Willow

We left the Denali area and headed south to the “town” of Willow, AK to stay at a campground called Mat-Su. Along the way we pulled over at a few waysides

to take in the views:

Hurricane Gulch Bridge:

Denali Viewpoint South:

A bit cloudy but you could still see the mountain which is about 42 miles away.

Here’s Mat-Su:

The campground used to host Fantasy Tours until a fire in 2019 wiped out the area. Then Covid-19 thwarted efforts to rebuild in 2020 – 2022. Building permits and lack of construction workers in the area have further delayed the work so the owner (from Hollywood, FL) has been toiling by himself. So going and I hope that he gets it done and becomes profitable again. Here’s our spots:

We drove into the town of Talkeetna so that Jeff could view the film regarding climbing Denali. The film was interesting and there was a big model of the mountain range and the path up to the summit.

He plans on doing that in May of 2026.

What a cute little town with restaurants, bars, shops, and a lot of adventures.

After viewing the film, we wandered over to Shirley’s Homemade Ice Cream – allegedly “World Famous”.

The pistachio almond was outstanding! Some of the best that I have ever had.

From there we walked over to a deck area that hosted a couple of different food shacks including “The Salmon Spot” where Sheree ordered the fish & chips and Katrina and I had shrimp cocktail with an adult beverage. From there we went to the Denali Brewpub for dinner. Katrina grabbed a burger and I had the best salmon patty I have ever had! After that we shared a blueberry-rhubarb crisp.

We walked down to the riverfront (Susitna River) and got a glimpse of Denali – 75 miles away.

On the way back we stopped at a very little IGA to refresh our stock of veggies and yogurt. Off to bed as we plan on driving down to Seward in the morning.