Denali Highway maintenance
 

We will travel from Whitehorse towards Denali NP this summer.

We are thinking about to travel the denali-highway with our 4WD-rental car in July 2005 on our way back to Whitehorse, because we want to avoid travelling the same road

I have read, that the department of transportation has stopped the maintenance of the highway in 2002. Does anyone have more actual information on this subject.

Is a travel time of 6 hours relistic to drive from end to end considering a non-maintained road?

Any advice would be appreciated.

I found good info, including the status of the Denali Highway, at the Anchorage newspaper web site.
www.adn.com

Few rental car agencies will allow the drive, if they do, purchase their extra insurance waivers. The road is 134 miles, ave. speed probably 20-25mph and don't forget to add in time for plenty of stops.

I did some searching myself. The Anchorage newspaper isn't giving much travel info this time of year. None of the official Alaska travel sites even listed it on roads to travel.

The best I found was an official state site for current road conditions http://511.alaska.gov/
It said the road was last maintained in October and wouldn't be maintained again until May 15 which makes me think they do plan to maintain it. Of course, it will still be a rough road but maybe not covered in pot holes.

You might keep this website and keep checking as you get closer to your travel date. I've put it in my favorites.

It will absolutely be full of potholes as soon as it's opened. DOTPF will ensure that there are no washouts or slides, things that would prevent transit. But dealing with potholes or other superficial maintenance will wait until later in the summer. Immediately following breakup the highway folks have much bigger fish to fry than the Denali.

We drove 15 or 20 miles on denali hwy from Cantwell end in late May and it is definitely a slow, gravel, pot hole road. If you take your time and stay out of way of trucks, it might be okay.