Robert Lake Scenic Turnout Denali Highway Paxson, Alaska Day 2

After a small amount of rain last evening, the temperatures plummeted.  We packed the car for today’s adventure and it was 48 degrees and cloudy.

Fairly soon after we left Tim pulled over so that I could take a picture of some kettle ponds.  These ponds are formed when chunks of buried glacier melt.  I was just saying that kettle ponds are common places for moose to hang out…and there in the scrubby bushes was a moose.  She looks itty bitty in this picture, but these animals are massive!  Females can be 800 pounds and bulls can be as much as 1,600 pounds.

A short distance later we passed by a peat bog.  There we saw a mama moose and a calf and another moose as well.  Driving further, a moose crossed the road in front of us.  We also saw several pair of nesting trumpeter swans.

Beaver are so plentiful here.  Each small lake or pond has it’s requisite beaver den or lodge.

We went off-road on Maclaren River Road.  We had read that it was 14 miles to get to the Maclaren Glacier.

Here the water along the road is higher than the road surface.  This is because of this beaver dam.  It is built with sticks and rocks and mud.

We saw this helicopter hauling some kind of materials into the backcountry.  It made several trips while we were out exploring.

We got to the Maclaren River about 4 miles from the main road.  It was deep and fast moving…there was no way to connect with the rest of the road on the other side…it was just too treacherous!

As we headed back to the main road a young man stopped to ask us about the condition of the trail.  He and his girlfriend had been camping in a GMC van.  They were going to hike to the glacier…going the same way from which we had come.  We tried to dissuade them, telling them that we wouldn’t risk crossing in the Jeep and that they shouldn’t try to hike across the river…hopefully they took our advice to heart!

Back out on the highway the road follows an esker.  We had heard that word before but were unsure what it meant.  An esker is the silt and sand and rock and boulders that are carried along underneath the glacier, essentially what is left behind.

This huge cloud bank came between the mountains at a pass.  There it stopped.  It was suspended above us as we traveled along.

We descended into the Susitna River Valley.  We returned to the place where we camped with Kyle and then we went off-road again on the Valdez Creek Road.  We had lunch there.  We think that it is a popular moose lunch spot as well.  There were lots of hoof prints and lots of moose poop!

This is Landmark Gap.  In the next week or so, the caribou will begin to migrate south from the tundra to the boreal forest where they will overwinter.  They may walk as far as 400 miles.  The caribou come by the thousands through this gap in the mountains.  We wish we could be here to see that!  We are noticing cooler temperatures, yellowing of leaves and darker periods during the night.  Winter is on the way.  In some places roads will begin to close because of snow in September!

It was a dreary and raw kind of day with intermittent rain but that didn’t deter us from our touring.