Becca celebrated her 19th birthday with us in rainy Valdez. We began the day with a short hike, followed by Becca going for a swim in an icy glacier lake. In the afternoon we all enjoyed a late lunch at The Potato, a second location of a restaurant we frequented the week prior in McCarthy. We ended the day with birthday brownies.
The next day was even rainier, so we went to see the Barbie movie. Fun for all!
We left the campground at five in the morning to catch our six-hour ferry to Whittier.
To get to McCarthy and Kennecott we got off of the highway and drove two hours on an unpaved bumpy road to the campground at the end. The road was so bumpy that it shook the battery connector right off of Becca’s van! Luckily Pa was able to fix it! From the end of the road we took a foot bridge over the roiling Kennicott river to get to McCarthy.
McCarthy was originally a booming town where copper miners from the Kennecott mine spent the money they earned. They spent their money on stuff like drinking and gambling. When we visited McCarthy we ate at a great restaurant called The Potato and we also got ice cream.
We also visited Kennecott, five miles away, which was once a booming copper town. Copper was discovered there in 1901. In 1911 the first load of copper departed Kennecott on the newly built 193 mile railway to Cordova. Kennecott was the most technologically advanced mine in Alaska; they were able to extract 98% of the copper out of the ore. The Kennecott Mine was the richest copper mine in the world at the time.
We went on a mill tour where Ma hit her head two times; luckily we were wearing hard hats. We got to see how the copper was processed and put onto trains.
When the copper was all extracted the owners shut down the mining operation and left all their equipment behind. Now the old mining equipment and town buildings are managed by the National Park Service.
In Kennecott we also hiked the Root Glacier Trail. We walked on a dangerous trail where I fell in the dust two times. We walked out on the ice and saw cool stuff like the snow and ice on the mountains and ground.
I had so much fun in McCarthy and Kennecott but now we are moving on to new adventures! Above and beyond!
We spent six days in Anchorage where we stayed at an Airbnb.There were three bedrooms and two bathrooms. One bathroom had a bathtub with jets and the other had a cool light that turned blue and white. I loved having my own room!
In Anchorage we went shopping. We went to a lot of stores: we went to Costco, Three Bears and REI.There was so much cool stuff and food. We got a lot of stuff like eggs, bread and earth balance, a type of butter.
We did a long hike called the Coastal Trail. It was 11 miles long and paved. I was on my scooter and Ma and Pa walked on foot. We saw a lot of cool things like the mud flats and the airport. The trail ended up downtown where we took an Uber back to our truck.
Last but not least, Becca flew in to visit us for one month. We rented a van for her because there was not enough space in the camper. I am excited to hang out with Becca!
I loved being in Anchorage but now we are moving on to new adventures!
We went to Cordova, which is a fishing community on Prince William Sound. You cannot drive to get there because it is not connected to the road system. You can only get there by ferry or airplane.
We came on the Aurora ferry. I got to see the bridge, they even let me turn off auto pilot and drive the boat. I saw a lot of electronics in the bridge like the radar and anemometer. We also saw a pod of killer whales. It was super interesting and fun being on the bridge.
We explored the Cordova Harbor were we saw the fish processing plants. We saw all the fishing boats coming into the harbor and there were a lot. There was smoke billowing out of giant exhaust pipes and there was always the smell of fish assaulting our senses. The fish were lifted out of fishing boats by large bloody nets at the processing plant. The bloody nets had a quick release at the bottom. the fish were dumped from the bloody nets into tubs of ice and taken in for processing.
We went on three hikes. The first one was the Sheridan Lake Trail where we saw icebergs and the glacier. The next hike was the Haystack Trail where I picked blueberries as we hiked. Our last hike was the Saddlebag Glacier Trail where we hiked to a beautiful lake. We saw a lot of bear scat on the trail so we sang to not surprise a bear.
We camped in the Copper River Delta.There was a old washed out bridge at mile 36 and that was the end of the road.
After leaving the Nabesna Road section of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park we drove west towards Anchorage. It was getting late when we arrived in Palmer, the first city in the greater Anchorage region, so we got some pizza to go and ate at a great city park.
We stayed at the Matanuska River Park Campground in Palmer, which we liked so much that we stayed two nights.
