Alaska or Bust: McCarthy/Kennecott - Wrangle-St Elias National Park

Day 11–13, McCarthy-Kennecott, Alaska, Wrangell-St Elias National Park

Friday morning we were picked up at our campground at 7:45 AM for the drive into McCarthy. The 1^st 30 miles to Chitina were on the same paved road that we drove the day before. The road had originally been the railroad bed for the train into the Kennecott Copper mines. Once we got past Chitina, things became a little more interesting! We traveled 60 more miles on a dirt road. The 1^st 10 miles or so hadn’t been graded for quite some time and there has been a lot of rain recently so it was like driving on a washboard, and in a 15-passenger van no less. The remaining 50 miles were tough, but not as bone jarring and kidney damaging… We were in the van for about 3.5 hours, it turns out that the driver (bless her heart) was a new hire and this was her 1^st trip into McCarthy with a vanload of people. The van goes as far as a footbridge over the Copper River where once across another van picks you up and will take you either into McCarthy or up to Kennecott. We were able to stash our stuff at the Ma Johnson hotel and head on up to Kennecott and hike out to the toe of the Root Glacier. It was an absolutely beautiful day with not a cloud in the sky J All of the peaks were exposed, several with a new coat of fresh white snow. It was very cool to be able to hike right out to the glacier. Don’t believe the beer ads that say their been is brewed from a glacial stream!! The glacial melt has a tremendous amount of silt in it, whereas I’ll take my beer brewed from a snowmelt stream anytime.

When we got back off the trail, we headed to the Lancaster Backpacker Hotel, a kind of backpacker hostel, with a price tag of $98/night for 2 people; much unlike the $6/night I spent for a hostel in Mexico. But it was quite nice, very comfortable with very clean bathrooms. Our other choices were the Ma Johnson Hotel at $200/night or the Kennecott Lodge at 300+/night. We had dinner at the Golden Saloon, I had the BBQ Pork, anyone that know me well knows that I don’t eat BBQ, but this was a mustard BBQ and it was totally amazing, so amazing that I also had the 2^nd night.

Saturday morning we took the shuttle back up to Kennecott and began the hike up to the Bonanza Mine. It is a 4.5 mile hike in one direction but with a 3800 ft elevation gain, in other words it was a very steep climb the entire way up, but it was a beautiful day and once we got above the tree line the view was spectacular. Since I haven’t exactly been in training since I was finishing up my grad program, then was working in Berkeley, then sitting in a truck driving here, it was kind of a killer but I trudged through it. We were using this hike as a training hike for the Chilkoot Trail that we will be doing near the end of our trip. We got to about 600 feet short of the mine at the summit of Bonanza Peak and the trail turned to all scree and it just wasn’t worth killing ourselves or getting injured so we stayed there and enjoyed the view for awhile before heading back down the mountain. I’ve got to say that I would much rather climb up than go down. Thank you Dr Chrisos and Med Sport for my reconstructed ACL that worked perfectly!! But going down is definitely hard on my aging knees. We got back down safely, grabbed a shower and headed off to the Golden Saloon for an icy cold Alaskan beer and dinner. We asked an elderly single woman to join us, it turns out that her son pretty much owns all of the businesses in McCarthy. She was a very interesting woman. I think I was in bed by 8:00 even though it stayed light up on the mountain until about 1:15 AM.

I woke up on Sunday morning sore as all get out but feeling good. Problem was it was raining and very cold and I had gotten my hiking pant very sweaty and gross from the 10 hours of hiking on Saturday and all I had left was shorts. We went on a very interesting tour of the copper mill but it was definitely more of a guy thing with all of the machinery and stuff like that. Just wasn’t all that interesting to me, I was more interested in the lives of the miners than in how all of the machinery and shaker tables, etc worked. After the tour, it was really too cold to do much of anything else since I wasn’t properly prepared (shame on me) so I hung out in the lobby of the Ma Johnson Hotel until we could catch our shuttle back out at 4:30.

McCarthy and Kennecott are about 5 miles apart, deep in the national park area. Kennecott is now part of the national park but when it was being developed as a mining town, it was a dry town and there were only 5 single women in the town of 500. They were the schoolteacher, a secretary and several nurses. The miners and mill employees had to go to McCarthy if they wanted to drink or pick up women in a brothel.

We met people from all over the US, Europe, Australia and New Zealand while in McCarthy and Kennecott. Everyone was very friendly, none of the hotels have locks on their doors, its just part of the whole ambience of the community. If you make it to Alaska, I highly recommend this trip. It is incredibly beautiful country and the largest national park in the US.

Tomorrow we’re headed off to Steward for 3 days but will hit Anchorage first for some grocery shopping.