SUNDAY, JULY 28

SUNDAY, JULY 28:

     Got up reasonably early to head off for our adventure in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park.  A gorgeous sunny, clear day.   First stop was the Visitors Center, which is actually located near the town of Copper Center, just a few miles from here down the Richardson Hwy. This is within the boundaries of the Park, but there’s no access to any other area of the Park – you have to drive into McCarthy to really get into the Park. 

     The Visitors Center was very nice; saw a very good introductory film, “Crown of the Continent,” which is aptly named.  Superlatives define this Park.  Our largest National Park by far (20,000 sq miles or 13.2 million acres)..  More than twice the size of Denali; 6 times the size of Yellowstone.  Contains the 2^nd  highest peak in North America, and 9 of the continent’s 16 peaks, making it the largest concentration of mountains over 14,000 feet on the continent.   The continent’s largest sub-polar icefield, which feeds a massive system of gigantic glaciers.  Three mountain ranges – the Wrangells in the northwest, the St. Elias range in the east, and the Chugach in the south - cover this wilderness.

     Then began our journey in earnest.  Another 30 or so miles south  on the Richardson highway, then  35 miles on a secondary highway, the Edgerton Hwy, which was paved, but barely so in places.  Then the fun really began on the McCarthy road – 60 miles of unpaved road.  One guide book says, “It’s a legend in Alaska.   It’s narrow, it’s rutted, it crosses 240 feet above a river on an old one-way bridge, and it runs  on top of an abandoned railroad bed from which old spikes and metal debris will surface to bite car ties.  Yet thousands of people make this drive to and from McCarthy every year and love it.” All true!  We saw a bumper sticker on a car in town:  “I (heart) the McCarthy Road.”   I wanted to get Bill one for our upcoming anniversary, but couldn’t find one :) Now we understand why we were told that the 130-mile trip would take 3 ½ hours, with no stops!

       We found our lodge easily.  Met the owner (Brad) and his right-hand man, Jamie, who showed us around the property.  It’s a gem of a place, and Brad & Jamie very, very nice!  Brad has owned it since the 1990’s.  The lodge only has 2 guest rooms, but there are about 4 or 5 cabins which Brad added.  The lodge building also has a large, complete kitchen for all guests to use, nice bathrooms, and a huge upstairs common lounge area.

 

 

  The entire front has spectacular views of the Wrangell Mountains and and glaciers.                                                   

 

 

                                                                   

 

 

 

 

 

 

      We were booked for a cabin, but Brad invited us to take a room in the lodge instead since the party who’d originally booked it was a no-show.  That way, we wouldn’t need to carry our stuff so far, nor walk as far to the bathroom, etc.  Brad was very accommodating in letting us keep  Pappy inside the room, as long as he didn’t get up on the beds.   We appreciated that, so that he could sleep in the same room with us at night, even though we put him in the truck when we were out and about, as we know he’s comfortable there.

     As soon as we got settled and recuperated a little from the McCarthy Road, we walked to the footbridge to catch a shuttle to the “airport” for our flightseeing trip.   The road stops at the Kennicott River –you have to walk over a footbridge to get into town.  The townspeople  want it that way – they’re afraid that opening up the bridge to vehicles will lead to a mass influx of tourists, which they don’t want.  It’s a little less than a mile from the footbridge into town.

 

     As we were waiting for the shuttle, we saw some kayakers paddle past us on the river.  The water is really, really fast through here – comes roaring and rushing through, laden with glacier silt.  They had a packraft race here yesterday - their first annual!  About 12 people participated.  They hiked up a mountain & rock glacier trail about 6 miles, with their packed inflatable raft on their backs, to a starting point on a river, and then paddled 11 miles of Class III & IV rapids to McCarthy.  Incredible!  Now, today, some of them were just having fun on the river.   

