Sunday, July 18, 2010

After breakfast today, most of our group started out walking east along the highway, which is paved for the last few miles. The air was clean and clear - pretty mountains, lakes, flowers - a good day to be alive in Alaska. Later we learned that this stretch of road (which is fairly straight) is used by bush pilots as an airstrip - good thing nobody needed it this morning while we paraded down the middle of the road.

Patrick eventually picked us up and near the end of the Denali Highway, we got our first sighting of the Alaska Pipeline. The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System includes the 800-mile pipeline, 11 pump stations, several hundred miles of feeder pipelines, and the Valdez Marine Terminal.

This pipe, with a diameter of 48 inches, conveys oil from Prudhoe Bay, on the Arctic Ocean, to Valdez, on the southern coast. Controlled by a central computer, the pipeline can handle up to 2 million barrels of crude oil per day.

We then headed south on the Richardson Highway, which got its start as a treacherous gold rush trail leading to the Klondike. We passed through tundra and taiga forest, along barren ridges where glaciers slide down from ice fields. And - big excitement - we spotted a porcupine.

We stopped at the crossing of Sourdough Creek for a short hike and a history lesson. The history is this: the early gold prospectors came up from the San Francisco area and brought sourdough with them to make bread. They soon learned that the sourdough starter was ruined when it froze - to prevent freezing, the carried the sourdough next to their bodies. That kept it warm, all right, but the smell was something else.

Along the western boundary of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, we stopped for gas in the little town of Glenallen. This area was originally occupied by the Ahtna Indians and this small community now has just over 550 residents. The Trans Alaska Pipeline created a lot of jobs for locals in the 70's, but today it serves as a base for visitors to the Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve.

While Patrick pumped gas, we explored the Sparks General Store - it carries everything worth having, including giant 3-pound boxes of one of Margaret's favorites - Cheezits.

Next stop is the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, which is simply awesome - in the original sense of that word. Even in a state famous for its size, Wrangell-St. Elias stands out. It is by far the largest national park in the U.S., six times the size of Yellowstone; the park encompasses 13.2 million acres, with another 1 million acres of native and private lands within its borders. Four major mountain ranges converge here: the volcanic Wrangell Mountains, the Alaska Range, the Chugach Mountains and the St. Elias Mountains - the tallest coastal mountains in the world. The park contains 9 of the 16 highest peaks in the US, four of them above 16,000 feet. There are more than 150 glaciers covering 25% (5,000 square miles) of the park; the Malaspina Glacier alone is larger than the state of Rhode Island. Wrangell-St. Elias is known as 'America's Mountain Kingdom - there are more mountains, glaciers and wildlife here than anywhere else on earth.   This picture is Mount Wrangell, at 14, 163 feet, one of the parks tall mountains.


At the Visitor Center, we watched a wonderful movie about the park and learned about fish wheels used by the native people to catch salmon heading upstream to spawn. Patrick prepared us a grand picnic, which we enjoyed among the beautiful birch trees.

Before going into the heart of the park, we detoured through Copper Center, on a side loop off the main road. Like most communities in this area, Copper Center began as a native village that was overrun when the discovery of gold drew thousands to Alaska. It was a gold-rush era refuge for snowbound tenderfeet, who didn't realize the difficulty of building their cabins on the permafrost. Over time, the heat thawed the ice and the cabins sank into the permafrost - makes the windows a little on the low side.

After admiring the local architecture, we headed into Chitina, our second point of access into the national park. Chitina got its start in the early 1900's as a supply town for the Kennicott Mine and the Copper River Northwestern Railway. When copper prices began to decline, so did Chitina. Today it would be a ghost town, but for its location - nestled at the edge of the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, surrounded by spectacular mountains and roaring rivers.

The vast and rugged Wrangell-St. Elias National Park is not easy to visit. We could see some of the major peaks as we approached the park and from the visitor center, but roads into the park are few. Chartering a plane is probably the easiest route, but we followed the legacy of Alaska's mining days - a 60 mile gravel road from Chitina to McCarthy. The road follows the abandoned Copper River and Northwest Railroad bed - it features occasional leftover rails, cross ties and spikes (rough on tires).

At Mile 17, the road crosses the Kuskulana River Bridge; it spans 525 feet, 238 feet above the river. We got out of the van and walked across this bridge .. nice view, fresh air ....

At the end of the road are a parking lot and a footbridge to cross the Kennicott River, flowing out of the massive Kennicott Glacier.

We gathered up our overnight items, walked across the bridge, and followed the trail into McCarthy.

McCarthy is a quirky little town with a year-round population of less than 50; it grew up as a mining support town as gold strikes and other mining enterprises arose around the area. In its heyday, the population was near 2,000. The town's location as a central freight and passenger stop ensured its growth ... until the nearby Kennicott Mine pulled out.

McCarthy Lodge began its life over one hundred years ago as a cannery building on the coast. In 1916, it was dismantled and shipped via train to the new town of McCarthy. The structure was used as a storefront until the late 1940's when it was transformed into a big game hunting lodge. Today, the McCarthy Lodge is known as the area's premier dining venue; as far as we could tell, it also is the area's only dining venue.

Ma Johnson's Hotel in downtown McCarthy is known locally as the "Living Museum." It was built in 1923 and opened by Pete and Ma Johnson as a boarding house - famous at that time for steam heat, electricity and fresh eggs. The hotel lobby is a vision from the 1920's, and the second-story rooms are decorated with historic artifacts, fabric-covered walls, and original handmade quilts. There are no electrical outlets in the rooms, but it looked like an interesting enough place to spend a night.

No such luck. Our rooms were in Ma Johnson's annex - the 'charming' little house next door to the hotel. Turns out that this used to be the town brothel - four little bedrooms and one bathroom. The bedrooms were VERY small - in the old days, nobody expected to stay there all night! A little too cozy.