Here’s the complete route map I followed from Pompano Beach, Florida to Denali National Park (Cantwell), Alaska. This page still has the interactive version. Total distance for this trip: 6923.8 miles.

Spent a wonderful day riding the shuttle bus out to Wonder Lake in Denali. Got there at 7am after stopping for a boxed lunch that I’d called in the night before at a cafe close by and some coffee. Once there I grabbed my prepaid ticket and boarded. I was a bit late getting there so it was back of the bus for me. Worked out OK because I had the seat to myself pretty much all day.

The bus ride took about 10 hours so there was plenty of time to see everything. The weather was predictably cloudy and wet and although that kept the landscape pictures down, there were still some good opportunities to get pictures of wildlife. The way it works on the shuttle bus is if you see something worth stopping for (animals) you yell, “Stop!” to the driver and they’ll hit the brakes and back up to where the action was. 5 minutes into the ride some guy yells it out and we all peer outside to see what out first viewing of the day would be. It was a tree. That guy never said a word for the rest of the trip.

It didn’t take long for us to rack up some good actual wildlife sightings. We ended up seeing 2 sow grizzlies with 2 cubs each, a bunch of Dall sheep, lots of moose (with antlers this time!), caribou (with antlers) and even a fox.

The bull moose sighting was the best one because I was the one who yelled out, “Stop!”. Got props from the bus driver for that one. On the way back we stopped at the visitor center which sits at about the half way point and the rain had turned to snow and the temperature read 35 F.

Randy, my shuttle bus driver for the day, came out and picked me up and after a pit stop at the store for food we headed back here. Of course its still raining out so my relaxing evening is shot. I’ve kind of planned my spots for the next couple nights but I’m pretty much going to head south until I get out of here because Alaska’s weather is too much fun for me.

Update: Stuck my Denali pictures up this morning. They are pretty awful. Distance and rain make for bad pictures. Oh well. Still glad I got to come up here.

08/22 Made it off the Denali Highway in one piece. The last 40 miles was very rough but the scenery more than made up for the frequent jolts. No lodges or anything today so I was on my own as far as food. Feeling a little better today but my throat is still a bit sore. I lucked out with the weather. Had a tiny bit of rain when I left this morning but it stayed dry for the rest of the day.

Staying at the Cantwell RV Park tonight and again tomorrow night. At 7:15am tomorrow I have a reservation for the shuttle bus out to Wonder Lake in Denali National Park. 13 hours round trip. At least I don’t have to worry about my butt being sore from sitting so long. I’m so looking forward to this. They have a shuttle out of here so I can skip the ride to the park. I would have liked to have ridden into the park but time isn’t on my side anymore. Frost is a nightly occurrence and the leaves are starting to change. I need to be heading south with the birds ASAP.

Went and had dinner at a bar about 2 miles up the road. Met Chet and Char, RV’s who are up here from Wisconsin. They are staying at the RV park too. Chet was kind enough to pick up dinner for me which was awesome. Hopefully they’ll be on the bus tour with me tomorrow so I’ll have someone to talk to.

As far as Mt. McKinley goes I probably did see it today but since I didn’t know what to look for I ended up taking pictures of some other mountain that wasn’t it. So it better be nice tomorrow or I’m going to be irked.

GPX Track

08/21 Since today is the 21st that means I’ve been riding for exactly six months now. Yikes. It kind of just seems like this is my life now which is weird. I like it though.

For the 2nd time on my trip I went and caught a cold. Last night my nose and throat were killing me. I probably had a fever too but its hard to tell when its 35 F. I know who it was too. Some old guy sneezed when he walked by me while I was eating in Paxson. I feel better today but when this happened last time it seems like I was under the weather for a few days.

Needless to say I didn’t make it to Cantwell and was kind of dragging all day. Only managed about 40 miles. To make matters worse the road went to hell at mile 70. By hell I mean very loose gravel and many areas that were extremely bumpy (washboarded for those that know what a rookie grater driver can do). That kept my speed down and did a great job of popping my front panniers off. Not all the way off; just the back clip. I suppose popping off like that is better than snapping off so maybe it was a good thing. My front fender also kept rubbing up against the tire and annoying me so in a fit of anger I stopped and practically tore it off. Of course for the next 15 minutes I had to unbend it and try to get it back on (succeeded). Sometimes I can be pretty stupid.

Broke my record for chocolate bars prices. Paid $2.50 each for 3 of them. That was at Alpine Lodge. They had wifi so I posted yesterdays entry from there. The best part was 15 miles further I stopped at another lodge and they were $1. I’ll have to look up the name of the second place because the co-owner was really nice. Carrol I think her name was (her husband is Butch). She’s looking to sell the place after 53 years because business is down so much and they want to travel more anyway.

For several reasons I’m really hoping it doesn’t cloud over and/or start raining until late tomorrow. Seeing Mt. McKinley is somewhat rare from what I’ve heard because clouds usually obscure it. Riding on this gravel in the rain will suck. If I’m still sick it will suck even more.

Boy do I have a sweet camping spot tonight. The view is of the Alaska Range and it’s incredible. The terrain changed from tundra back to alpine so there are trees again (pine mostly) and they dot the valley below along with lots of small lakes and a river. All of the riding today was on the side of mountains so I stopped a few times to admire the scenery. Saw a couple caribou and that was about it for wildlife. They have lots of room to roam up here so I was surprised to see any.

GPX Track