 

 

     The airfield is a busy place!  Saw several little planes land and take off while we were waiting for our pilot & flight.  Met our fellow passengers – a young man named Jeremy, who lives both here and in Anchorage, and his mom, who lives in Washington state and is visiting him.  She lived in Columbia MO years ago when her husband attended MU.  Jeremy bought some land here and is building a cabin.  He spent 4 years as head of a multi-disciplinary organization which promotes both scientific and artistic endeavors here in the Park and surrounding areas.  Typical of the things they sponsor is a poetry reading & music event tonight in town – he invited us to come to that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, our pilot came over & introduced himself – Martin -  and we hopped on board

 

 

.  He already knew Jeremy, which was nice, because I think he threw in a little extra flying time for free.  What can I say about the flight??  Spent an hour flying over one of the most magnificent landscapes on the planet.   Mile-high cliffs, enormous glaciers, and jaw-dropping views of jagged mountain peaks right underneath or beside us, including 16,390 ft. Mt. Blackburn.  A once-in-a-lifetime experience.  And on a gorgeously clear day.  To quote my hairdresser, “Who gets to live this kind of life????!”   Us????!!!

                                                                                                                                                       

      

                                                                                                                                         

                                                                        

 

 

      Were shuttled back into town, and decided to just get something to eat there, rather than walking back to the lodge (where we had leftovers in the fridge) and then back into town for the poetry event, which we really wanted to attend – a wonderful chance to participate in the life of this remarkable village.  

      But first we just took our time strolling around town.  It was love at first sight with this quirky, funky 3-block long town of 28 full-time residents.  We loved learning about its colorful history – it was founded in the very early 1900’s as a “recreation alternative” to the staid, regimented recreational activities available to the miners up the hill in Kennecott (read women, drinkin’, & gamblin’).  Loved looking at the old buildings.  Loved its evident heartfelt sense of  community.  Loved the creative, artistic atmosphere here – a poetry reading in the wilderness!  And loved the fact that they want to remain as they are, and not become this area’s version of Talkeetna (which we’ll visit later, the gateway to Denali).  It reminded us a little of an Alaskan version of Rocheport back home.    

 

 

                                               

                                                          

 

                                              Typical McCarthy street scene:  friendly dog making himsself at home: 

 

 

Then we ate at the Golden Saloon, where the menu was bar fare, but with original twists.  Loved eating outside and watching people, both locals and tourists, walk by on this glorious evening.  Four French visitors were eating at the table next to us.

 

 

Then walked down to the old Hardware Store, which is now available for community events like tonight’s.

 

         

There were probably 40 or so people there.  This cultural organization which Jeremy headed was sponsoring a writer’s workshop this weekend – so aspiring writers from all over the area were there.  About 10 or 12 read their work, including one gal who sang a song she composed & accompanied herself on the ukulele.  It was all great!  Not a throw-away in the bunch.  Afterwards, we chatted with one woman who was from Gustavus.  Of course, we told her how much we’d enjoyed staying in her home town.  She grew up in New York City, and has been in Gustavus for 16  years, and said that she thought that, per capita, there were more artists, writers, creators in Gustavus than in NYC!  In a way, we weren’t surprised to hear that . . . we’re constantly amazed as we travel and spend time in these small, isolated towns throughout the state at the amount of neat things going on in them. They’re a haven for far more than just libertarian malcontents – they attract truly adventuresome, self-confident, non-acquisitive  people who want to lead simple lives, doing what they love, with free access to a gorgeous natural world all around them.   I think this “vibe” is what accounts for so many of the people we’ve met who came up here for a visit and never looked back – they were attracted not only to the natural wonders of the state, but to this independent yet cooperative, self-accepting and other-accepting, “we can make it happen” state-of-mind.   The two events going on here this weekend exemplify this spirit – the poetry reading, and the Packraft race, which was organized by one of the adventure tour guide outfits in the area.

        Just as we were walking out of town back to the footbridge, we saw the last half of a black bear cross the road and go into the woods. At the footbridge, the river seemed to be even more powerful in the darkening evening – looked icy cold and definitely not friendly.

                                                       

We could still hear the water’s rush over at the lodge ¼ mile away in the deepening twilight.