What's the Largest US National Park? -Post 3: The Road to McCarthy

[Click here for Post 1 and Post 2. All the pictures can be enlarged by double clicking on them.]


The road to McCarthy. The reason that I've never been to Wrangell-St. Elias National Park before. It always comes with the warning - it's full of old railroad spikes, be sure to have a spare tire or two.



From Anchorage we drove to Glenallen, then south for 30 miles on the Richardson Highway - the road that ends in Valdez. At the Edgarton Highway, you go east 35 miles to Chitina (Everyone calls it Chitna). This is where you gain access to the Copper River. As you cross the bridge you can see the wide river and the area where people have fish wheels and the point where people take off to go dipnetting.






There are lots of signs warning that this is private land.












The public campground is on the right just after you cross the bridge. I'm not sure what maintenance means here. The wind was constantly blowing up the glacial silt that served for ground cover.









We had a burnt out camper shell in the 'space' next to ours.




We were camped in an open area that filled up during the night. Sleep wasn't easy with all the motors running - the camper next to us, four wheelers, boats on the river, cars cruising for a campsite all night. Plus a few people practicing their fire works skills for the next day.





There were some nice camper spaces and the A family got one of those. But it was late and we really had no idea what was up ahead. The person at the National Park headquarters on the Richardson Highway said, "Most of the land along the road is private. There are some public pullouts where you can camp." In hindsight we should have done that. But we'd taken the slow route and so we camped at Chitina.




The road started out pretty bad - the washboard surface rattled the car hard. But after about six miles we got onto better surface and some spectacular views. Eventually we were going along at the speed limit (35) or better for long stretches. In the end we never saw anyone fixing a flat, nor did either of our two vehicles get a flat.


Here's the Chitina River, only a few miles out of Chitina.








Then we came to the spectacular Kuskulana River bridge. This whole road is built on the path of the original railroad line from Cordova to Kennecott, built to take the copper out from the mines. Apparently they just built the road over the old tracks and spikes regularly surface on the road from underneath - thus the warnings about tires.

A non-glacial creek where we could wash and cool off and let the kids get rid of some energy.

The day was mostly sunny and getting warm, well hot by Anchorage standards. I'm sure it was in the low 80's F (@25 C) by the afternoon

Lakina River Bridge

We were told there were about 90 trestles that had to be built in the 196 mile railroad from Cordova to Kennectt. (I think I heard that on the tour, so the numbers are what I remember and not necessarily right.)



















Dry weather meant that there was always a cloud of dust behind the cars. When we got separated, we could always spot the other car down the road from the dust. On the way home on Sunday we had just enough rain to keep the dust down.















The ranger at McCarthy suggested we drive down to the river side campground.









There are no park service amenities here yet, it's all private. Parking is $5 a day. The campground was $20 per night. Fortunately they let us have two vehicles in one campground for that price. The guy at the campground office had a beer in hand, and had obviously had quite a few beers in hand already that day.







Finally, in a nice campground for the next two nights.