Northern Lights from the Denali Highway Mile 134

Well, if you’re into checking Map Quest the distance from Anchorage to Cantwell is listed as 210 miles taking about 3 and a half hours. As visibility decreased coming out of Anchorage and snow flurries blew across the road, we knew the miles would seem longer and the time would be more than predicted. After the first hundred miles the road was snow covered with two tire tracks heading north and two tire tracks heading south. Meet a semi and there was a short-lived ground blizzard to be dealt with. Long and short, the trip we (myself and photographer Mike Kenney) expected to be chocked full of gorgeous scenery was still pretty but less than the scenic we expected.

We were rewarded with “scenic” around suppertime. The cloud cover dissipated leaving the sky filled with stars, moon and northern lights. This all happened as we headed toward the Cantwell Lodge for a burger. Never mind eating, we need to shoot the lights. It was a nice display that was all too soon clouded over.