Headed out of Eagle River toward Skagway to catch the ferry...which is still on strike!! We’re hopeful that we won’t be “stranded” for weeks and weeks!!
We’ll do some tourism along the way to pass some time!!
I feel like we need T-Shirts with something like the “I survived the Blue Bell Ice Cream Famine of 2015!!”...maybe... “I survived the Alaska Ferry Strike of 2019!!??”
Day one of this part of the AK adventure finds us driving 5 hrs to Chitina...then traversing 2 1/2 hours of gravel road to get from Chitina to the Kennicott River!!...DUH!!...NO cell phone service for hours and hours out into the Alaskan BUSH!!...who would we call??...Ghost Busters??...telekinetically??
BTW Tidbit # 1: ...only half of the drive was on a “maintained” gravel road!!...HEINOUS is ALL I can say!!...imagine the worse gravel road that you have ever driven in your entire LIFE...and then imagine 2.5 hrs of that!! I certainly can empathize with the ALCAN travelers of even 25 years ago!!
We ended the 2.5 hr gravel road drive at the Kennicott River where you have to park...walk across the river on a foot bridge...and then take a shuttle 5 miles through McCarthy and on to the Kennecott Mine.
We had a nice hike over to the terminus of the Root Glacier.
...then just enough time to grab some dinner “to go” at the Meatza Wagon food truck...before the LAST shuttle OUT at 7:00pm!!...I wonder IF they ever have “prisoners of Kennecott Mine”...warranting a t-shirt!!??...I certainly don’t want to TEST that out!!...without having the VAN as an overnight shelter!!
BTW Tidbit # 2: during the summer...about 50 people actually “live” at the Kennecott Mine...providing the services for all of the tourists. There is a hotel, restaurant, food truck, parks office, gift shop, shuttle office/staff, etc....along with the folks who actually own property in the area.
BTW Tidbit # 3: We wondered HOW all of the vehicles got onto the mine side of the river...since there was only a foot bridge access that we saw. The shuttle driver said there was a privately owned and gated vehicle bridge that required a $350/year fee for access!!
So...we arrived back at the parking lot across the foot bridge at 7:30pm...and YES...STILL had another 2.5 hours to drive BACK across the HEINOUS gravel road to get to Chitina...and then another hour’s drive to reach the parking lot of the Wrangell National Park Office...where we were going to overnight!!...PHEW!!...talk about POOPED!!...YES...we were!!...and this was ONLY day ONE of this part of the AK adventure!!...MY OH MY!!...added bonus—we saw a moose eating in a pond!!
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