Kaleb Leithead

#TravelTuesday with Guest Photographer Bob Wick to A Road Less Traveled – The Denali Highway in Alaska.

Between 1957 and 1971, the Denali Highway was the only route to Denali National Park.  The partly paved but mostly gravel surface road was then replaced by the more direct Parks Highway, which shortened the drive from Anchorage.  For those who don’t mind slowing down, and who agree that the journey is as rewarding as the destination, the Denali Highway is right for you and will reaffirm your view and more! The route parallels the southern flank of the Alaska Range with glacier-clad peaks rising to 12,000 feet. At Maclaren Summit, the road climbs above 4,000 feet into vast rolling tundra and is the second highest roaded pass in the state.  

Photographers will find it difficult to choose what subjects to focus on with each mile revealing outstanding scenery as well as wildlife and bird viewing opportunities.  Numerous waterfowl including trumpeter swans can be seen in the lakes, and caribou and moose are included among the wildlife. Fishing is excellent for grayling and lake trout if you focus on clear streams and lakes. The BLM maintains two developed campgrounds along the highway and two more along the nearby Galkana Wild and Scenic River.  Both the Galkana and Delta offer multi-day boat trips into remote settings. This is a stretch of wild Alaska that is pretty much unspoiled, relatively accessible and drop-dead beautiful.

Photo tip: The adage “the golden hour” describes the hour or so near sunrise and sunset where light angles are low and photos take on their richest quality. In Alaska, with its low light angles, this timeframe is multiplied several fold, and photographers have many hours of golden light to work with.  Use this extra time to scout the perfect locations and get additional angles.

#TravelTuesday Recap! 

Last week, we wrapped up our #TravelTuesday with Guest Photographer Bob Wick winter series.  Each #TravelTuesday post featured beautiful BLM landscapes, with helpful hints for travel planning.  Check out each featured travel location through the links below.

California’s Humboldt Coast

Colorado’s Alpine Loop National Backcountry Byway 

Northern Arizona’s Vermilion Cliffs

Retrace Wyoming’s Historic Emigrant Trails 

Southeastern Utah’s Red-Rock Riches 

Northwest Oregon’s BLM Wilds 

Day Trips Near the Vegas Strip 

Montana’s Upper Missouri River Breaks Country  

New Mexico’s Rio Grande del Norte National Monument 

Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse Outstanding Natural Area – A Quiet Oasis in Urban Southern Florida 

Idaho’s Canyon Country 

A Road Less Traveled - The Denali Highway in Alaska 

Honoring Trailblazing Women at the BLM

In recognition of women’s history month, we are featuring three trailblazing women who were the first in their field at the BLM: Elaine (Mosher) Pearsons, Lynell Schalk, and Caroline Peters. 

Click below to learn more about the careers of these exceptional women who broke barriers in the 1960s and 70s.

Here is a dump of my favorite Muir quotes to commemorate this day:

“This is one of the still, hushed ripe days when we might heat the beating of nature’s heart”

“Of all the paths you walk in life, make sure a few of them are dirt”

“The world is big, and I want to get a good look at it before it gets dark”

“You may be a little cold some nights, on mountain tops about timberline, but you will see the stars, and by and by you can sleep enough in your town bed, or at least in your grave. Keep awake while you can in mountain mansions so rare”

“I’d rather be in the mountains thinking of God, than in church thinking about the mountains”

“Nature is always lovely, invincible, glad, whatever is done and suffered by her creatures, all scars she heals, whether in rocks or water or sky or hearts”

“Few places in this world are more dangerous than home. Fear not, therefore, to try the mountain passes. They will kill care, save you from deadly apathy, set you free, and call forth every faculty into vigorous, enthusiastic action”

“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storm’s their energy, care will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn”

“The sun shines not on us, but in us”

“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees”

“I am losing the precious days. I am degenerating into a machine for making money. I am learning nothing in this trivial world of men. I must break away and get out into the mountains to learn the news”

“Keep close to nature’s heart…. and break clear away once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean”

“As long as I live, I’ll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing. I’ll interpret the rocks, learn the language of flood, storm, and the avalanche. I’ll acquaint myself with the glaciers and wild gardens, and get as near the heart of the world as I can.”

“Who wouldn’t want to be a mountaineer! Up here all the world’s prizes seem nothing”

On Glacier National Park: “Give at least a month to this precious reserve. The time will not be taken from the sum of your life. Instead of shortening, it will indefinitely lengthen it and make you truly immortal. Nevermore will time seem short or long, and cares will never again fall heavily on you, but gently and kindly as gifts from Heaven”

On Yellowstone National Park: “…healing, reviving, exhilarating, kept pure by frost and fire, while the scenery is wild enough to awaken the dead”

“The question comes up ‘What are rattlesnakes good for?’ As if nothing that does not obviously make for the benefit of man had any right to exist: as if our ways were God’s ways… Anyway they are all, head and tail, good for themselves, and we need not begrudge them their share of life”

After trying to describe Yosemite: “I can write only to incite good wanderers to come to the feast”

“Even the blind must enjoy these woods, drinking their fragrance, listening to the music of the woods in their groves, and fingering the flowers and plumes and cones in their richly furrowed boles” (I love this because I always forget to use my other senses outside)

43°45'43.4"S 170°07'17.2"E

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