Hello to you all,
We're planning a trip to Alaska in late July- early August.
Our plan includes spending 3 days (2 nights) in Denali national park, stay at some cabins outside the park, and each day take the shuttle into the park and wonder around.
After that we would like to drive on the Denali Highway towards Paxon, Glennallen and especially towards Wrangel St. Elias NP.
My questions are about the Denali Highway:
1) How long will it take to "cross" from Denali NP to Paxon, considering we're stopping and enjoying the scenery around that road?
2) Is it logical to start the day in Denali NP (let's say leave on 8am) and finish it in Copper Center? or is it to much to drive?
3)Where should we stay for the night for this plan, if not in Copper?

Please consider that we have a Toyota Corolla, and not a 4X4 WD....\
Thank you in advance!

Ziv.

anyone?

Most people seem to be unaware of what the Denali Highway is. Many apparently think it is the park road within Denali National Park, or even Alaska Route 3, the George Parks Highway, typically used to drive to Denali.

For information on driving times on the real Denali Highway, just look them up on Mapquest or similar on line services. If they route you another way, just manipulate the inputs to show Cantwell to Paxson, and at some point you'll have your information. Driving times won't really vary much for different kinds of vehicles. Mapquest shows 5 hours, 11 minutes, for Cantwell to Paxson; this can be determined by checking the "shortest distance" option.

I'm planning to drive this route this summer with a rental car, without worrying too much about rental car restrictions. I'm looking at an 11-hour drive time from McKinley Park to McCarthy, which is further than what you have in mind.

Much of the Old Denali Highway is a dirt/gravel road. (most of it appears on street view on Google maps, and you can get a good idea of it by viewing and going along the road for a few miles in street view mode). We did some of it in a 4WD rental Ford Explorer a few years ago, and still got a flat tire. I'd carefully consider taking something other than a 4WD all the way across it. LOT of potholes, and washboard that really shook the SUV up. You'll need to go pretty slow on a lot of it in a Corolla (or similar).

And I would look carefully at the restrictions on any rental agreement. In our case, the rental agreement said we could not go "off road" in the rental. (Don't remember which company.)

I had specifically asked several of the companies if they allowed you on the Denali highway, and a couple said no, and at least the one I took said yes (because it is a marked highway, if only dirt and gravel).

I also checked my AMEX rental car protection (which I took for this rental), which I tihnk had an "off road" restriction. And I figured it was on a road -- since it is a published highway in Alaska.

That being said, it was a very scenic route -- lots of great scenery.

Oh, and great soup and muffins at Gracious House lodge.

I didn't drive that highway in AK, but I do have this book and think it would be very helpful for you

http://www.amazon.com/Milepost-2012-.../dp/1892154293

I'll just chime in with the others. The Denali Highway is far from a "highway". It's a dirt road, not maintained in winter, and very primitive. Doing it in a rented Toyota Corolla is foolhardy at best.

contrary to the post above I absolutely would not use something like MapQuest for accurate driving times within Alaska. the mileage on such sites is often correct but driving times are very very low compared to actual driving times.

as was mentioned above check the rental car contract and be sure you are willing to accept any and all liability for damage to the car if you violate the rental contract.

As far as I know, Alaska is in the northern hemisphere, where it is summer during July and August, the months of OP's proposed travel.

This is Alaska State Highway Route 6. Not that long ago, many state and provincial highways in Alaska and the Yukon were unpaved. Before 1971, people routinely drove to McKinley Park on this highway. Routine driving on unpaved roads at slow speeds does not cause vehicle damage. Most flat tires occur on paved roads.

I would venture to make an educated guess that now that the other paved highway up to Denali is done, that they don't do a heck of a lot of maintenance on the old Denali Highway anymore (i.e., any new gravel, filling in particularly bad potholes, regular grading, etc.) But it's not entirely a guess -- I drove it a few years ago, in mid August.

There were a few washouts across the entire span of the road, which a regular car would have had a hard time crossing -- we were scraping the ground clearance in our rented Ford Explorer on some of the bumps.

We drove the portion we did for about 7 hours (3 hours in, hour for lunch, 3 hours out, stopping for a lot of photos), and saw 2 or maybe 3 other cars (they were all pickup trucks or SUVs ) in that time period.

Most flat tires do occur on paved roads, because almost all driving these days in most areas occurs on paved roads. I would bet, however, that on a per-mile basis, more flat tires occur on the unpaved Denali highway than on a per mile basis on the George Parks highway).

BTW -- my wife's uncle used to be a Mountie up in Yellowknife for many many years. Retired now.

I can assure you I am very well versed on driving Northern roads. I was simply recommending not driving a rented Toyota Corolla, of all vehicles, on a back road that may or may not violate his rental contract.

Also, it's Alaska Route 8.

Very good!

If a state highway is only passable by four-wheel-drive vehicles, it would be reasonable to assume that ADOT would post signs at the starting points with a notice to that effect. Or, if the route is really bad, then it should be removed as a state-numbered route.

Driving slowly on unpaved roads usually is a sufficient precaution. On the other hand, the unpaved provincial highways in the Yukon that I drove on in 1986 were good for 60mph...and were much smoother than paved highways in Alaska with their dreaded frost heaves.