Saturday Night on Greer Road

From The Bluff

Pretties

A Weekend at MacDonald Spit--Lazy Monday

Morning coffee on the deck.

Low tide on Kasitsna Bay.

The tranquil stillness of the mist.

Fog-bow on the front beach.

A veil of fog shrouds McKeon Flats as we pass on our way to harbor

Inside the Homer Harbor, the Coast Guard and the Time Bandit share a float

A Weekend at MacDonald Spit--Evening Ambience

The peaks of Mt. Iliamna and Mt. Redoubt rise above the marine stratus on Cook Inlet.

The sun slips over the western edge of the world...


Brief colors too subtle for names...

Twilight over Kasitsna Bay and the boats are riding easy at anchor.

A Weekend at MacDonald Spit--Beach Walk

Walking up the inside beach toward Nubble Point

At the head of Kasitsna Bay

Breaking trail across to the outside beach

The outside beach and the twisted red rock of Nubble Point

Mt. Iliamna watches over lower Cook Inlet

A Weekend at MacDonald Spit--A Cabin By The Sea

The welcoming walk


The cabin of many memories...


Kasitsna Bay scene--the inside beach


Coming to shore


Crabbers walking up the beach


Memories of sunnier days...

On The Denali Highway - Part Three

Denali Highway in the Susitna River valley.


Rusty Hill on the Upper Susitna River.


Upper Susitna Valley view.


Subarctic ground cover--now with lingonberries!


Monahan Flats divides the Susitna and Nenana drainages. Here the watersheds diverge--one to Cook Inlet and the other to the Yukon.


Occasional showers hid the view from time to time, but we had a nice rainbow in the Nenana drainage.


Fall colors and gravel moraines--the Denali Highway not far from Cantwell.

On The Denali Highway--Part Two

It was already autumn on the alpine tundra.


The highway descends from Maclaren Summit (4086 ft) into the Maclaren River drainage.


We ran out of pavement a while back but the gravel road was in great condition.


Fall colors and gravel slopes.


Crossing the Susitna River.


The high tundra was already wearing fall colors.

On The Denali Highway--Part One

In a state with few roads, the Denali Highway is one of the lesser traveled. The road grew out of a series of hunting and mining trails in the high country of the Alaska Range. These eventual grew into a rough road that connected Denali National Park with the Richardson Highway--which at that time was the only north-south road route in the state.

When the Parks Highway--connecting Anchorage and Fairbanks--was completed in 1971, the Denali Highway became a less-travelled alternate route. Since then, the mostly-unpaved road has been a favorite way for Alaskans to get away from the crowds and into the wilderness.

We first (and last) drove the Denali in 1983. We had the chance to do it again and took it.


On the Denali Highway just west of Paxton



Many pothole lakes dot the Tangle Lakes region of the Denali Highway.


Landmark Gap is a migration route through the Ampitheater mountains.





High tundra and low clouds in the Ampitheater Mountains.



This quiet-looking pond is actually a geological point of interest. Construction on the roadbed cut through the tundra protecting an ice lens, which subsequently melted, leaving a collapsed mound and a pond.



Entering Crazy Notch Gap, cut by glacial melt water through an older esker. "Esker" is a word you learn while driving the Denali. Ninety miles to Cantwell...



"Intruder Alert!" signals this caribou, with whom we briefly share the road coming out of Crazy Notch Gap. When alarmed, they raise their tails, exposing a white patch like an exclaimation mark that signals others nearby.