Travels of The Mercury: Alaska – Canada Travels 2014, Tangle Lakes, Tok and West Fork BLM Campground, August 5th to 8th.

Along the Denali Highway at Tangle Lakes.

We travel to Tangle Lakes on the Denali Highway surrounded by mountains, tundra and a bright dome of sky and cloud. We're at 6,000 ft. and at this latitude we’re above timberline. The country is open and tundra-covered glacial moraines roll away in all directions.

Big sky above the tundra at Tangle Lakes.

Beautiful scenery make for a great bike ride on the Denali Highway.

Bicycling the Denali Highway.

On our first day we take a bike ride on the 22-miles of paved highway that goes to Tangle Lakes from the Richardson Highway. The rest of the 135-mile Denali Highway is gravel.

Artic Tern.

Along the way I get lucky and get a photo of an Artic Tern calling from a post along the road. He’s a beautiful bird that spends a lot of time on the wing and has oddly small legs.

Wild Blueberries.

A handful of deliciousness.

On the second day we hike a trail from Tangle Lakes to the top of the ridge that cups the lake. There we gather wild blue berries which are just coming into season. I didn't know they were on my bucket list but here they are, so we picked a bucket. Its fresh berries on our cereal for the next week.

The BLM Tangle Lakes campground. No trees but a wonderful place to camp.

Tangle Lakes, fishing, kayaking and boating opportunities.

The BLM campground at Tangle Lakes is well maintained and worth going out of the way to spend some very peaceful nights.

Along the Denali Highway we see a pair of Trumpeter Swans with their two downy cygnets.

Our next destination is Tok where we are lucky to have good weather to do a 29-mile bike ride on their paved bike trail.

True to our mission to ride all the bike paths we can find, we take a few hours to ride this great path at Tok, Alaska.

We don't stay in Tok but take the Taylor Highway going to Chicken, AK. The road is paved and in good condition. Not as bad as we expected from things people have told us. Before we get to Chicken we plan to spend the night at a small BLM campground called West Fork, which we highly recommend. Site 22 is our favorite and has a bench overlooking a pond, very nice.