Holiday Cycling Adventures

2005 - Denali Highway

Visited on 17 July 2005.

© 2006

After visiting Denali National Park we continued our cycling trip via the Denali Highway (Alaska Route 8). The Denali Highway is a 135-mile (218 km), mostly gravel highway in Alaska. It leads from Paxson on the Richardson Highway to Cantwell on the Parks Highway. Opened in 1957, it was the first road access to Denali National Park (then known as Mount McKinley National Park). Since 1971, primary park access has been via the Parks Highway, which incorporated a section of the Denali Highway from Cantwell to the present-day park entrance.

The highway is now little used and poorly maintained, and closed to all traffic from October to mid-May each year. Only the easternmost 21.3 miles and westernmost 2.6 miles are paved. This makes cycling on some parts very hard. But the scenery is very beautiful and therefor worth a visit.