McCarthy

As most of you have guessed, this blog is weeks behind.  A fact caused by my unattention and very poor network connections, but most of all was the problems with keeping a laptop charged when using only solar for power.  We’ve only plugged in two times since May.

After leaving Valdez, and before getting back to the junction of the Glennallen highway, there was a nice paved road that led to the small town of Chitina.  The Milepost showed there to be a large turnout just down the way, so that’s where we spent the night.  No traffic to speak of, and no other visitors.

Chitina wasn’t much to speak of, other than to be the jumping off place to McCarthy and the abandoned Kennicott mine.  We found a campsite just over the river right before the rain began.  It was about 11 AM, so we decided to go ahead and make the 60 mile drive to McCarthy.  That was a mistake, only because it didn’t leave us much time to explore before things shut down.

The road is the reclaimed bed of the abandoned railroad.  One can still see old ties buried in it, and sometimes one finds an old spike with a tire.  We were lucky with that.  A beautiful old bridge, constructed in just a few months in the dead of Winter.  It’s over a gorge hundreds of feet deep.

No public road goes into McCarthy.  One must walk a footbridge across a river, and catch a shuttle to town.  As we missed the shuttle by just minutes, we decided to do the half mile hike.  It was interesting.

                              

Once in Mccarthy, we had only moments before the shuttle to the mine left, so didn’t get to explore as much as I would have liked.

Kennicott was a mile town, with strict rules for the employees.  McCarthy was at the end of the railroad, just five miles down the hill.  One can imagine what sorts of things took place there each evening.

                                 

Kennicott was the main reason for our visit, though.  I love places like it, and was disappointed to find that everything shut down at 5 PM.  Following are just a few of the pictures I made as I wandered the place.  The company just walked away when the mine shut down in the 1930’s.  Most everything was left in place.  The NPS now has control of the site and are doing some stabilization on some of the buildings. 

The company store.

Pick your brand.

I remenber all of these products.  I guess that makes me old.

                  

                                  

There were plenty of windows for air circulation.

Abandoned machinery looks as if it could be back to work at any time.

As I mentioned earlier, it was 60 miles of dirt road to get to McCarthy.  It was raining and muddy as we bagan the trip, so the truck was wet and nasty.  About ten miles before the end of the road the rain quit, and the road turned to dust.  The end result is pictured below.  It was like concrete.

Just making memories.

I’ll try and do better…..jc