In Alaska, our Summers are short and generally run from Memorial Day to Labor Day. The fall colors begin appearing in late August in these northern latitudes. I usually spend my holiday weekends exploring this great state.

For the Labor Day weekend, I decided to drive north into Interior Alaska. I left on Friday evening and with the earlier sunsets this time of year, I got as far as Denali View South, along the George Parks Highway north of Trapper Creek. I decided to camp here for the night. While I almost always stop here during the Summer months, this was the first time I chose to actually camp here. The skies had been cloudy, but began to clear around sunset. Shortly after sunset, the northern lights started to appear. Grabbing my camera and changing to my 15-35mm, f2.8 lens, and setting up a tripod, I squeezed off a few shots.

The lights were only out for a little while, and the skies got quiet again.

The next morning, the skies were again on the cloudy side, but there was some clear areas to the northwest, and Mount Denali was visible. Mount Denali (formerly Mount McKinley) is North America’s tallest peak, at over 30,000 feet.

I left Denali View South and continued north to Fairbanks, then got on the Richardson Highway and traveled east to North Pole, Alaska (not the real north pole, but a town by the same name). Just east of North Pole is Chena Lakes Recreation Area, where I would stay the next two nights. Normally, these campgrounds fill to capacity on holiday weekends, but I lucked out this particular trip. It turned out there were several sites available.

Over the course of the next two days, I captured several images.

Sometimes on long holiday weekends, I travel what I like to call the ‘Great Circle Route’. This entails traveling to Fairbanks on the Parks Highway, driving to either Delta Junction or Tok on the Richardson/Alaska Highways, and heading back south to Glennallen on either the Richardson or Glenn Highway (Tok Cutoff), then back to Anchorage via the Glenn Highway. This trip, however, I went back the way I came.

I stopped at Creamers Field in Fairbanks, as I knew there were likely migrating birds to be found there.

Traveling south to Cantwell, I decided to drive out the Denali Highway about ten miles or so to a small lake I have camped out before. There was a family of swans there earlier this Summer, but there was no sign of them now. There was some fresh Termination Dust (what we call first signs of snow) on the nearby mountains.

I drove back to the Parks Highway and decided to stop at Byers Lake in Denali State Park.

Further south, I stopped at Kashwitna Lake, near Willow.

The weather was pretty good this trip; the only real rain I had was during the trip home. Not a bad way to end the Summer season.

-Text and photography © Alan D Musy