Since we wanted to stop halfway between Anchorage and our destination Valdez, we chose a little town of Glennallen because of sightseeing possibilities. Glennallen (named after Capt. E. F. Glenn & Lt. H. T. Allen) is only a few miles to the west of the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve which contains the ruins of the Kennicott copper mine which closed in 1938. A nice feature of the RV park where we stayed in Glennallen is a scheduled Wednesday park ranger lecture which we attended. Our interest was piqued when she talked about the old copper mine that was inside the park. This national park is twice the size of Denali and at 12 million acres is about the size of Rhode Island. It is difficult to access the park; there are only two roads actually inside the park. The one we drove was the McCarthy road, and on the north side is the Nabesna road.
We left our RV park at 9 AM sort of prepared for our day’s outing. We had a map, water, lunch, and a full tank of fuel in the Jeep. We drove for 60 miles on a fairly nice paved road and finally arrived at the little town of Chitina. In Chitina the paved road soon turned to gravel and we noticed a warning sign to the effect of “this is really lousy road with not much in the way of services so don’t blame us if something bad happens…” Okay – fair enough. We have taken the Jeep off-road several times before and actually enjoy the experience. The Jeep is configured to go where the family grocery-getter can’t – we have skid plates underneath and good off-road tires so, off we go! (As it turned out, even the family sedan could have made the trip, but regular highway-type tires would have suffered greatly.)
A little history about the road first is in order. The road is actually built on top of the old Copper River and Northwestern Railway which was constructed between 1908 and 1911 for the express purpose of carrying copper ore from the Kennicott mine to the port of Cordova, Alaska. The rails were eventually removed for salvage and then the bed was converted in the 1960s for vehicle use. The road is narrow in places and winds around some mountains so our speed varied from 20 mph in the narrow and curvy areas to 45 mph on nice straight stretches. One of the most amazing bridges that we have ever crossed in any vehicle is the railroad trestle bridge at mile 16. This bridge spans a 238 foot deep gorge on the
Kuskulana River and is 525 feet long. Being a converted railroad bridge it is only one lane wide and fortunately for us there were sturdy looking guard rails! While he is not really afraid of heights, John made a point of looking straight ahead and not down. Traffic must take turns on the bridges which fortunately weren’t an issue due to very light traffic on the roads. It was tedious driving because you must always remain alert for the potholes that are very difficult to see when the road is shaded by trees; we speed up, we slow down, we dodge this and dodge that.
After driving for about 20 miles on the dirt-gravel road it finally dawns on John that the road is not the 15 miles in length he thought it was, but more like 60. Depression quickly sets in which then turns to resolve to finish the road since we already have so much time invested. After we
finally reach the ranger station near the end of the road, we have a bathroom break and listen to a briefing from the ranger about the Kennicott mines. John is trying hard to concentrate on the briefing while pondering the drive back. We walk about 15 minutes to the little town of McCarthy and exchange $20 for shuttle van tickets to be driven the four miles up to the mines and back. The Kennicott mine was opened in about 1911 with the backing of J.P. Morgan and the Guggenheim brothers and the last trainload of copper ore was dispatched on November 11, 1938. The quite large wooden buildings are in various states of disrepair but due to its new status as a National Historic Landmark in 1986, restoration is underway. We found the McCarthy-Kennicott area interesting but not fascinating to the extent where we would recommend the arduous trip to fellow travelers.
Be sure and visit our photo gallery of McCarthy-Kennicott!