Friday 1 August 2025

We are up at 5:15 this morning. It’s easy to wake up early when it begins getting light at 4 am. We eat our bran muffins accompanied by yogurt and camp instant coffee. We also savor the last of our local Washington cherries and strawberries. Our shuttle arrives promptly at 7:30. There are already 5 people aboard from the first pick up at a lodge. After turning onto the road towards Chitina we pick up another 3 passengers. Altogether we have 10 people on board, plus our driver. It’s raining pretty steadily as we drive.

At 8:40 we turn onto the 60 mile long McCarthy Road. Road descriptions online and in Milepost say to expect to spend at least three hours driving this road. O and I have driven worse roads, but the potholes and gravelly dips and rises convince us that we’ve made the right decision. We could never have covered this road as fast and as smoothly as our much more experienced shuttle driver. He is careful and seems to know where all the potholes are. At approximately 10 miles in he pulls over to “check something.” He exits the van and raises the hood. Several of us get out to watch and see if we can help. The driver calls his office and reports that the oil cap is missing and there is oil splattered all over the engine. Luckily, when he checks the oil level it’s still fine. O suggests stuffing a rag in the top of the oil tank, which is exactly the solution the driver and the main office decide upon. When we are back on the road someone asks what made him stop to check. “The smell of burning oil,” he replies. 

We stop again at the Kuskulana bridge at about mile 17 on the McCarthy Road, but this stop is for sightseeing. This bridge was built in 1910 for the CR&NW Railroad. It is 528 feet above the Kuskulana River. The railroad ceased operation in 1938 when copper mining in Kennicott ended. The single lane bridge was resurfaced with new wood planks for automobiles in the 1970’s, but guardrails were not added until 1988! Imagine driving across a bridge barely over 11 feet wide while crossing over a 528 foot deep gorge without guardrails! The entire McCarthy Road is built on the bed of the rail line that ran from the Kennecott Mines to Cordova where copper ore was then loaded onto ships headed to Tacoma WA. As we continue towards our destination our driver points out downed trees along the road indicating where cars have skidded into the bush. We finally arrive at the Copper River footbridge to McCarthy at 11:20. It took less than 3 hours for the 60 mile drive!

O and I walk across the footbridge and follow a path that is a shortcut into the center of town. Very soon we find ourselves in front of Ma Johnson’s Lodging and Restaurant. It takes us awhile, but we finally find our way to our Tiny Cabin Air B&B after stopping to ask for directions.

We are told to follow the Road to Nowhere and turn right at the Tiny Cabins sign. Our host, Tamara, is there to greet us. She shows us to our cabin, turns on the pilot light in our gas heater and points out the al fresco shower and our private pit toilet which is a short walk from the cabin. Everything is spotless and cozy.

 

After finding our cabin, O and I head to the Salmon and Bear for lunch. We each have a rice bowl accompanied by a Midnight Sun Amber. Excellent! It’s raining pretty steadily this afternoon so we stay at the snug cabin and read (me) or snooze (O).

After a few hours of continued rain, we walk over to The Potato for supper. Their lentil falafels and Turkish tomato soup hit the spot. While we wait for our meal we watch a very worried dog walk around and around the restaurant, stopping to peer in the door as he worriedly searches for his human (who is busy working at The Potato.) We notice there are a lot of “free range” dogs in McCarthy.

O and I share a coffee stout with our meal. It’s a 13% ABV beer, so one small glass is plenty. After a chocolate mousse dessert we retire to our cabin. The rain has stopped and we can now see Bonanza Ridge from our window. Things are looking up for our exploration of McCarthy and Kennicott tomorrow.

McCarthy and the Kennecott Mill

Saturday 2 August 2025:

This morning bright sunshine pours through our windows. We return to The Potato to sample their breakfast offerings. O orders a breakfast burrito and I order granola with yogurt and fresh fruit. We share. There’s plenty of food. After breakfast we catch the Kennecott shuttle in front of the general store which is where one purchases shuttle tickets. It’s $15.00 for a round trip to Kennicott. The shuttle we board is a 4 wheel drive Sprinter. It seems a smoother ride than we have in Vincent, maybe because it only 3 years old, or maybe because it’s fully loaded with 10 passengers.

