500 archaeological sites documenting prehistoric man's lives. The Milepost Book, a must-have travelogue for traveling Alaska says, "For more than 10,000 years, hunter-gatherers have dug roots, picked berries, fished and hunted big game (primarily caribou) in this area." We hiked up to a knob on a trail here and had a show from two fighter jets -they evidently practice here and fly low to practice bombing raids. It was pretty phenomenal - they really are stealth fighters - you see them first, and the sound follows. They tipped their wings to us on one of their turns around.
From the top of the knob looking down at Tangle Lakes
More days to come!
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