Alaska News

Denali Highway snow clearing begins early for bridge maintenance

The Denali Highway, one of the state's most popular winter recreation areas, is getting cleared roughly two weeks earlier than usual.

Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities spokeswoman Meadow Bailey said crews would begin clearing one of the road's two lanes starting Wednesday. The clearing will begin on the Cantwell side of the road all the way to the Susitna River Bridge at Mile 80 of the highway. Bailey said the early efforts aren't necessarily the result of the low-snow year but instead an effort to get early access to the bridge in order to perform maintenance.

The 135-mile, mostly unpaved road that connects the small communities of Paxson and Cantwell between the Richardson and Parks highways isn't maintained for cars during the winter and instead turns into a recreational paradise for snowmachiners, dog mushers and other outdoor adventure seekers. This year, with little snow in Southcentral Alaska, the area roughly 200 miles north of Anchorage has become one of Alaska's largest winter playgrounds.

Bailey said crews generally begin clearing the road around April 15 from the Paxson side over, finishing roughly a month later. She said crews are going in early so the bridge will be ready to drive on when the road is fully cleared for summer travelers by May 15.

The other lane of the two-lane highway will remain snow-covered for those looking to recreate in the region, but expect traveling along it to be "pretty difficult," according to Claude Bondy, owner of the Alpine Creek Lodge.

While snowmachiners and others hoping to use the road to get into the backcountry will still be able to navigate the road, Bondy said it might be easier to ride off-trail given the large berms created by plowing the road.

Bondy, who operates his lodge year-round at Mile 68, said he's been telling riders to expect the clearing to be closer to two lanes of the road, not leaving a lot of excess room for people to ride.

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"When they say one lane it never really turns into one lane," Bondy said. "Once they start putting the blades down it becomes two lanes."

Still, he's expecting plenty of visitors over the next few weeks. He said he has snowmachine bookings lined up through the end of April, though that's not as late as other years, when they've been able to ride into May. Bondy said the lodge only has 6 to 8 feet of snow right now, down from the typical 18 to 24 feet.

Bondy noted that even with the relatively early road opening, the road clearing process is "incredibly variable." He said after the record Southcentral snowfall in 2012, road crews didn't get to his lodge until May and the entire road wasn't opened until June 2012.

Suzanna Caldwell

Suzanna Caldwell is a former reporter for Alaska Dispatch News and Alaska Dispatch. She left the ADN in 2017.

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