Driving the Chena Loop
Photos & Story by Carmen
We call it the Chena Loop. We leave Anchorage northbound on the Parks Highway to Chena Hot Springs, then return south on the Richardson and Glenn Highways. We cross the Alaska Range through four scenic passes. With any luck, we see ever-changing vistas including wildlife, wildflowers, lakes, rivers, and rugged mountains. If you are considering flying to Alaska and taking a tour in a rented RV, we highly recommend the Chena Loop.
Our luck has not been so good the last couple of years. We attempted the Loop in September of 2007, only to encounter the wrath of the ThunderMoose (read about this moose-motorcycle close encounter). We did manage the Loop during Labor Day Weekend of 2008, but the trip was a bit rushed and COLD, with ice forming on the puddles at night.
Northbound on the Parks Highway
This year we traveled the week after 4th of July thinking maybe everyone else would stay home having just celebrated a holiday. My son Jameson rode his Suzuki GSX 1300R Hayabusa (aka the Hiyamoosa) and his friend Brent was on a Honda CBR1100XX Blackbird. Lydia, Brent’s wife, rode with me in the chase vehicle this year, since she's seven months pregnant. The weather was unusually warm, with high haziness due to fires burning in the Interior. (Interior: The center portion of Alaska, north of the Alaska Range and south of the Brooks Range. Fairbanks is the "Golden Heart" of the Interior.)
We stopped at the lovely state campground at Byer’s Lake (Mile 147) for lunch. Besides great camping, there’s a hike with a suspension bridge (think Indiana Jones) 1 mile out and a cool cascade at 1.6 miles. Temperatures were in the 80’s and the usually frigid lake looked unusually inviting, so we went for a swim after lunch. We met a group of kayakers who had rented kayaks from Denali Southside River Guides. They looked like they were having loads of fun!
From Byer’s Lake, we wound our way up the Chulitna River Valley to take a break in Broad Pass. This wide mountain pass is one of our favorite places in Alaska: on a clear day, you see Mt. McKinley (20,320’) to the southwest and Mt. Deborah (12,339’) to the northeast, with smaller peaks all around. The pass is just above tree line so the view is unobstructed in all directions. Unfortunately, there was too much smoke for us to see any but the nearer peaks.
At the summit of Broad Pass (elev. 2,409’), we crossed a divide, leaving behind the Susitna River drainage to the south and entering the Yukon-Tanana River drainage to the north. We passed the entrance to Denali National Park with the many restaurants, hotels, and tour companies that have grown up in the area. Just beyond is narrow Windy Pass, with a high bridge (174’ drop) over the Nenana River that brought us out on the north side of the Alaska Range. Here the smoke was much thicker and gave the sun a reddish cast. The temperatures were in the high 80s. We camped for the night at Anderson, 5 miles off the Parks Highway near Clear Air Force Station (Mile 283.5). You can see Mt. McKinley from here, but smoke obscured the view and kept all but a couple of other campers from enjoying this spacious 616 acre campground. Between the heat and the smoke, we were beginning to know how kippered salmon feel!
The wind shifted during the night and gave some relief from the intense smokiness.We could now see the actual plume of smoke rising from the Minto Flats fire. At Nenana (Mile 304.5), we tried to buy ice but learned that all the output of the ice machine was going to the Hotshot Fire Crews. Well, we certainly didn’t begrudge them the ice!
Nenana is where where the Nenana River flows into the Tanana. (My sister and I once took bananas there, just so we could say we’d had a banana on the bank of the Tanana in Nenana. Unfortunately, Tanana is accented on the first syllable and ruins the rhyme.) This is home to the Nenana Ice Classic, a lottery to guess the exact time the ice will go out on the Tanana River. At the visitor center, we saw the black and white tripod that measures official movement of the ice.
Relaxing at the Top of the Chena Loop
Another hour’s drive brought us to Fairbanks (Mile 362). We’d heard about an nice frisbee golf (or frolf) course at the Birch Hill Ski area, so we took time out for 9 holes. By this time it was 92°F out. Yikes!
About half way out the Chena Hot Springs Road, we stopped at Rosehip Campground for lunch. There are a couple of nice hikes along this road: the 15-mile Granite Tors loop hike and Angel Rocks, which can be a shorter hike to the rocks and back, or a 7-mile ridge-walk ending at the hot springs. This valley was the site of a wildfire in 2002. We saw a beautiful field of fireweed, so named because it is one of the first things to grow after a fire.
We set up our camp for the night at Chena Hot Springs Resort. There are lots of fun activities available, but we headed straight for the water. The resort has a lovely, well-maintained outdoor rock pool. Because the air was also hot, we spent more time in the cooler indoor pool than usual. That night, it seemed that the ThunderMoose had found us. Heavy rain fell, lightning flashed, thunder boomed and rolled -- but our motorcylces were safely parked and the day dawned fair but blessedly cooler.
After another session in the pools, we dawdled out of Chena Hots Springs, now thoroughly relaxed. We only made it about an hour south of Fairbanks on the Richardson Highway to Harding Lake Campground (Mile 321.5) before stopping for the night.
Southbound on the Richardson and Glenn Highways
The next day, we followed the Tanana southward, finally crossing at Delta Junction (Mile 266), where we continued south on the Richardson while the Tanana and Alaska Highway turned eastward. We drove up the National Wild and Scenic Delta River while Mt. Hess (11,940’) and Mt. Hayes (13,832’) played peek-a-boo from the clouds. The 800-mile Trans Alaska Pipeline played peek-a-boo, too -- above ground here, buried there. I love this part of the drive, where there is less traffic. The Parks Highway is the shorter route from Anchorage to Fairbanks with wider shoulders, gentler curves, and easier slopes, so the Richardson is much quieter.
In mid-afternoon, we stopped in Isabel Pass (elev. 3,280’). Lydia and I took to the roadside ditch with Verna Pratt’s wildflower book and spend a pleasant interlude identifying flowers. We saw Fireweed, Eskimo Potato, Bluebells, Larkspur, Northern Goldenrod, Witlow Grass, Milkvetch, Siberian Aster, Grass of Parnassas, Cow Parsnip, Yarrow, and Goatsbeard. Who knew that a roadside ditch could be such a garden?
At Paxson (Mile 185.5), we drove a short way along the Denali Highway to camp at small lake. Again, the mild weather invited swimming. We’ve never been this clean on a camping trip before! We didn’t see another soul the entire night and we were above tree line so the views were great.
The next morning found us winding through the high country toward Glennallen (Mile 115), catching glimpses of Mt. Drum (12,010’) in the Wrangell-St. Elias Mountains. At Glennallen, we turned onto the Glenn Highway for the final 187 miles of our trip. Before long we began to see a lot of bicyclists and realized we’d caught the Fireweed 400 bike race. Jamey and Brent had to get out their rain gear for a brief but violent cloudburst, during which we felt very sorry for the racers. The rain passed while we had lunch at a favorite pullout just past Eureka Summit (Mile 129.5, elev. 3,322’). (Ha, ThunderMoose, is that the best you can do?)
South of Eureka, we plunged into Sheep Mountain Pass, where the road winds along the mountainside -- sometimes high, sometimes low -- passing by Matanuska Glacier and then following the Matanuska River to Cook Inlet. My husband had called to warn us that the river was on a rampage due to warm temperatures causing more snow melt than usual. The river, always turbulent, was a wild torrent and had threatened to take out part of the road. Fortunately, crews had reinforced the danger zone with sand bags. Before we knew it, we were back in Anchorage and our lazy, leisurely Loop Trip was complete.