My Mountain Trail

Alaska 2005

Here’s the text.  I’ll upload the pictures soon…

September 15, 2005

My girlfriend, Lori, and I just returned from a Labor Day vacation in Alaska.  We were there for five fantastic days.  We flew into Anchorage, rented a car (a Toyota 4Runner), and drove to Wrangell-St. Elias National Park.  We camped, we hiked, we ran, we saw some bears, and we took lots of pictures..  Reading Jack London’s Call of the Wild  when I was young may have sparked my interest, but I don’t really remember for sure.  I do know that I have wanted to experience the Alaskan wilderness for most of my life.  Dreams like that carry a lot of romance and mystique, so actually making the trip was a pretty big deal for me.

It seems like I have always wanted to go to Alaskasomeday, but it always seemed a few years off.  I kind of expected that we would drive the Mothership up the Alcan Highway .  Of course, that would be a pretty long trip.  The logistical challenge, combined with the romance of that kind of trip seemed to keep it just a bit out on the horizon, never quite getting closer.

I knew that we would go to Alaska

How we decided to make the trip:

The July or August “National Geographic Adventure” magazine featured several articles on exploring Alaska.  All of the trips were still pretty “big”, but they were not quite as huge as Alcan would be.  This must have planted the seed to start thinking about an alternative approach to an Alaskan adventure.

In early August I was grinding through my 30^th (or so) airline commute home from a business trip this year, this time with no reading materials that I was interested in, and too tired to work.  I was reduced to flipping through the airline’s in-flight magazine.  You never know where inspiration might strike, but it struck me when I saw an article about flying to Anchorage. The article made it seem pretty easy to get to there (5 or so hours of flying), and major sights like Denali and Wrangell-St. Elias National Parks are then only a half-day drive.  That was very enticing, so I decided to discuss it with Lori and see if we could pull off the trip before winter set in.

We selected Labor Day weekend as the best weekend to go.  Work is a bit slower around holidays, so we could take some time off more easily.  Unfortunately, the airfares to Anchorage seemed a bit steep for a short trip – prices were in the $500-$600 range for a ticket.  The solution turned out to be free tickets – it was a perfect opportunity to make all that business travel pay off for us.  We booked our flights, booked a rental car, and booked a hotel in Anchorage for the first night —  then we realized that we were committed.

Getting ready:

We don’t always do the best job of preparing for our trips.  Last July when we took the Mothership to the San Rafael Swell, we didn’t really get serious about packing until the morning after the evening we were planning to leave.  That was a bit extreme, even for us, but you get the picture.  Alaska was different.

Three weeks before leaving, Lori took the first step to getting us packed.  One of our problems was that we didn’t really know what we were going to do in when we got there, so it was hard to know what to pack.  We did know we were interested in some backcountry camping and hiking, so Lori got us started by pulling out her backpack and camping gear.  If she was going to pack effectively, I had to participate too, so I did the same.  We sorted through our stuff and packed our packs.  We packed everything except water and camera gear.

It’s a good thing we did that, because we didn’t get back to any more packing until the weekend before our departure.  I was excited about the trip, but I guess my romanticized view of Alaska was making me a bit nervous about what was ahead, and I stalled out.  Would we encounter a a hostile bear? Or a moose? Or would it pour rain and be foggy the whole time?  Or would it be one of the most awesome trips of our lives?

Finally, the Sunday before we were to leave we re-worked through our lists, checked our packs, and packed clothes for non-backcountry conditions.  Mostly, I think we got ourselves ready to pack our final items.  After a quick, but long-hours, business trip to a gold mine in central Nevada for me and a couple of busy client training days for Lori on Monday and Tuesday, we finished the majority of our packing on Wednesday night.  Thursday, we wrapped up our final work commitments, got in a little trail run, loaded the truck, and drove to the airport.

Anchorage

We arrived in Anchorage at about 10:00 p.m. , which was 11:00 p.m. our time.  We had napped on the flight, so we arrived fairly alert, and a bit hungry since we didn’t have time for dinner before our 6:00 p.m. flight.  We decided to drive into downtown Anchorage and see if we could find some food.  We ended up eating at the Glacier Brewhouse, which was the only place we saw that looked like it was still serving food.  And it was good food too!

