On to McCarthy and the Kennicott Mine

Morgan at Liberty Falls

David and I first traveled the 64-mile long McCarthy Road in 2015.  We figured it would be a perfect place to take Morgan… remote and historical.

We stopped at Liberty Falls, one of our favorite campsites just outside of Chitina.  Morgan fell in love with it, too.  Soon she was down by the creek, whittling a wooden sailboat and dangling her feet in the water.  

Morgan enjoying Liberty Falls

We watched a family camping across from us filet a cooler full of salmon.  At least we didn’t need to feel jealous with their catch… we had picked up some fresh salmon before we left Valdez and had it for supper.  It was another perfect evening.

Family filets salmon from their day's catch

Our fresh salmon supper

We awoke to rain.  Our drive down to McCarthy was wet and muddy, but the gravel road was in surprisingly good shape.  We set up camp at Root Glacier Base Camp campground… an expensive ($20) very primitive campground… but it’s all about location, location, location.  With Morgan still in her soft-cast boot, we needed to be as close to the bridge as possible.

Vehicles are not allowed on the bridge into McCarthy… it is meant for foot traffic only.  You can easily hike the mile into town, but with Morgan’s ankle, after church we decided to take the shuttle.  From town, we switched over to another shuttle bus to take us to the Kennicott copper mine, located five miles out of town.

David did an excellent write up about the mine when we visited in 2015.  If you’re interested in reading it, please click here:  Kennicott Mine.  With Morgan’s limited walking ability, we decided to forego the walking tour, particularly since the tour included climbing 14 flights of stairs to visit the old refining building.  We felt it would simply be too much for her healing foot to handle.

Views from Kennicott Mine

So we ate lunch at the lodge and strolled the buildings along the refinery road.  We watched a very informative film on the mine and its refinery methods and were able to see how the folks had lived during the mine’s heyday. 

The mine is located on the rim of Root glacier’s moraine.  It is a stunning, eerie landscape, looking much like a moonscape. 

Kennicott sits on the moraine of Root Glacier

By afternoon, Morgan was noticeably slowing down, her foot hurting.  We were fortunate enough to find room on the 3:30 shuttle back to McCarthy.   She wanted to see the town, so we strolled along the one main street of McCarthy and its dozen or so buildings.  By 4:30, we were back on the shuttle bus and on our way to the truck. 

Morgan and David in McCarthy Center

We had discovered a good pullout about six miles from McCarthy on our drive in, so we went there to set up a boondock camp that evening.  My, oh my, was it buggy there!  We all dove into the camper as soon as it was set up, had supper, and played cards until bedtime.

The next morning, we had misty rain again.  The road had become even more muddy and now had several washes going across it.  At one spot, beavers had dammed a culvert, and the road was badly washed because of it.  Thankfully, the rain began to slow, and we were able to take a photo at the old wooden train trestle.

Old Kennicott train trestle

 With all the days of rain, the Copper River was so running so high that it was impossible to drive down to it.  We had wanted to show Morgan the fish wheels the local folks use to catch salmon.  Instead, we looked at them from the bridge as we crossed the river. 

Fish wheels on the Copper River

We spent another night at the Liberty Falls campground.  The rain had stopped by the time we arrived, so we were able to enjoy another lovely evening.  Morgan begged to get closer to the falls.  Under strict instructions, she donned her rubber boots and used her crutches to wade into the water.  Some times you just need to be a kid even if you do have a broken foot!