Mt Drum, Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska.

 I picked up a magazine assignment to photograph a fisherman in Cordova.  I’m thrilled, because the timing perfectly correspondes with the amazing shorebird migration.  We had a wonderful time here last year, but weren’t sure if we were going to return this year - this made that decision easy!

We normally travel to Cordova via the Alaska State Ferry from Whittier, but  the road to Whittier was closed thanks to a landslide.  This forced us to make the long drive around to Valdez just to catch the ferry.  That’s ok, it is a beautiful drive!  We timed it so that we would pass through Glennallen right at sunset Sunday night so the we could photograph the Wrangell Mountains.  Sunset wasn’t anything special, but the mountains sure are!

I mentioned yesterday that the buildings at Kennicott aren’t actually mine buildings but a copper mill.  The Erie Mine is actually one of the mines that fed that mill. 

I understand that the main building you see here was a bunkhouse.  Access to this site was through the tunnels of the mine.  The Root Glacier that you see in the background continues around and below this building – the view from there must have been outstanding.  Imagine winter at the Erie Mine!

The Kennecott Mill is one of the most famous attractions in the Wrangell-St Elias National Park and I must say it won’t disappoint!

To see this large 13 story building with modern amenities like electricity and running water in a very remote part of Alaska is such a strange contradiction.  But to think it was built almost 100 years ago makes it even harder to comprehend.  Even today, only a handful of buildings in Anchorage exceed the size of Kennecott.

These buildings are often mistakenly referred to as the Kennecott Mine.  This is actually where the copper was milled, the mines are all much higher up in the mountains.  If you look closely you can still see some of the buildings and remnants of the tramways.  With a little extra effort you can still hike to some of these mine buildings, although they are starting to deteriorate.  The mine shafts themselves have been blocked off by the Park Service.  I have friends who used to be able to get into the mine tunnels and they have described some interesting sites, including large dinning rooms where the tables still had plates on them, and recreation rooms with pool tables still intact. 

When I was young, you could explore all over in the mill building, and the other surrounding buildings.  Since this property was abandoned suddenly due to a strike, most everything was left behind including medical records, old invoices, pay stubs – you name it.  You may still take a guided tour of the mill building, but today the buildings have all been secured by the Park Service – probably for good reason.

Many of the historic buildings in the town of McCarthy, Alaska have been restored and are in use today. The most famous would have to be the McCarthy Lodge.  After a hot day on the road or the trails, this is a great place to stop for a cold beer or a warm meal.  Believe it or not, they even have Internet access! 

Of the two roads into the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, the McCarthy Road is definitely the most popular – and for a few good reasons.  For one, the road itself is more interesting and exciting.  I think you can see that in today’s photo.  This is where the road crosses a one lane bridge 238 feet above the Kuskulana River.  This bridge is actually an old railroad bridge built back in 1910 in order to haul copper from the Kennicott Mines  That leads me to another reason this road is popular; the history of the area, in particular, the mine and mill buildings in Kenecott and McCarthy.  Finally, the McCarthy Road brings you closer to and provides better views and access to the dramatic Wrangell Mountains. 

Like the Nabesna Road, there are few services on the McCarthy Road, you need to be prepared with a good spare tire, food and gas.  Some years there have been tire repair facilities at Silver Lake at the end of the road, but I wouldn’t count on these.  The washboard can be bad, but if you catch it after a recent grading it can be fairly minimal.  The key is to take your time.  I saw one family turn around with a travel trailer about 30 miles down the road after losing their propane tank and a lot transmission fluid from their truck!

You can’t actually drive into the town of McCarthy.  The last river crossing involves a foot bridge.  You will need to pay to park or camp on the opposite side of the river - something most Alaskans aren’t used to.  It is less than a mile to the town of McCarthy, and about 5 to the Kennicott (Kennecott) area.  There are shuttle services available, and a courtesy phone at the foot bridge where you can call for transportation or lodging. 

I think the McCarthy / Kennicott area in the Wrangell-St Elias National Park is one of the true gems in Alaska.

