The past few days we have been in America's largest National Park, Wrangell- St. Elias. We entered the park via McCarthy Road, a 58.5 mile washboard, dirt road and stayed in the area of McCarthy, Alaska- (town population under 100).
The town of McCarthy is accessed via a footbridge at the end of McCarthy Rd that crosses Kennicott River. We stayed in an awesome cabin- Kennicott River Lodge and Hostel, located right before the footbridge and were able to drive right to our cabin
(there are 5 of them overlooking Kennicott Glacier Lake- amazing views!!). This is significant since any lodging in McCarthy town or Kennicott is accessed via the footbridge (you take your luggage across on a wagon) and then you are shuttled in a van to your lodging. In general, lodging is limited and pricey over the bridge.
This is one of the most remote places we have been- most people fly or shuttle in and it is over 100 miles for emergency services.
Besides Glacier, this is the part of the trip I was most looking forward to. I reserved the cabin long ago and also booked a flight tour of the remote park.
Kennicott National Mines are located in this area of the park and I was also looking forward to touring the mine area.
The 60 mile road to McCarthy took a solid two hours to drive, but when we got there around noon our cabin was ready so we checked right in. The cabin was a dry cabin, so we had an outhouse in the cabin area and/or bathrooms and kitchen facilities to use in the main lodge. After getting the tour of the place we crossed the footbridge to check out McCarthy.
The shuttle had just left from the bridge and we decided to walk the half mile to town. Town is small, we got ice cream and decided to continue to Kennicott. We waited for the shuttle as it was four and a half miles uphill to get there and it was starting to rain.
Kennicott Mine was a very productive Copper Mine with a fourteen story concentration mill in operation from 1909- 1938 with gross revenues over 200 million. Learning the history was incredible - (Bonanza and Erie mines were 5 miles away-uphill from the concentration mill) especially since my father in law has worked in mines in the UP and I have interest and some knowledge of the iron ore operation and mining process. It was so remote to be so productive.
I actually rode the lodge bike and hiked/biked back to Kennicott the next day to tour and hike around the Mines and glacier area some more.
We did a flight tour that took us over the Kennicott Mine and all the glaciers in the park.
I will have to write about the flight tour and glacier hike separately as they were so incredible!
We were able to kayak around Kennicott Glacier Lake and had amazing views of sunset at 11:45 pm (sunset is 1145p ish and sunrise 4a ish) from the cabin. No TV, hardly any internet or phone was great!
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