Lots of old abandoned RR trestles along McCarthy Road, like this one about half way in.
The terrors of the drive along the 60 mile McCarthy Road turned out to be greatly overstated. The first 8 miles were pretty rough...lots of washboarding and numerous potholes to be negotiated that slowed our speed to about 15-20 MPH, but after that it was smooth sailing on a well-graded track all the way to the end. The posted speed limit was 35 and I was able to hold that most of the way without squeezing too much juice out of the steering wheel. We had one forced stop for 45 minutes while a State Highways crew inspected a bridge ahead of us, so we got out to stretch out legs. While walking back up the road I came across one of the famous (and dreaded) railroad spikes embedded in the roadbed. Had to pry it up with a makeshift crowbar but I got the little bugger as a souvenir of the trip. The spikes are about 5" long and were once used to hammer the rails in place. After they pulled up the tracks and converted the right-of-way they left the ground littered with the loose spikes which for years were a hazard to tires and oil pans for anyone trying to travel the road...especially after it rained when for some reason the things tended to work their way to the surface. One account I had read in preparation for the trip said that there used to be a 50/50 chance of getting at least one flat tire on any round trip, and there was one tale of some poor guy who motored into McCarthy one afternoon on 4 bare rims, having blown all of his tires plus his spare. Needless to say I was a little concerned going in, but it turned out to be really no big deal. Apparently they ran some super magnet over the road behind a grader a few years ago and managed to clear most of the spikes so it's much safer now.
The end of the road at a pedestrian bridge across the raging waters of the Copper River. Until 1997 the only way to cross was via a hand-pulled basket on a wire that stretched between the two banks.
This the home of Copper River Salmon, a type of Red (Sockeye) that's highly prized. The area was used by Indian tribes for hundreds of years before the Americans showed up around 1900 looking for gold. Didn't find any of that but they did discover the richest lode of copper ore on earth. Apparently, copper ore is worth mining if the concentration exceeds about 5%. The stuff they found here was 70-85%...literally pure copper. The Kennecott Mining Company started building the infrastructure to remove the ore in 1906, and the railway was completed in 1911. Several towns sprang up to support the operations including one around the mill at Kennecott and another about 5 miles down the road in McCarthy. They thrived for years until the copper ran out and operations ceased in 1938. After almost dying both towns have been reborn as remote tourist destinations where you can hike, hunt, fish, walk on the glaciers, white-water raft, and generally try to kill yourself in a variety of creative ways. Kennecott Mines has been taken over by the US Park Service and is now classified as a National Monument. It's essentially a Ghost Town, although efforts are underway to rehab and re-open the old abandoned structures. McCarthy is a real wild west kind of town, with about 50 year-round residents and tons of things to see and do.
This old General Store was once the home (and business) of Kate Kennedy...local madam, bootlegger, and ne'er do well who migrated here from Dawson City and the Klondike gold fields. The local little museum has one room wallpapered with her arrest warrants and notices of violation.
This is the best (actually the only) hotel in the town. Supposed to be pretty nice. We stayed in a very nice cabin on the other side of the river.
And this is pretty much "it" for the rest of the town. Unpaved, pot-holed streets and muddy after a rain, it looked like Dodge City in about the year 1868.
Part of the Kennecott Mine. The little hills just to the left of the structure are actually the Kennicott Glacier, but with gravel on top. When the mine was first built in 1906 the glacier was about 200 ft. higher and blocked the view of the mountains across the valley.
Main Street at Kennecott.
The principal Mill Site tumbling down from the hillside. The process of refining the copper took advantage of gravity to wash, crush, and smelt the ore before it was loaded onto rail cars for the journey to Cordova and, eventually, Tacoma where they were able to extract 98% of the copper from the rock. Was a neat place to wander around for an afternoon.
Just beyond Kennecott there were hiking trails to some of the satellite mines in the area. This one is the Root Glacier track and went about 4 miles back into the bush before terminating at one of the old shafts.
The view from the trail, looking up at the "Bonanza" complex about 4,000 ft. above. They transported the ore from the outlying mines down to Kennecott via a system of aerial tramways. Once mining operations ceased, the company loaded anything of value onto the last train out and left everything else in place.
On our first hike we got about 3 miles into the bush when we met a group of return hikers who said that they had just seen a young Grizzly bear a few hundred yards back up the trail. Having just read about an attack in Yellowstone we turned around and cleared the area...which is what you're supposed to do if you encounter a mother with cubs. Two days later we tried again and this time made it to the end. On the return leg we kept seeing a lot of bear scat full of berries but thought we were home free after we passed into the more frequented pedestrian area near a trail going down to the glacier. No sooner had I safed the Bear Spray and Rita had stowed her bells than we rounded a corner and stumbled upon this Cinnamon Black Bear, sitting in the middle of a berry patch and munching away to his heart's content. Guess he was pretty acclimated to humans because it appeared that we were more surprised than he was, but it did startle us to be that close to a bear all of a sudden. We backed away and I started talking to him in a low voice to see if I could get him to move away so we could pass. He got the idea pretty quickly and lumbered off along the trail, then up into the brush on the hillside above us. Turned out that the first people we had talked to had misidentified him as a Grizzly because of the brown color. Actually it was a Black Bear...but brown in color (it happens), and not nearly as dangerous as a Grizzly. Anyway, it did make for an exciting interlude on the trail.
First time I ever armed my little canister of bear spray. Yes, he really was this close.
During the return drive on the morning of our departure we happened upon this Moose about to enter the lake next to the road, and so slowed down to take a photo and a short video. This really is a unique and special area.
On our second day we sprang for a 70 minute flight to view the vast National Park from the air, but I'll save that experience for the next post. Meanwhile, here's the video of our swimming Moose.
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