Chitina in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & the road to Kennicott

Our next stop after Valdez was the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. This seldom visited park is a vast wilderness area with only two roads into it. All other access is by air or by sea. To explore this area, we stayed at a free campground in a small town called Chitina, passing by a yak farm along the way.

The campers: Nancy, Barb, Liz, John, Alan & Dick

Our travelling buddies, Nancy & Dick

This town has a river on which the salmon run and is loaded with fish wheels.

We drove the famous McCarthy Road which is built on the old railroad bed to the ghost towns of McCarthy & Kennicott. It is a potholed, gravel road of about 60 miles and it's very rough. A constant lookout for old railroad spikes that can work their way up thru the gravel makes for a tiring drive. The drive took about 4 hours each way and it was POURING with rain the day we drove it. We could imagine how spectacular the scenery might have been...

The road dead ends and you must walk across a foot bridge to the tiny town of McCarthy. From there you can take a shuttle bus the 5 miles up the mountain to the old copper mining town of Kennicott where the copper mine owned by the Morgans & Guggenheims opened in 1911. They build a railroad of about 200 miles thru the rugged terrain to get the copper out. The remains of old railroad trestles dot the landscape. These ghost towns now cater to tourists with a hotel and a couple of restaurants along with the museums.

The Johnsons outside of Ma Johnson's Hotel