Anchorage is a small city.  I mean that in a good way.  It kind of reminded me of a small Seattle, or maybe a bit smaller than Winnipeg.  That was my impression, but we really didn’t spend that much time there.  We did buy some bear spray and a couple of maps at REI, and some food at Fred Meyer and Wal Mart.  My advice on this front is to just go to Fred Meyer, don’t waste your time with Wal Mart.  There is a really nice, new Fred Meyer in Eagle River on the way out of town.  There is also a Fred Meyer in Palmer if you decide to wait that long.  I wouldn’t wait to buy too many supplies outside of Palmer unless you want to shop in a Ma & Pop shop – and there’s nothing wrong with that as far as our experiences took us.

Driving to Wrangell-St. Elias National Park

There wasn’t a lot of traffic during the drive, but it wasn’t as remote or empty as I expected either. This proved to be the case for the entire trip.  I think that since there are so few roads in Alaska, the traffic gets concentrated on those roads too.   In addition, the Labor Day Weekend seemed to be bringing out the last of the tourists and plenty of hunters.  

After leaving Palmer things got wild pretty quick.  There are lots of mountains, rivers, and several glaciers.  Unlike in the Lower 48, when you look up a river valley, you don’t see roads, houses, farms, or anything but trees and a river.  It’s quite amazing to imagine how difficult it would be to travel up these valleys with no access — not even trails.  Fortunately, the main road is very good.  

A couple of hours into the drive we pulled in to Glennallen.  Pulling in, I knew that this would probably be the last good place to buy gas before we entered the park.  I figured Glennallen would be like most small towns in the Lower 48.  You know, a small main street, a few shopping centers, and several gas stations.  It turned out to have a few gas stations, and a small grocery/general store, but it was all much smaller than I expected.  We paid about $3/gallon for gas, and were happy to do so!

We also stopped at the grocery store to pick up a couple of last minute supplies.  First grocery store I have been in that also sold used rifles behind the checkout counter.  You’ve got to like that!  They had a little bit of everything.

After Glennallen we drove on to the WSE NP where we met Neal the park ranger.  He was a great source of information about potential camp sites and places to visit in our four days in the park.  We also picked up a bear-proof food container for use while in the park.  These are FREE, so you have no excuses to not use one.  I think we would have been fine hanging our food in trees during the trip, as we never camped in a treeless area, but there are lots of treeless areas, so why take a chance?

The Chitnia – McCarthy Road

The guidebooks make this road look pretty rough — rumors about railroad spikes in the road, multiple flats, etc.  I can’t confirm any of that.  The road was in great shape when we drove it.  We actually drove from McCarthy to Chitnia (about 60 miles) in 2 hours, yet the guidebooks say 3.5 or more hours is typical.

Your first look at the road is after crossing the Copper River and entering the Chitnia River Valley.  Let me tell you, these are huge, wild, braided rivers.  They fit perfectly in Alaska.
Lori describing the Chitnia River (in the background).
The Copper River.

Kuskulana River Bridge

Anyway, after entering the park on Friday afternoon, we drove to the Kuskulana River (thanks to Pat Fitzgerald, an awesome musician/artist for correcting this), which is 20 or so miles up the McCarthy Road.  This river has a trestle bridge several hundred feet over it.  As you are heading towards McCarthy, there is a small road right before the bridge that passes under the bridge.  There is a flat spot right under the bridge where you can camp, and another walk-in campsite below this level spot that is a little closer to the river.  Both sites are still well above the river.

We camped at this site on Friday night.  The river roared in the background, and the cars rolled over us on the bridge.  I would say we had about 15 cars drive over the bridge at all hours of the night.  About half of them threw rocks off the bridge and screamed — for good luck I guess.  It was a bit un-nerving at first to see 10 pound rocks flying off the bridge, but none of them hit our campsite!

We kept our bear spray handy, but didn’t see any bears.  We did get a few nice pictures of the bridge and river though.  The temperature dropped into the 30s over night, but we were cozy in our tent.

Crystalline Hills Trail

Our guidebook said we could backpack to the top of the Crystalline hills and set up a base-camp and explore them.  First of all, hills may be a bit of an understated description — these hills rise several thousand feet above the surrounding valleys. 

