July 31 We left for McCarthy and the old Kennecott Mine right at 7:00 this morning. The drive from Chitina to McCarthy is 60 miles of gravel road which follows the old railroad bed. Many parts of the road are in gravel road condition while other parts are very rough. It took us about 2 1/2 hours to make the drive.
About 30 miles along the road we entered the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. We were surprised to find that the park entrance has a rather nondescript sign. Especially surprising was to find out that this national park is six times larger than is Yellowstone NP, making it the largest national park in the US!
About 30 miles along the road we entered the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. We were surprised to find that the park entrance has a rather nondescript sign. Especially surprising was to find out that this national park is six times larger than is Yellowstone NP, making it the largest national park in the US!
We pulled into the parking lot on the west side of the Kennicott River and were intercepted by Jim, the parking lot attendant. He was very friendly and gave us good suggestions like: go to the mine first and eat lunch at the Kennicott Glacier Lodge on the balcony, don't be sorry for the fools back at Chitina who left their RVs on the sandbar 'cuz the river's flooding- DUH! We took him up on both suggestions regarding the Kennicott.
However, our first need was to walk the footbridge across the Kennicott River to McCarthy. The river was flowing fast and high. The warm weather is taking its toll on the area glaciers, and they are melting at a rapid rate. The same was true of the Copper River where yesterday we saw several RVs parked on a large sand bar and now in water due to the raising levels of the river.
Once over the footbridge we caught up with the shuttle service. A shuttle was leaving immediately to go up to the mine. We paid our $10 total round trip fare. From the footbridge the shuttle drove to and stopped in McCarthy.
McCarthy has a colorful history. Since the mine was declared “dry” by the owners, McCarthy grew to take advantage of 2 things most men want- liquor and women. And McCarthy provided both and more!
The shuttle was approached by quite a number of persons. There was already 5 on the 11 passenger van. But by squeezing tighter and tighter, we were able to take on about 9 more people many of whom were from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The van then left for the 5 mile drive up to the Kennecott Mine having to leave 2 behind to wait the hour for the next shuttle or walk.
The Kennicott Mine opened in the early 1900’s in thanks to the development of a railroad from Cordova on the coast up through various river valleys to the mine. Here ore rich with a high concentration of copper was shipped to Tacoma, WA, for smelting. The mine produced the most copper and with it, the largest profit of any copper mine up to that time.
The Kennecott, now a national historic site, has many of its old buildings being restored. If you look closely at our photos, you can see workmen and scaffolding. As a result of the construction, most buildings were closed to the public.
We walked around the mine’s grounds taking photographs and reading about the function of the various buildings. The largest attraction is the concentrator mill where the copper was extracted from the limestone in which the copper was contained. Because this mill was on the side of the mountain, much of the process relied on gravity to move the ore from one stage down to the next stage.
When the ore had been concentrated as much as possible, it was loaded onto railroad train cars, shipped to the coast, and then loaded onto ships and taken to the smelter plant in Tacoma.
We walked a trail which took us up and behind the mine. There we could see the old tram lines which were used to move the ore from the actual mines high on the mountain down to the mill.
We continued to follow the trail, but must have missed a turn and ended up in a creek bed with a fairly good amount of water flowing down it. Fortunately, my long legs allowed me to rock step across fairly easily. However, Peggy had to work at finding a route across the creek. And she did so without getting wet or falling! We found where the trail picked up and continued on our way down towards the mine’s main road.
We came to a chute that must have been used to move high quality ore down a level skipping some of the concentration processing steps. At the bottom of this chute was what appeared to be a crusher that broke the large pieces of ore into smaller ones. I hiked up a steep incline to this crusher and there in a hopper was copper ore! I couldn’t resist the temptation to grab a handful of this ore and put it in my pocket. I’m assuming that this would be some of the last ore to go through the Kennecott Mine right before it closed forever.
By now it was lunch time so we found the Kennicott Glacier Lodge which is an old boarding house of the mine. It has been remodeled to accommodate guests. The lodge has a balcony with tables and chairs on the second story. So up the steps we climbed to find a great view of the river valley, the terminus end of the glacier, and the mountains across the valley.
And the food was superb. We each had the salmon Caesar salad with carrot cake for dessert. And of course we found the scenery much to our liking, too.
From there we roamed the mine area until the shuttle came. We rode it down from the mine to the town of McCarthy. Sonny was our driver and is originally from Texas. All you needed to do was ask him a question and he would talk in his drawl.
He told us if we were enjoying the history and scenery of the area, that we should cross the McCarthy creek and follow a road about a mile up a hill. There you will get very nice looks up the Kennicott River valley towards the glacier and the mine. And, if you go a bit farther you can see “Mudhole” Smith’s cabin. “Mudhole” was a famous area bush pilot back in the early days of the mine. You can see photos we took of this walk by following the link below.
Once we were back in town we had to look up an ice cream shop because we were hot and tired. Peggy estimated that we had been on our feet for nearly 5 hours not counting lunch. Whew! Fortunately McCarthy does have an ice cream shop which satisfied our needs!
We then went to the McCarthy museum which has many items from the towns early history on display. The raciest item I saw was a whale bone corset! But there were many items and photographs from the early 1900’s to 1938 when the mine stopped producing copper.
From the museum we walked back to the footbridge over the river, took a few last photographs, climbed into the pickup, and bounced our way back down the McCarthy Road to Chitina. Enroute we finally encountered rain while on the McCarthy. In fact we were in a 5 minute downpour and had to have the wipers on high to be able to see. And like a construction zone, the McCarthy turned momentarily into a muddy mess.
We we pulled into our campsite and wearily got into our RV around 7:00 after 12 fun hours of exploring, learning, walking, eating, photography, and just plain fun! I’m sure we will sleep well tonight!
We we pulled into our campsite and wearily got into our RV around 7:00 after 12 fun hours of exploring, learning, walking, eating, photography, and just plain fun! I’m sure we will sleep well tonight!
No comments:
Post a Comment