After dealing with the whole truck issue Saturday, we took it easy on Sunday. We didn’t get going as early as we should’ve and we didn’t plan as well as we needed to, so we ended up driving up to Chitina, only to turn around and come back to the trailer because we couldn’t find inexpensive dog friendly lodging. Which was fine, except we should’ve taken advantage of the few hours of no rain. But we were just not into it. Had we driven all the way to McCarthy, we would’ve had to cut it short and not have enjoyed it as much.
Monday we got up earlier and were on our way again. The road to Chitina was fine. All paved and lined with trees and some lakes. The road after that is reminiscent of the Dempster and the Dalton, especially since it’s been raining so much. The sections that are chip sealed have some pretty significant pot holes and the gravel sections will chatter your teeth out. There was a short section that had just been graded due to a washout caused by some pesky beavers and was pretty smooth. It was a nice break from dodging potholes and frost heaves.
The McCarthy Road was built along the old Copper River and Northwestern railway bed and is one of the two roads that go into the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. It was a beautiful drive even though the mountain tops were under cloud cover. The Copper River is big and wide. Many fisherman could be seen lining the shores. There was an area where we saw camping trailers sunk into the bed of the river. The river is basically slowly eating them up. We found out later that the river changed direction before people could get their stuff out of there. So there they sit.
The drive to McCarthy took us about 2 1/2 hours. We parked at the little visitor center and hiked in the rest of the way. Unless you live in McCarthy or Kennicott, you cannot drive there. We trudged down the muddy, gravel road, laughing at Gus as he pranced through the mud. I think he actually enjoyed it. We crossed the bridge and walked another .6 miles into town. We grabbed a quick lunch at The Potato, which has really great food. We caught the shuttle to Kennicott and weren’t really shocked when it was raining even harder when we got out.
McCarthy and Kennicott both originated with the establishment of the Kennecott Mines Company in 1906. Kennicott housed the mine offices, homes, a hospital and a school. McCarthy provided miners with more housing, saloons, stores and other amenities. A number of the pioneer structures have been restored in both towns.
We originally made the drive because we wanted to hike to Root Glacier but I admit, my attitude about the hike was not all that great. We had left our rain coats in the camper that was now sitting in Glennallen, so we were not prepared for an afternoon hike in the rain and I definitely had my grumpy pants on.
It isn’t always sunshine and rainbows on the road. I know we share beautiful pictures, talk about fun adventures and about we how deal with problems and it all turned out. I’m careful not to say we handle them gracefully every time. Like anyone else, we get down about stuff and are frustrated when the weather isn’t nice for days on end or we have problems with our stuff. It is nice that usually it’s not both of us having a bad day or seeing the situation in a negative light. Craig was very optimistic and encouraging and pointed out that we didn’t come all this way to miss out on walking on a glacier. A very good point and something I needed to hear.
So we headed to the end of town to the trail. It was a pretty easy hike and Gus was sniffing around and enjoying himself. The rain let up a little bit which was nice. We weren’t exactly sure how far it was. We thought it was 3 miles round trip but then the ranger said it was 2 miles to just get to white ice. We got there pretty quickly though and enjoyed climbing up an actual glacier! It was pretty awesome! We had to lick it, of course, but made sure to choose a clean spot. Gus actually ate glacial ice and he didn’t even seem bothered by the cold ice on his paws.
The rain picked up again and this time didn’t stop. We made our way back to town, popped into some of the old buildings to check things out and just barely made the 5 pm shuttle. Gus was so tired he curled right up on the floorboard and slept all the way back to the pedestrian bridge where we were dropped off.
We walked the short distance to the Jeep and got started on our long drive on the awful, muddy, bumpy road back to Chitina. We had stopped in Kenny Lake and reserved a room at the hotel there that morning, so we knew we had a place to stay for the night. The truck was going to be done Tuesday sometime, so we didn’t really want to drive all the way back to the trailer and then back up the Richardson Highway again in the morning.
We stopped in Chitina and were starving. Uncle Tom’s Tavern looked like a good place to chat with locals. Only Uncle Tom was in there and he only had frozen pizzas but a nice hot pizza and cold IPA were exactly what we needed as we warmed up from our cold day. Turns out he is originally from Wisconsin and his wife is from Michigan. They’ve been in Alaska for 40 some odd years. He owns the Tavern, the hostel, a rental cabin, a boat, a couple of planes and a mine. He even showed us some pretty good size gold nuggets. It was a good stop.
We got back to the hotel just in time to check in. The hotel wasn’t what we are normally used to. There were 4 rooms upstairs with 2 shared bathrooms. The shower was in the laundromat downstairs, which had closed right before we got there. So my hopes of a nice hot shower before bed were crushed. We were able to get them in the morning and do a load of laundry. We’d been three nights without our camper and I missed it. I hadn’t slept well at all and couldn’t wait to get it back.
We picked up the truck in Glennallen in the afternoon and went back down the Richardson Highway to our trailer. We had a few housekeeping things to take care of so we stayed once again at our mile 47.8 rest area.
We started toward Tok and stopped in at the ranger station on Nebesna Road. Nebesna Road is the other road that goes into to the Wrangell-St.Elias National Park. We had heard that the road can be washed out and impassable at times, but we decided to tackle it. We drove about 20 miles in with the trailer and set up camp at Rock Lake Wayside.
In the morning we packed up the Jeep and our packs and were ready to hike a trail at the end if we made it that far. We made 6 creek crossings with no problems. We walked the short distance to the trail that went to Rambler Mine. It was a short, but steep hike. Once at the top we could look in some of the old buildings and just get a peek in the mine tunnel. The views at the top were pretty amazing.
We went back to the Jeep and there were 2 couples chatting in the parking area. We joined the conversation and learned that they were from Louisiana and Wisconsin. They asked if we had hiked to the Nebesna Gold Mine and we said we had not. The Nebesna Gold Mine operated from 1923 to the late 1940’s. It is on the National Register of Historic Sites and is privately owned. Both couples had hiked to it and looked around with no problems. So we took off back up the trail and made our way to the old mine. It was pretty cool to see. There were several buildings surrounding the main building, most of them were pretty trashed inside.
When we got back from our second hike, the two couples were talking with another guy from Anchorage. It was getting chillier and hadn’t started raining yet but felt like it was coming. We said our goodbyes and parted ways. We stopped at the bar at Mile 28 and everyone else thought the same thing. We hung out for hours and got to meet another couple from New York during the course of the night too. We had quite the group take over the bar at Sportsmen’s Paradise Lodge.
We learned that Sportsmen’s Paradise Lodge had recently been purchased by a nice young family. Their nine-year old daughter was an excellent tour guide and showed us around the property, answered any questions we had, and provided us with tasty moose sausage and smoked King Salmon and my favorite, warm rhubarb crisp with ice cream. The hospitality there was awesome even though they were in the midst of getting settled and cleaning up the place to make it their own.
Throughout the night, there were many conversations, lots of smiles and laughter and maybe a few too many beers consumed. But as we are nearing the end of our Alaskan adventure, we wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. We will definitely be back to this great little place and beautiful area that has so much to offer.
Back to Tok…