Day 19 Ends On A Susitna Gravel Bar

An easy drive from Palmer today. We’re happy to dally along the way since our reservation at Denali National Park is still five days away. Our pace fits our “slow” style.

We made a couple of detours along the way ... up to South Rolly Lake to check out the views ... and to a couple of boondocking sites we found on iOverlander. The sites were nice, but not what we were looking for.

Lunch was at Kashwitna Lake, where we got one of our best views of Denali just one week ago. Today, the entire Alaska Range was in hiding.

Around 2:00p, we arrived at our boondocking spot along the banks of the Susitna River. A peaceful and quiet spot ... only one other camper ... and that one tucked in along the tree line. That would change in the evening hours. The terrain here is perfect for ATVers, who apparently fill the area on weekends. We’d read about this, so we knew to expect them, but not in such numbers tonight. Also several “groups” of RVs arrived throughout the evening. Luckily, they’re all at the far end of the gravel bar ... out of sight unless we look out our windshield.

Before everyone descended, however, we had several hours of peace and quiet. We found a spot for ourselves about midway between the trees and the water that was fairly level ... with an unobstructed view of the river. Once settled, we went for a walk along the river, stopping to chat with a local woman who had come here so her kids could blow off some steam.

There are a number of stone fire rings all over the gravel bar ... one of them right at our spot. Perfect as Mui’s been wanting to make s’mores. We enjoyed the fire for a couple of hours ... the wind blowing the smoke away from us ... the heat very welcome as it was only 52F with no sun to keep us cozy.

Even when it started to rain, we did not allow it to dampen our fun. Because our awning is on the other side of the Cruiser, we simply pulled out our umbrellas and continued to enjoy our afternoon tea.

Eventually, the fire began to die down. Time to go inside and have dinner. Yes, we had our s’mores first, so our meal was upside down tonight!

As planned, we’ll be moving on tomorrow morning.Les mer