Day 2 of the Alaska WRST road trip.
Chill day, sleeping in at the cabin, then going the rest of the way down McCarthy Road to explore the villages of McCarthy and Kennecott, and back to the cabin. That line on the right side of the map is the Canadian border.
I booked a cabin at the Wrangell Mountain Lodge, halfway down the McCarthy Road into the park wilderness to McCarthy. The "Lodge" is a group of 4 small, personal cabins run by James and his wife Christina, far, far off grid.
People don't readily grasp how remote the wilderness can be, 60 miles away from any electrical grid, from internet, from gasoline, food supplies, or even a telephone or cell service to call for help if you get in a scrap. Any water is pumped from a well, and bathrooms are considered "upscale" if not an outhouse.
There's no car services, and depending on the spot, you can sometimes go for hours between seeing another human being, or car on the road. Great if you want solitude. Not good if you ever need help. Preparation is the name of the game.
James and Christina actually live in the house there on the right year round. Here in the wilderness, temperatures can get down to -30 or even -50 Fahrenheit in the winter. And with McCarthy road not maintained, they're locked into their house for the season. Summer is much better, opening up the cabins to visitors/tourists like me. Electricity comes from multiple solar panels and batteries, augmented when needed with a diesel generator.
They serve a lovely full breakfast for guests in the roadhouse shed on the left there.
I stayed in Bear cabin, a sweet little log cabin built with materials locally sourced in the park area. James took that bear hide himself.
Last night, upon arriving, I sat out on the cabin's porch for the evening. Bear are a real concern, so food has to be make sure it's kept locked away where they're not a temptation.
But the most steadily present "attack threat" are the Alaskan unofficial state bird, the mosquito. (real state bird - Ptarmagin). Mosquitos are a royal pain in the ass, constantly swarming and attacking.
Lighting an anti-mosquito candle on the porch, and liberally using bug spray, made most of them go away. But even still, they're constantly hovering, buzzing in your ear, and biting, so this electric fly swatter is like gold.
Picture taken at 11 PM at night--we're at the 24 hours of daylight part of the year.
Day 2 started off with steady rain and low clouds, making pictures not as good, and turning the dirt McCarthy Road into mush in some spots.
Here, you can see some of the old railroad ties underneath the road poking up. They say a railroad spike can occasionally pop up and take out tires, but that must be extraordinarily rare.
Down the road, an old railroad trestle is visible that supported the mines.
McCarthy Road dead-ends. From here, travelers can park and walk across a pedestrian-only bridge.
My poor X7 was looking beyond gross from the road and weather. And this far off the grid, there was no way to wash her. I'd have to wait a couple days until I was out of the park to do anything.
After the foot bridge, it's a 1/2 mile walk, with occasional shuttle vans taking people into the village of McCarthy.
Back in the copper boom in the early 20th century, Kennecott was one of the most productive mine camps. 5 miles from the mine, the village of McCarthy was where the miners would go for their "recreation" of drinking, gambling, and visiting ladies of the night.
Although the mine is inactive today, locals say the activities of McCarthy are still the same today, but seasonally for outside visitors. Only running in the summer, with dozens of locals and workers, only a couple caretakers stay through the winter to make sure nothing important freezes up, or burns down. (aka The Shining)
Ma Johnson's hotel is a classic mainstay there, still running and keeping its old charm.
The Golden Saloon is said to be where all the fun happens, still serving drinks, and playing music some nights.
This is a car forum, after all. A few old school vehicles of various types are still around the village.
At the end of town is the old train station, which is now a neat little museum. Industrial equipment of various types like this litter the two towns.
Visitors can either walk, or pay for a shuttle ride up a pretty rutted-out road, to Kennecott, the site of the old copper mine camp.
Kennecott was a camp of very successful copper mines, rich with resources. Eventually the copper started to run out, and some of the mines started closing. But the final end came as a surprise in 1938.
The bottom dropped out of the copper market, and one day when a train showed up to the camp, they declared that the camp was closed, the train would be the last one out, and everybody had to leave. Miners, staff, families, everybody had to grab their stuff and go.
As a result, the mine was abandoned in a rather astonishing intact state. Parts fell into disrepair over the years, but has been partially restored as a historical site, and visitors can see a lot of mining items and industrial equipment left in their original state.
These buildings are fairly representative of mining camps found around Alaska.
I thought these feed chutes were pretty cool, sending various material straight into the train cars.
A modern "Yurt", used as a residence by seasonal workers at Kennecott. Several companies offer helicopter rides into the park and onto the glacier, hiking, glacier climbing, aircraft rides, etc.
Here you can see the tail of what is the confluence of two glaciers. That dirt is caught up in the ice, continuously moving and carving up the landscape. If you look to the far right, you can see one of the glaciers up in the mountain valley. Unfortunately, I didn't have time (or the ability) to hike the glacier itself.
After a shuttle ride back down to McCarthy, I had a great dinner at "The Potato". It used to be a food truck, but the chef is very good, and with great popularity, they built their own restaurant. Reportedly, workers live on the top floor, with the restaurant down below.
In the back of this picture, you can see my beloved Akubra hat (Australian) and Leki trekking poles (German). They make a day hike or other adventure quite nice, and are the best at what each do.
That's a Wildcraft cider from Eugene, Oregon, almond crusted halibut (an Alaskan staple), and the Potato's signature mac and cheese.
So yummy, and something you wouldn't expect way out in the Alaskan wilderness. Very good.
By the time I was done with dinner, I had missed the last shuttle of the day back to the footbridge, so I got to work off dinner with a nice walk back. Thankfully, the rain earlier in the day had stopped, with much nicer weather.
For whatever reason, I'm not seeing a lot of wildlife on the trip. Supposedly, early in the summer like this, animals will head up to higher elevations to eat food that has thawed out from the winter, and foliage that has started to blossom there.
But I did see this fox, which suddenly trotted by me with dinner in its mouth. By the time I pulled my camera out, it had trotted onto the McCarthy airstrip.
Back to my (dirty) car, weather had cleared enough to see the two glaciers peeking out on each side of the mountain in the background. Then, it was another 1.3 hour and 32 mile drive back down McCarthy Road, back to the cabin for the night.
More tomorrow!
