Sunday we headed out from Eagle River and north along the Glenn Highway. It was a nice day and the warm weather returned! It was a day for shorts and we had nice blue sky for much of the drive. We started seeing snow-topped mountains and glaciers as we got further north. Lots of campers on the road – it is Sunday and maybe some of those out are heading back to work. We have been seeing a lot of Alaska license plates in the last number of weeks – lots of people out fishing and most are camping along the rivers or ocean.
We found a small state park about 80 miles north of Valdez. That will be our next destination and we want to take a side trip Monday that goes in from this area so we decided to make it our base. It’s a nice site, right beside the stream and with the noise from the fast moving water, we don’t have a lot of highway noise! We took a short hike through the campground and got enough wood for a nice campfire in the evening.
Monday morning we got an early start for our day trip. It was another nice day and warm so on went the shorts (although we always take long pants and jackets when we leave for the day like this). We had another clear blue sky today – some clouds over the mountains at times, but the road had some beautiful scenic views of mountains, glaciers and river canyons. Some of the rivers were quite large – they call them braided streams because they have multiple channels. Being glacier-fed, they are very murky and carry a lot of silt and dirt, some of which gets deposited and them eventually it deposits some which builds up and diverts the water to another area. We reached a large river where there were a lot of people camping. In the water, you could see a row of fishing wheels. When we went across the bridge, the fishing wheels were not in the water – whether it is because the water level was lower than usual (it actually looked quite high) or if the timing wasn’t right, we weren’t sure. Many of the people who live in this area are natives and they have some different fishing regulations.
The road is constructed on the old railway bed. When the railway was abandoned, most of the rails and ties were removed and a road created in the 1960s. With the construction of a new bridge over the Copper River in the 1970s, and more gravel, the McCarthy Road was created. We had 60 miles of this road to drive after we crossed the river. The first 17 was hard-top, but then it became gravel – both washboard and lots of potholes. In past years, it was common for people to have flat tires as old spikes from the railway would surface, but most of these are now gone and most people, with careful driving, make the trip without any problems.
We had some beautiful views of glacial river valleys, snow covered mountains and were treated to views of a mother swan and her two babies as well as 3 bald eagles flying over the river.
Other than lots of snowshoe hare and ground squirrels, the day was uneventful for larger wildlife.
At one point I think we were both ready to turn around, but we kept going and after about 4 hours, we reached the end of the road (literally). There is a gravel parking area (or camping if you so choose) where we left the truck and then you walk across a long bridge and hike about 3/4 of a mile on a large gravel road and you come to the small village of McCarthy. There is a free shuttle available that runs every 1/2 hour, but the walk felt good.
We stopped at the museum which is in the old railway station and talked with the volunteer hostess. McCarthy was a development that started four miles from the mining town of Kennecott and served about 800 people between 1911 and 1938 when the mine shut down. People literally walked away leaving everything as it was. A number of things from that era are on display in the museum. The town “opens” on Memorial Day weekend (last weekend in May) and closes by Labour Day. We noticed there were cars driving around McCarthy and the hostess explained there is a car bridge a little further downstream from the pedestrian bridge but it is privately owned. For $350, they will let you bring your car across it and that is what a lot of the people that stay there for the summer will do. The hostess and her husband have a cabin there that they stay in for the summer. We saw a few businesses including stores, saloon, and hotel as well as some outfitters and flight services.
We spoke with another gentleman in town working in the store. He said that both McCarthy and Kennecott (which we didn’t get to due to the lateness of the day) employ a lot of students from European countries in the summer. Their schools look after the working visas for them and although they don’t make much money in the time they are there (they have to pay their school to come and food is very expensive there), they have the advantage of being in the out of doors in another country. After enjoying an ice cream cone, we walked back over across the river and to our truck and headed back to the trailer.
Tomorrow, Valdez….and cooler weather to come.
Following Joyce & Paul's Travels in Retirement 