Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Alaska Road Trip: McCarthy and Kennecott

McCarthy is a little town 60 miles down a mostly gravel road. The road is not nearly as bad as we expected, the trip took us about 3 ½ hours averaging about 20mph on the way down with several stops along the way (2 1/2 hours on the way back up). We saw several truck/camper combinations along the way but no travel trailers or 5th wheels. Although it could be done, I don’t think I would take my rig down there. The road drove you straight towards a mountain range which provided incredible scenery along the way.
 
 

Bungee jumpers sometimes use this bridge
Old railroad bridge
 

We saw this little guy along the way.....
......we named him Dylan
Just outside of town there is a National Parks Visitor Center (it was closed), just down the road there is another visitors center which had information on all the local attractions. You could park here free for one day and overnight for $5. There are several other campgrounds within the visitors center parking lot. We stayed in the $5 spot the first night and a rest area the next.


They do not allow you to take your vehicle into town, the walk into town is about ½ mile from where we parked over a footbridge across the river. It was on this footbridge that we had our most unlikely encounter of the trip. Walking across the bridge there was another couple standing out in the middle admiring the view.

I said hi as I walked by and the woman said something to Daisy. As I walked by the woman screamed “Barb!” I turn around to see her and Barb hugging like long lost cousins. It was one of Barb’s favoritest coworkers from her former job at the county in Minnesota! Somebody do the math for me and tell me what the odds of that are.
 
Mel and her husband flew in to Anchorage for a two week vacation and were touring the area. They chatted for about 20 minutes before they had to catch their shuttle back to Chitina. Barb was talking most of the day about how cool it was to run into her.

The town of McCarthy is a cool little town. In its heyday it served the 600+ workers of the Kennecott Mill. The town died when the mill closed in the 1937 but now has 50+ residents with a handful of shops and businesses.


Main Street McCarthy


 
 
There is a ton of things to do here; kayaking, ice climbing, mine hikes, the mill tour and glacier hikes. We opted for the last two, the mill tour and glacier hike. The Root Glacier hike is about 2 ½ miles from the end of Kennecott with mostly level terrain except for the last ¼ which descends onto the glacier. They offer guided tours in town at $80 per person and provide crampons for walking on the glacier itself. We did the self guided tour and were camponless which was not too bad as the ice was fairly rough.
That's the Root Glacier in the background
Waterfall along the way
 
Trail leading to the glacier

 A lot of the glacier is covered with a layer of dirt


It is hard to really see how big the glacier is but if you look at the picture above and zoom way in......
 
Those tiny little specks in the upper left is a line of 9 people
 
My first steps on a glacier

Headed up!

Eventually the dirt diminished and we were walking on ice

It is hard to see but the Root Glacier goes for 30 miles all the way up between these two mountains
 
There are small lakes on the glacier

As well as streams
 
 We found several moulins (A moulin or glacier mill is a roughly circular, vertical to nearly vertical well-like shaft within a glacier or ice sheet which water enters from the surface. The term is derived from the French word for mill). This one was so deep you could not see the bottom.
Filling our bottles with glacier water!

The tiny speck is me headed back to land

Round trip it took us just under 3 hours arriving just in time for our mill tour.

The mill tour was $27.50 per person and allows you access to many areas that are not open to the general public. During the 2 1/2 hour tour, the tour guide walks you through each of the areas of the mill, explaining each of the processes and pieces of machinery along the way.
 

The Mill itself is 14 stories tall

 



Absolutely massive! 

This is the initial shoot where everything gets crushed from basketball size down to softball size stone
View from the top

Then it went to here were a guy stood with a hammer and crushed anything did not fit through the grate
This crushing wheel took it down to pea size

Then on to the Sluice Box where the mineral was separated by weight
Then on to Shaker Tables where it was further separated

Shaker Table
Finally after the copper was bagged it was put on the train and shipped out

The mill ran 24 hours a day and was generally operated with 60 employees at a time but could be run by as few as 7. It is very interesting to see how the mill operated and how the town was powered/heated in the early 1900’s.

Next up road trip to Valdez!

23 comments:

  1. How cool is that...Barb running into someone she knows in the middle of nowhere! This looks like a great area.
    Safe travels!

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    1. If you really think about it the odds are astronomical. Just the fact that they were in the same town on the same day was amazing let alone the fact that we crossed the footbridge in the 10 minute span they were on it.

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  2. I'll bet being on that glacier gives you new appreciation of all of the glacial moraines in the upper Midwest, Jim.

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    1. It certainly does make you stop and think how big those glaciers must have been.

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  3. Awesome to walk on a glacier! Love the mill tour too. How crazy to run into Barb's old friend!!!

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    1. You guys will have to do the Root Glacier hike when you come up!

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  4. We went on a glacier in Canada and they are cool, pun intended. They had a coned off area we could walk on, but if you went outside of that you had to be tied to someone because of the crevaces(long a like ah). Not crivices because crevace sound more ominous. They told us that if we drank the glacial water we would become ten years younger. I am sure you could see that from my facebook profile picture.Carry on.

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    1. The "crevice" we found was not one they show on their guided tours, if they did it too would be coned off as some idiot would no doubt fall in.

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  5. Awesome scenery. Sounds like you guys are making the most of your time before travelling on. It must be easier with a smaller place to keep clean! :) How unbelievable to run into someone like that so far away from "home base".

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    1. There is plenty of dust even in this smaller rig not to mention the dozens of dead mosquitos every day!

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  6. Great descriptions of this neat area! You've got a terrific blog Jim. Dennis and I enjoyed meeting you and Barb in Valdez. Hope our paths cross again someday! Safe Travels!

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    1. Thanks! For as big as Alaska is it is amazing how people continue to cross paths. We are headed towards Hope, Soldotna and Kenai in the next week. Great meeting you guys!

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  7. It REALLY IS a small world isn't it. Looks like a great tour.

    Dave & Diane

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  8. The Halibut fishing is good out of Homer and not as expensive as Valdez.
    Bob

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    1. We talked to one charter in Valdez, they wanted $350/person. We were hoping to find a little cheaper charter in Homer. Headed there next week!

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  9. Lots of memories and thanks for taking us back , except the part that you drove it. Glad you did for we were a little too scared to drive that road so we flew to get there.
    Im reliving our Alaska trip through you, thank you.

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    1. Glad we could bring you back! We talked to a woman whose husband is a charter pilot and she says he is busy all summer flying people back and forth from Chitina. Doesn't sounds like a bad way to go!

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  10. What a very small world! Talk about perfect timing for Barb to run into someone from Minnesota she knew! Very cool! "Dylan" is so cute:) Root Glacier is huge!! Love that you were way out on it. Beautiful! We would have enjoyed the mill tour. Thanks for taking us along:)

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    1. There were about 6 more hikes we could have taken to old mines as well. That would have been cool but we were hiked out and ready to move on.

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  11. What a cool day. Running into someone Barb used to work with, hiking on a glacier and a great tour of the great mill tour.

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    1. I would not recommend doing all this in one day. We should have split it up into two.

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  12. That is amazing that she ran into her friend. Seriously what are the odds ...crazy! Thanks for showing the mill, I was on the fence about that but after seeing it..maybe not so much. Lee might have another opinion though. The glacier now that looked cool!!

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