Sarah and I left directly from the Matanuska glacier and headed straight for the town of McCarthy, the small town at the heart of Wrangell St. Elias NP. On the way, we stopped in Glenallen for fuel and dinner. There is small truck parked in the gas station parking lot that serves a variety of Thai dishes, all for only $10 each. I spoke to the owners for a few minutes while we waited for the food. The truck is owned by old toothless American man probably somewhere in his 50s and his Thai wife. He takes the orders and entertains the customers, while she cooks the food. The truck very much reminded me of the food carts in Portland, OR, which if you have never been you should check out sometime. Next we stopped at Liberty Falls State Park just outside Chitna so Sarah could play on the waterfall. The last 60 miles of the drive was on a gravel road that was heavily washboarded for the most , so it was a bit mind of brain rattler.
Finally we arrived in McCarthy, or more specifically at the end of the road. Only locals could drive into McCarthy, so the next day we would walk to town, but for now we just setup our tent and camped the night. Once in McCarthy we stopped at the town coffee shop, and then made arrangements to take the shuttle bus to Kennicot. Kennicot was the mining town built in 1913 to process all of the copper ore that was being pulled out of the nearby mines. The old powerhouse, housing, and processing buildings are largely intact, or under restoration to their original state. There is also a ranger station there where we checked in, and went over our plans with the ranger. She suggested we head up to Bonanza mine first, then we could head out to start our backpacking trip upon our return. We stashed our pack in some woods in the middle of town and then setoff. On the way we made a pit stop and Sarah had put her water bottle down. It was not until about a ½ hour later that we realize she had left. We were not concerned since I still had mine. We continued up the trail for a couple more miles, slowly rising up above Kennicot and the glacier that sat next to it, giving us more and more expansive views of the valley below us. On our way up we passed a couple of fathers with their children heading back down , they pointed out the pass that we wanted to climb up to. We asked them to put Sarah’s water bottle to the side if they should come across it. They offered us water and carrots too. The teenage girl that was with them filled our bottle from hers, and mentioned she had put a hint of Oregon oil in the water. Well kids don’t try this at home, oregano oil in water is not a good thing, it made that bottle and many refills afterwards taste like oregano! Eventually we arrived near the mine shaft and the old wooden structure that was still there. We headed up to the nearby pass so we could look down on the adjoining valley. The views were spectacular! We played around on the rocks for a bit before returning to Kennecot and our packs. We then hiked a few miles up the main trail and camped with a view of the glacier.
The next day we packed up camp and headed a few miles across the glacier to our next campsite. We had to wear crampons as the glacier was very slippery, but fortunately it was very stable and there were no significant crevasses to worry about. There were large tour groups that would walk out on to the glacier with very basic crampons.
Once we arrived on the far side of the glacier we stashed our food in the bearbox, and wanted to see if there were any good camp sites at the lake which was about a mile inland. The problem was that we did not know for sure if there was even a trail to get there. So using our map and GPS we proceeded to bushwack our way there. Sarah lead the charge since I was carrying the sleeping pads, bags and tent on my back. After over an hour of stepping on, pushing over and clawing our way through the alder bushes we arrived at the lake, but there was not much beach, just a few rock outcroppings. I proceeded to further bushwack my way around the lake until at last I found the trail that lead from the glacier to the lake, and eventually up to a higher lake. Sarah opted to stay at the lower lake while I followed the trail a couple more miles up to the higher lake. I was awarded with great views of the glacier and the peak of Mount Blackburn. After returning back to meetup with Sarah we took the trail back towards camp. On the way we startled a black bear who ran up the trail about 45 feet (15 m) in front of us! He was more scared of us that we were of him, so we just broke of the trail and found our way back to the glacier and set camp in site of the bear boxes. That evening we went for a stroll and took in the site of the huge nearby waterfall.
The next we hiked out back to Kennicot, caught the shuttle back to McCarthy and then began the long drive back to Anchorage, stopping at the steel bridge on the way, and Liberty falls again. It was a great trip to one of the more remote parks in Alaska.
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