When a Road Closes in Alaska…

… the workaround can be mighty long.

We were getting set to leave our lodge just outside Denali National Park on Saturday morning when we got word from the hotel office that the main highway from Fairbanks to Anchorage had washed out to the south of us. (The Anchorage paper that I’m linking ran a great aerial photograph of the washout in their Sunday paper, but unfortunately, I can’t find it on the web.)

Now, Alaska is not known for the breadth of its road system, so this meant that what would have been a 240-mile drive back to Anchorage became longer. Much, much longer. 550 files to be precise. The next nearest route was to go north 120 miles to Fairbanks, then east 100 miles to Delta Junction, then start heading south. (See map.)

We did make it into Anchorage, but it wasn’t until midnight.