Denali Highway

Day 23

7/13/26 Monday

Mosquito count: yes there are mosquitos today. Sometimes thick and annoying.

Cool early morning a little over 50’f.  Very calm at breakfast but the wind came up as we were leaving mid morning and now it feels cold. 

As we depart camp looking for tonight’s stop around mile 20 (we are on mile 7) it’s chilly, light drizzle with sun trying to break through now and then. 

The vegetation in here is all tundra covered. There are willows, cranberry bush, bog blueberry and Labrador tea. The spruce trees are just occasional now. This is caribou country in winter. There are signs for caribou subsistence hunting areas. This area also is a designated archaeological site. There’s evidence of humans living here 10,000 years ago! There’s animals, berries and plants in the tundra and plenty of water so it makes sense they would be here.

Kettle lakes abound the valley. These are lakes left by melting glaciers… potholes of different sizes.

There are still small patches of snow on some north facing slopes. The temp has dropped to 45’.

We are camped at BLM Tangle Lakes campground. At this time of day there are only a few campers… we are early. 

We’ve dashed our plan to bicycle. The trail we identified to hike has been closed due to a bear cache somewhere near the trail. I had to satisfy myself with a walk to the lake boat ramp and then around the campground. It feels cool and cloudy and sometimes rainy just like a July on the Scottish Isle of Islay.

After hanging for a while seeing what the weather was going to do we decided to hike this ATV trail just a couple of miles up the road.

Landmark Gap Trail. The trail is multi-use. You can use an ATV, mountain bike or walk it. It was about 2 miles into a small lake. It was a reasonably flat trail but loaded with stones and some muddy low spots. The trail runs through the tundra terrain and nearby was a small creek running from the lake. It’s called Landmark Gap because of the caribou migration that comes through every year. Without being able to see the Alaska Range beyond the gap because of low clouds, we are pretty sure it would be a pretty spectacular view! We had a few muddy trenches to rock hop through and around

We encountered a tiny baby ptarmigan on the trail. Then suddenly mama showed up and made a big show with her wings to distract us and started scrambling down the trail. You’ll need to go to the website to see the videos.

We did encounter a few UTV’s while we were walking. One came by us a few times ferrying camping equipment and people. We did notice a big camp at the bottom of the lake. They passed us four times coming and going. Then another couple of fishermen older guys. They weren’t bombing the trail… moving nice and easy. It would have been hard to go fast with all the bumpy rocks and muddy spots. So they weren’t very noisy and they were all friendly. Just “mature adults” going camping and fishing.

Wildflower collection. I really enjoyed the wildflowers while we were walking so I photographed several along the way. I tried looking them up but some may not be accurate. Help me out if I’m wrong.

Tomorrow we probably will move a little further along the scenic highway. (120 miles total). We spotted a couple more trails… maybe hike or mountain bike. The weather will be a mixed bag like today. So we shall see what happens. We have scrapped the plan to drive to Fairbanks. It’s too far at this point. We have our sights on Anchorage and Kenai peninsula by the end of this week.

We did have a nice dinner tonight. I had premade some brisket that we had frozen and sealed so we had that with some roasted veggies. I have a little oven (like an easy bake oven) that can air fry. Tasty😊.