The guidebook author warned that it might be a bit strenuous after leaving the trail.  Let me tell you, it was extremely strenuous.  We packed out to the end of the trail (one of the few in the park) and bushwhacked towards the hills. After climbing a slope greater than 45 degrees (I’m not exaggerating) for 100 yards or so, we parked our packs behind a couple of trees (otherwise they would have rolled down the hill) and hiked up to see what we could see.  We made it up to a less steep bench area.  It was pretty neat, but not that different than lower down.  One note, the dry streambed that we hiked up turned out to have a fair amount of water in it as we got higher up.  We had been carrying quite a bit of water, but this would have eased that situation had we stayed up there.

 

We hiked up to the point where  the bench met some very steep rock walls.  That was the end for us.  We turned around and hiked back to our packs.  We had hiked one of the trail spurs out to one of the viewpoints on the way up.  The viewpoint was on a ridge that had some level areas, so we thought we might be able to find a campsite near there.  We succeeded.  About 50 yards along the ridge we set up our cook area, and then another 35 yards along the ridge we set up the tent.

Camping in the Crystalline Hills

We just knew we were in bear country now.  Really, we were.  Hiking the trail up, we had seen quite a few red bear droppings (red from berries).  None were too fresh, but they weren’t too stale either, so once again we kept the spray handy.

Even though we had spent a pretty full day carrying our backpacks and/or hiking around, we turned out to be about a mile from the road and car.  Before it got dark we decided to hike down to the car and get some chips and salsa, etc.  No reason to rough it too much!  

Back at the car we met a couple that we had seen on the trail.  They were from Idaho and had been on the road for six months!  They had been tenting the whole way.  One of the most interesting stories they passed along was their 21 days without seeing a human while canoeing down a river in the Yukon.  Now THAT is remote!

Our night in the Crystalline Hills was beautiful.  The weather was a bit variable, and cooled down into the high 40s.  The wind picked up some too.  Until that night, we hadn’t really had any wind to worry about.  In the morning we packed up the tent and made breakfast.  Just as we got everything packed it started to rain.  Perfect timing.

McCarthy, AK

We drove from the Crystalline Hills towards McCarthy on Sunday morning.  Along the way we stopped at a rushing river (I think Alaskans might call it a stream or creek, but it was pretty big) and refilled our water jugs.  We treated them with the MSR free radical treatment system.  It gives the water a slight chlorine taste, but it treats a lot of water fast.

In addition to this stream, there were a few lakes along the way (like Long Lake and Moose Lake) and many ponds that seemed to have a constant flow of water through them.  With the fall foliage and dramatic clouds, they were very beautiful.

 

We arrived at the end of the McCarthy road at about mid-day.  McCarthy is actually across the Kennecott River and is accessible using a footbridge.  The town is about a half-mile past the bridge.

We parked in the free daily parking, which is also $5/night overnight parking.  You can also camp there if you want to.  This parking area is a quarter mile from the bridge.  Parking at the bridge was about 3x as much. We didn’t mind a little exercise.
One of the main roads in McCarthy.

After a walk into town, we decided to stay in McCarthy at the one hotel.  It was an historic hotel which was pretty cool.  It was an old building too, which usually means pretty noisy if it is full of people.  Fortunately, it wasn’t too full.

Interestingly, we talked with Neal, the owner of about half of McCarthy, about the Kennecott Lodge (five miles past the bridge in Kennecott) before we decided to stay in his hotel.  He said the food was better in McCarthy, and the hotel cost was lower, and it included breakfast.  It turned out that the evening meal was better in McCarthy (see below), but the hotel/breakfast cost was about the same in Kennecott.  We were given a walk-up rate at the Kennecott Lodge that was actually lower than in McCarthy, but we had to buy our breakfast.

About the Food

The McCarthy Lodge had just implemented a “we’ve got anything you want, as long as it is a roast beef sandwich” lunch policy for the post-tourist season.  We found this to be a bit strange since it was still the Labor Day weekend.  We were hungry, and the sandwich was good.  Dinner was a different story.

The McCarthy Lodge evening menu was really great.  Lots of choices, and the two we selected (local red salmon and local halibut) were as good as anything we have had.  Period.  The halibut was actually the best I have ever eaten.  Firm, fresh, in some sort of vegetable combination (sorry but I was focused on the halibut) that was just perfect (well, I could have done without the squash).  Lori’s Copper River red salmon was also excellent.  Almost as good as my halibut, but not quite.   Breakfast was good too, although I can’t remember it.

