Wrangell View RV Park – Chitina, Alaska AND Root Glacier Base Camp McCarthy, Alaska

Day 2

We woke up and it was 57 degrees with a cloudless blue sky and a forecast for low 70’s.

Today we traveled the McCaarthy Road with the Jeep, leaving the RV behind in Chitina.  Sixty miles of washboard gravel road.  This road sits on top of an old railroad bed.  With the process of freezing, thawing, and regrading the road every season, the railroad spikes often emerge.  Flat tires are common and there are tire repair guys at both ends.  If you have a flat tire on the way to McCarthy, you take the tire off your car and leave it with your cash by the marked post by 3 pm.  The guy comes to pick up the flat tires and brings them back around 5 pm…fixed and ready to roll.  That’s the kind of place this is!

We saw more than 100 wild rabbits all sitting right on the edge of the road.  We had to swerve and brake quickly a couple of times.  Hide and be safe little bunnies….there are lots of dangers in your world…cars, lynxes, raptors, wolves…

A trumpeter swan pair and their 4 cygnets.

Going to McCarthy is as much about the adventure of the ride as it is about the town.  We were treated to sweeping views of the river basin below.  The rivers are braided rivers.  The course of rivers of this type is determined by the sand and gravel carried along and by the depth of the water which varies significantly from one season to the next.  These deposits and the rise and fall of the water level, changes the direction the river takes creating intertwining fingers of river.

Most of the drive looked like this.

We passed over several bridges.  It is difficult to imagine how these roads and bridges were constructed back in the early 1900’s.

We chose to stay at the Root Glacier Base Camp.  We have a tent site by the Kennicott River.

McCarthy was founded when explorers found bright emerald streaks in the rock face.  They knew that they had found copper ore.  McCarthy was the town for all the miners at the Kennicott Copper Mining Company.  It had dance halls, women, and saloons where the cold, tired, and lonely men could spend their earnings.

You cannot take your car into the town so we took our bikes across this footbridge.

We ate lunch and bought tickets for the Kennicott shuttle.  Kennicott is another 5 miles up the mountain on a fairly rocky and rough road.

When  we first arrived we saw enormous piles of what looked like mine spoils.  We were told that all of these piles are actually the glacier!  Once you know what you are looking at…it is astounding!  The rocks and dirt that cover the glacier are known as the moraine.  Moraine is deposited as a result of glacial melting and erosion.  Those “hills” were 200-300 feet of ice.

We walked through the mining town touring the exhibits.

We hiked out of town for a couple of miles to get a better view of the glacier.  As we walked we could hear ice cracking and boulders breaking loose.  We didn’t plan for a big hike and we weren’t prepared (no water, after eating a big lunch, and NO bear spray) so we headed back before we got to the toe of the glacier.

We were actually in Wrangell – St. Elias National Park.  This park has 12 of the 15 highest peaks in Alaska.  Mount Wrangell is actually Alaska’s largest active volcano.  The goal is to preserve this “extraordinary relic from America’s past.”

One thing that surprises me every day is how different every place has been.  From fishing villages to glaciers to gold mining towns to copper mills…the adventure and the beauty just keep on keeping on!