Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve

Good morning, my friends. What a fabulous day we had yesterday! I took so many pictures it isn't even funny. We'll be moving on today, and so I'm going to have to split my post about yesterday's activities over two days. Today I'll tell you about the national park. In tomorrow's post, I'll tell you about Kennecott Mines National Historic Landmark. And, yes, we made it all the way! I was prepared to be disappointed about not making it all the way on McCarthy Road (the notoriously bad road), but I also knew I would regret it. 

As it turns out, the road was not nearly as treacherous as we'd been led to believe. Of the 62-mile stretch, about 20 miles were in chipseal. The remainder was gravel, but well-graded. In all but just a few stretches, we were able to drive the posted speed limit of 35 mph. We made it to the end of the road in about 2 hours.

So let's just take a look at some of the stuff we saw along the way, shall we? Here's how the road looked for most of our drive. The route parallels the railbed of the defunct Copper River and Northwestern Railway. 

We wove in and out of the boundary of the national park and preserve. In some places the park was on both sides of the road. In some places the park was on one side, the preserve on the other. And in some places the preserve was on both sides. 

We've run into this park vs. preserve situation before. The Google tells me that national parks and national preserves are both areas managed by the National Park Service (NPS), but they differ in the activities they allow. National parks are primarily for conservation and recreation, while national preserves allow for a wider range of activities, including some resource extraction and sport hunting, as long as they don't jeopardize the area's natural resources. 

The road also utilized the spectacular Kuskulana Bridge. It was formerly the original steel railroad trestle, but is now a modernized span, safe to cross by vehicle or on foot with reinforced planks and guardrails on either side.  

Here are its statistics:

And here we go. It's a single lane, and so one must yield to oncoming traffic. When we crossed, there were just a couple of people walking out to look at the view.

We passed by a lot of these little pink frilly wild grasses. My phone tells me this is "intermediate barley."

This next image is of Lou's Lake. We were told to look for wildlife here, but we saw none. We looked for wildlife all along the way, but only saw a few little chipmunks. It's still a pretty view.

Next, we crossed the Gilahina River. We crossed over a modern traffic bridge, but the wooden Gilahina Trestle could be seen from here. The trestle was originally 890 feet long and 90 feet high. It required one-half million board feet of timber, and was completed in eight days in January of 1911 as part of the Copper River Northwestern Railway to transport copper ore from Kennecott to Cordova. 

It is no longer in use. The image below shows the trestle from another viewpoint. If you look just to the left of center, you'll see it's in poor repair now.

Here's a little information about the railroad.

Finally, after many miles and a lot of dust, we reached the end of the road. To reach the town of McCarthy, one must park here and use the footbridge to cross the Kennecott River. Ordinarily there is a fee for parking ($12 for 24 hours), but the guy said his machine was "down," and so parking was free that day. 

On the far side of the bridge, shuttles would carry us the final five miles up to Kennecott Mine. There was a shuttle leaving in just a few minutes, and so we hurried across to catch it. There was supposed to be a fee for the shuttle, but we managed to finesse a free ride. No negotiations. It just worked out that way. 

This is a rushing river. Looking north, it looked like this:

Looking to the south, it looked like this:

Now look closely at that image above, and you might be able to see a cable running horizontally just a little above center. The footbridge was only built in 1997. Prior to that, folks had to haul themselves across the river on a manually-propelled raft. 

And since water is always more interesting when it's moving, here's a 10-second video of the rushing river. If you can't see the video, then click right here.

We also had a beautiful view of the Kennecott Glacer from there.

So I'll skip ahead here to our trek back from the mine and back to the camper. We managed to get onto another shuttle we hadn't paid for, but we gave the driver a hefty tip for his trouble. His dog, Colonel, sat beside him, just in front of us. Who's a good boy? And, yes, we petted him. Don't tell Smitty and Sadie, okay?

We took a short swing through the town of McCarthy. You can read more about McCarthy's history right here. At this point it's mostly restaurants, food trucks, and a couple of hotels. I took a couple of pictures through the window as we drove by.

As we left the town, I noticed this sign. Sorry for the blur. It says: "Welcome to McCarthy! The town is located on the traditional lands of the Ahtna-Athabaskan people. The community of McCarthy values diversity as well as a balance of neighborliness and self-determination. Our way of life is formed by weather, wilderness, and our connection to one another. We are glad you are here." A nice message for today's world.

We stayed on the shuttle and headed back to the footbridge and our Jeep. As we went, we noticed this bridge to the south. It is the one way for cars to drive into the area. Local businesses and the national park service pay an annual subscription to be able to use the bridge.

Okay, so we have a long drive today. We're taking a new road...the Tok Cut-off...which is rumored to be among the worst roads we'll drive on this trip. We're hoping to make the approximate 200 miles to Tok, but we may decide to stop early if the road is too punishing. In any case, I'll save my post about Kennecott Mines National Historic Landmark for tomorrow's post. For now...here's a teaser photo:

More to follow. Time to pack up and get on our way.