Food the next day at the Kennecott Lodge was also good.  Just not quite as good as the meal we had on Sunday evening in McCarthy.  And trust me, we were just as hungry that night as we were in McCarthy.

Running to the Root Glacier

Why were we hungry in McCarthy?  Well, we decided to run up to the Glacier.  This was a 12.5 mile round-trip run that took us through Kennecott and out to the Glacier.  Check out the pictures.

It was raining a bit, and sort of cool at the glacier, but it was not your everyday run.  It was an easy grade up to Kennecott, and then a little bit up and down to the glacier.  

 

This is the Kennecott road and the view at the foot of the Root Glacier.

There is a half-marathon on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend that runs out to the glacier, so since we missed it, we decided to do our own.  I commented to Lori as we ran up that I thought you could really smoke the return leg back in to McCarthy.  Lori scoffed at my projected 6:00 to 6:15 pace on our way up.  Turns out she was feeling frisky, because as we ran the five miles back from Kennecott, she slowly ratcheted up the pace until we were, in fact, running at a 6:15 pace.  I was starting to hurt by then, but didn’t want to give in to a girl, so I hung in there.  I kept thinking “she’s going to crack soon!”  It took a while, but finally she slowed down about a mile outside of town.  We ran a cool-down run into town, but I was really wasted.  Totally soaked with sweat and rain.  At least I was right, even if it cost me a pound of flesh.

Kennecott Lodge

On Labor day we schlepped our stuff out to the end of the footbridge and called the Kennecott lodge (from the free phone) to see if we could get a room.  Of course, being Labor Day, most of the guests were leaving that morning.  I think they quoted us a room rate of about $169, but when we got to the lodge they said we should have been quoted the walk-up rate, which was about $130.  This was cheaper than staying in McCarthy, but it did not include breakfast.

The lodge sent a shuttle down to pick us up.  The driver was a super nice lady from Anchorage that filled in after the “seasonals” started leaving for home.  She was a retired school teacher that had moved to Alaska with the young school teacher importation/recruiting program about 40 years ago.  I had read about the program in Michener’s Alaska, so it was kind of interesting to see the result.  She was such a positive person, you couldn’t help but feel good after talking with her.

That night after our hike to Bonanza, we had dinner at the Lodge.  The food was excellent, served in a family style setting with the other guests.  The other guests were from Georgia, Anchorage, and Germany.

Bonanza

After we checked into our room in the Kennecott Lodge, we set off for a hike to the Bonanza mine at the top of (I think) Bonanza mountain.  Neal in McCarthy had mentioned that it had a great view if the weather was clear.  The clouds were just brushing the surrounding peaks, so we thought we would give it a try.

The hike up was about 4.5 miles from the lodge.  The climb was 4000 feet (from about 2000 feet to 6000 feet).  The National Park ranger said it would take about 2.5 hours or more to get to the top.  We hiked aggressively and it took us almost three hours.  It had snowed at the very top the night before, but otherwise the weather was pretty good.  It was quite windy and cold, and we did have some clouds that blew through while we were up there.

What is amazing, after you get to the top of a mountain mine like that, is the realization that every piece of metal, board, glass, tar, and paper that went into those mines was hauled up there by a man or animal.  Before the train went in, everything had to be transported from a sea port.  This huge effort is almost beyond our modern comprehension.  And all of it done to make some money — in this case it was a lot of money, but that wasn’t always the case.

We saw a black bear and her cub on the other side of a deep ravine during our hike.  She was about a mile away, so there was no risk.  Hey, at least we saw bears — the only two we saw on the trip.

The Trip Home

On Tuesday morning we got a ride back to the end of the footbridge, walked to our car, and took off for Anchorage.  In five days the trees had picked up a lot of color, so we stopped for a whole bunch more photos.  It was really spectacular.

In Anchorage we gave our left-over camping supplies/food to a soup kitchen, went out to dinner at the Glacier Brewhouse again, and then went to the airport.  We flew all night and arrived home at mid-morning on Wednesday.

I can’t wait to go back!