Mt. Sanford in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska as seen from the Nabesna Road.

There is a small pull-out along the Nabesna Road at this little lake, making it a nice spot to crash for the night.  This shot was at sunrise, around 3 or 4 in the morning. 

Here are more posts on Wrangell-St. Elias National Park from the blog.

I had to walk back and grab this shot because I thought it summed up the Nabesna Road conditions perfectly. 

This is one of a number of water crossings along this road.  The water is fairly low on this day, it can be higher.  As you can see, it isn’t a problem with a high clearance vehicle, but it would be a challenge in a small rental car, and probably against your contract.  There is a small visitor center at the beginning of the road, I recommend stopping in here for the latest road conditions.  Even if they are closed, they will have the information posted on the outside of the cabin.

I should also mention, there aren’t any services along this road.  You definitely want to be self sufficient and have at least one good spare tire, along with plenty of gas and food.

This is a nice drive, through some beautiful, remote country.  Outside of hunting season in the fall, you will see very few people, you might see more caribou then people!  There are also some pretty neat old cabins and mines, it is definitely an area worth exploring.

The road to McCarthy is another great way to see the Wrangell-St Elias National Park.

The photos I have been posting over the last few days during my little weather detour, along with today’s photo, are all from The Wrangell St. Elias National Park, in Alaska.

“The Wrangell’s”, as they are referred to by locals are an amazing, dramatic range of mountains.  The National Park that encompasses much of them receives very few visitors.  Today’s photo probably illustrates why the area receives few visitors, that isn’t easy hiking country!

There are two roads into the park, the Nabasna and McCarthy roads.  These roads don’t make access much easier as both are long dirt roads, with lots of washboard and tire eating rocks.  The Nabesna Road even contains a few stream crossings that can be challenging in high water, especially if you don’t have four wheel drive.  Most rental car agencies won’t allow their vehicles on either road.  I will elaborate on the Wrangell’s over the next few days.  You can follow this link to our photo website to see more of our Wrangell St. Elias National Park photos. 

The unfortunate haze you see in this photo was smoke from a nearby wildfire.

Related blog posts:  Nabesna Road – McCarthy Road

How much snow do you get is another frequent question from visitors to Alaska.  Growing up in the interior, we never saw much snow, maybe 3 to 5 feet.  On the coast here in Seward we can get a lot of snow, and just a few miles out the road they usually get much more.  About 10 years ago we set a record here in town with 18 feet! 

Janine and I love snow and have always said the more the better, but even we got tired of shoveling that winter.  We had one particularly stormy period that kept the Seward Highway closed for an entire week.  The Seward Highway is the only road link between Seward and the other Kenai Peninsula towns and Anchorage.  The weather kept boats and planes at bay as well.  It didn’t really effect many people in town except for those that were forced to miss their long anticipated winter trip to Hawaii – and there were a few.

Now 18 feet of snow would be considered a low year for a town like Valdez.  Seeing Valdez in the winter is an interesting site – the homes disappear, you feel like a mouse in a maze.  The only part of any homes you see is what’s been exposed by the plowed drive-ways.  The rest is buried.  Forget looking out the windows! 

Thompson Pass and the mountains above Valdez is one of the snowiest places on earth.  Thompson Pass has received over 81 feet of snow in a single winter, almost 25 feet in a single month, and 5 feet in one day!  During my days in high school sports I remember a number of unplanned nights in Valdez because we were weathered in by snow storms.  Even though Valdez is a 100 miles away from where I grew up in Glennallen, it was the nearest high school.

In the spring I used to enjoy taking my cross-country skies to Thompson Pass where I would explore some of the valleys (not the mountains).  The hardest part of skiing there was always getting from the road onto the snow pack because there almost always was a steep snow berm at least 30 feet high!  Today those mountains are world famous for their extreme skiing, back then there was never a sole to be seen.

Weird things happen during extreme cold.  Some you may have heard about, others you may not have. 

