Souvenirs From The Road: Talkeetna and the Mat-Su Valley

Mat-Su Valley Area

June 29 – Day 59 and we are leaving Denali behind! It was good, much shorter than I had planned for, but us girls are thinking that the guys are ready to do some fishing. Now….trying to figure out the fishing here and all the regulations it is such red tape! Patience!

We found the Mat-Su Campground between the Talkeetna cut-off and Willow. It is quiet and pretty nice for a gravel parking area. We will make it our home base for a while so we can tour and see what’s in this area. We had a great fish fry tonight, thanks to the Gregurek’s!

June 30 – Day 60 Today we chose to stay behind and explore, canoe and fish while our friends rode the train from Talkeetna to Hurricane Ridge. We were still feeling stiff from a lack of exercise and the bus ride a couple of days ago. 7 hours just seemed long – but they did have a really great time on it! So recommend it if you are in the area. We packed up the fishing gear and headed out for the Talkeetna lakes. Found a winner with Christianson Lake. Launched the canoe. And I absolutely loved it when I caught a fairly big rainbow trout and almost got scared when it started turning the canoe and pulling it! A fun fight for sure!

The "captain" and our fishing boat!

Beautiful lake for a little canoeing!

First fish to put in the freezer!

We then drove to town to listen to the music on the square that they have on Friday’s. Their style here is a little bit different from the Texas country sounds we like and appreciate. There were lots of women doing the “butterfly catcher” dance, for lack of better descriptions. And they really liked “hopping”. I am sure these locals just love to celebrate the warmth of the sun. We also stopped for a birch syrup taste testing and tour. Now that was interesting – and good! After dinner we stayed outside talking until about midnight. This darned old daylight! Fools you!

Downtown Talkeetna

July 1 – Day 61 Gee it’s been 2 months since we left Texas! Lots of miles, good times and beautiful scenery for sure! Back to fishing, which is why we moved on down the road. It’s hard to understand their fishing rules. But today you could fish for salmon in the rivers here – the Montana and Sheep Creek. But you guessed it! There are no salmon running! So we went back to Christianson Lake in Talkeetna. The weather was beautiful – a great high pressure. And the fish just don’t like that. But the views of Mt. McKinley were just spectacular! We enjoyed a sampling at Denali Brewing Co. Ron bbq’d us some ribs for dinner. It started a light rain this evening. We decided to stay one more day at MatSu because it’s the July 4^th weekend crowd.

Can't believe we get to see the mountain again!

July 2 – Day 62 is a gray, drizzly morning. After sleeping in we decided to drive over Hatcher Pass. It is located in the Talkeetna Mountains. There are active gold mines and this is also one of the highest scenic drives at 3,886’. Fifteen miles of the road are gravel. One of the highlights of the drive is Summit Lake – a small, alpine lake. The other highlight is Independence Mine State Historical Park, one of Alaska’s largest gold mining camps, which closed in 1951. The Little Susitna River winds through here and it is just beautiful.

Summit Lake - beautiful reflection!

Beautiful drive even in the mist.

Inside the mine manager's home at the park.

This was an apartment building for 4 families!

This was cool to look at!

Train track leading down from the mine.

Little Susitna River

July 3 – Day 63 is one of those slow, raining mornings. Makes we wonder if they ever get hard rain and thunderstorms like we are used to. Guess we will find out in August when their rainy season starts. Ron and I decided to go fishing in Montana Creek which is up the road a couple of miles from camp. Such a beautiful place! We weren’t successful in pulling one all the way up to the bank, but it was still fun. I have to stop and think, though, how crazy it is for us to be in jeans and sweatshirts on a July 4 weekend! We are staying one more night at Mat-Su. So nice and quiet compared to the craziness we are seeing on the road.