The shuttle drops us off at the Visitor Center in Kennicott. I ask a ranger about tours of the Kennecott Mill and he directs us next door to St. Elias Alpine Guides where we are able to sign up for a tour with Stephanie. We are a fairly small group this morning, which is good. Stephanie has more time to answer questions. We are each issued a red hard hat, not because anything is likely to fall on our heads, Stephanie explains, but to keep us from bonking our heads as we are descending steep stairs in the mill. 

Stephanie is an excellent tour guide. She starts by walking us through the town of Kennicott, stopping to point out interesting details. JP Morgan and the Guggenheim family, the founders of the Kennecott Copper Mining Company, proceeded to build a railroad from Cordova, the nearest port, through the Alaskan wilderness to Kennicott. (The name of the Mining company and the town are spelled slightly differently.) The railroad was called the Copper River and Northwestern Railway, CR&NW, also known as the “Can’t Run and Never Will.” They wanted the mill for processing the ore to be up and running by the time the railroad arrived. The wood for the mill, douglas fir, was shipped in by boat and then by dogsled from Oregon and Washington. The buildings constructed with doug fir are still standing, albeit with repairs by the National Park Service. Earlier buildings of white spruce, an inferior and soft wood, have long since collapsed. 

We are led up the steep hill upon which the mill is built. Along the way Stephanie points out the boarding houses for the workers and the school for the few children there. (Miners had to be single men.) The hospital in Kennicott was the most highly advanced in Alaska at the time, built mainly to help keep injured miners on the job. Administrators worried if the company had to ship them elsewhere at company expense, the miners would never return. Stephanie also points out the small building for the 10 women who worked on the site, nicknamed “No Man’s Land.” The women included nurses, secretaries and the school teacher. 

The mine and the mill functioned from 1911-1938 when the price of copper fell so low that it was not worthwhile to keep the operation going, although it had been an extraordinarily lucrative business for Morgan and Guggenheim. The business closed so suddenly that much of the equipment was left behind, making for a very interesting tour for us future visitors. Kennecott Mining Company is still in operation, with their main offices now in Salt Lake City.

After our tour O and I have a late lunch at the Meatza food truck in Kennicott. The food is excellent. We wander about Kennicottt a bit more, exploring the intact buildings in the town. Then we attend a lecture on glaciers given by a park volunteer after which we walk toward the lateral moraine of the Kennicott Glacier. We soon decide that checking out the glacier would best wait until tomorrow, which turns out to be a very good idea as it begins to rain again on our shuttle ride back to McCarthy. By the time we are back at the general store it is raining pretty hard, complete with rumbles of thunder. O and I decide ice cream will make an excellent dinner. We sit on the deck at the store and enjoy our ice cream and the passing storm.

When the rain stops we take a slight detour on our way back to our cabin to look for the railroad turntable which is located in the woods across from the McCarthy Museum. Here the engine would be turned around so that the train could be backed into Kennicott where it would collect the ore and could then pull it directly to Cordova.

Sunday 3 August 2025:

Our original plan for leaving McCarthy today had been to ride the shuttle back to Copper Center in the early afternoon, just after the shuttle dropped off Sunday’s passengers at the footbridge. However we realized on August 1 that the shuttle doesn’t leave for the return trip until about 4:30 pm. Driver and shuttle stay at the end of the McCarthy Road until the day-trippers are ready to return home, so there’s only 1 shuttle each day. Hence, we find ourselves with an extra day in McCarthy.

Our goal today is to go back to Kennicott and hike the relatively short trail to the first campsite near the glacier. Unfortunately O’s right knee begins twinging and he decides it’s best to return to Kennicott. I continue along the trail and eventually get to the steep path leading down to the campsite and glacier view. I think O made a very good decision not to walk this trail with a twinging knee.

I get as close as I wish to the glacier and then turn around to hurry back to Kennicott where I meet up with O at the mill and, returning to the Visitor Center, we catch the 1:00 shuttle back to McCarthy. Once again we eat at the Salmon and Bear and then proceed to the Mercantile where we enjoy another scoop of ice cream before catching a shuttle for the short ride back to the footbridge.

Today we have a different driver for the trip back to Copper Center, a young man who manages to stay on the road and avoid most of the potholes despite looking at his phone and taking calls as he drives. He makes some brief stops along the way.

One to see the Trestle Bridge, another brief pause to watch a mamma and 2 baby moose, and a last stop to see the Alaska Pipeline. We arrive back at Uncle Nicolai’s about 7:30 pm, hop in Vincent and head for the Grand View Cafe and RV park about a 90 minute drive away. This will give us a bit of a head start on our drive to Seward in the morning.