You may have heard about square tires during the cold and that really does happen.  Actually they don’t turn square, but the flat portion resting against the ground stays flat when you first begin driving providing a slow, clunk, clunk, clunk feeling as the flat part on all 4 tires rotates around.  Our family car wouldn’t shift into forward gears during real cold weather, we had to turn circles in reverse – clunk, clunk, clunk… for a minute or so, then the car would shift into a forward gear, and the tires would round out.

If you take a cup full of hot water and throw it up into the area when it is at least -60, the water just vaporizes – nothing falls back to the ground.

Plastic turns hard and brittle like glass.  No moving extension cords at that temperature – to plug your car in, you needed to pull your car up to the upright portion of the cord where you last left it – if you went too far the cord just snapped off.  Plastic covered car seats always cracked leaving the seat full of tears the rest of the year.  I know of someone who hit their dash in frustration when their car wouldn’t start and shattered the whole thing!  Wood also becomes brittle, you had to walk gently on our deck, and even then you could hear it crack.  It was a great time to split wood, large logs split effortlessly in the cold.

Houses didn’t fair much better then cars.  Any electric outlet on an outside wall was worthless as they would grow huge frost balls – on the inside!  Even our triple pane windows would frost over on the inside.  We lived for awhile in a mobile home with double pane windows, and they would completely frost over.  I remember my mom getting frustrated from not being able to see outside so she got out her hair dryer and a bunch of towels and melted the ice off the inside of our windows – they stayed clear for one day. 

It was almost like you would fear the air.  You couldn’t let it touch you, or you would get frost bit.  You couldn’t breath it, even your mouth and face had to be covered.  Open the front door and you could see the air rush into the house.  Any house plants nearby would be toast.

 So in a nutshell, unless you are splitting wood, extreme cold really isn’t any fun.  Writing this reminds me how good we have it here in Seward!

How cold does it get?  How much snow do you get?  What is it like in the winter?  What about the darkness?  These have to be the most asked questions by visitors to Alaska each summer, and ones I will try to also answer here over the next couple of days.  Funny, I was asking people the opposite questions in Arizona recently. 

Seward, where I live now doesn’t get very cold thanks to being located next to the ocean.  It is unusual to drop below zero for any extended period of time.  Much of the lower 48 is often colder then Seward.  Even parts of Arizona are consistently colder.  Unfortunately when it is cold in Seward, it is usually very windy as well making it feel pretty nasty.

Now where I grew up was one of the colder parts of Alaska.  On two occasions I actually saw 72 degrees below zero F on the thermometer - not just chill factor, but the real deal!  I think I might have a photo of the thermometer, I will have to dig through my old slides from when I was a child.  The amazing thing, we weren’t even the state low!  It was just a few years earlier that the states all-time low of -80 degrees was set near Coldfoot.  In the 80’s Coldfoot had an unoffical low of -82!  Coldfoot, now there’s a town with an understated name! 

 If you pass by the visitor center in Delta Junction you will see a large painted thermomiter on the side of their visitor Center with each winters low temperature painted on it like some kind of badge of courage.  I noticed during that same period in the late 70’s they also hit a low of -72.  I thought it was interesting they were the exact temperature we were a 100 miles away.  The late 70’s – I may have just betrayed my attempt to sound and appear youthful!

I liked those extreme temps as it meant school was closed.  The official temperature was announced each morning by the radio station, and if it was colder then -50, there was no school.  Our house was usually about 10 degrees colder then the radio station which was located on the highest hill around.  So once we hit about -60 I would turn on the radio and anxiously await the announcement.  One winter school was closed so much that they finally lowered the closing temperature to – 55.  I was bummed – that meant when it was -60 at the house I still had to go to school.  At that temperature, it took over a half hour to start my truck, and then anyone who drove to school had to start and leave their vehicles running every other class period or they would never start at the end of the day.  At the time I grumbled, although looking back on it today it really sounds crazy!  They would never send kids to school today if it ever got that cold!

This photo is from the nearby Wrangell Mountains.  It takes extreme weather to get cool looking mountains like that.