Sheldon and Geni's 2018 Trip to Alaska
Today is: July 17 (19,659)
We woke up in: Chitina, AK We're going to sleep in: Chitina, AK

Shel: We took a trip into Wrangle-St Elias National Park to Kennecott Mines National Historical Landmark. This is down a 60-mile dirt road that was rough in places. When we got to McCarthy, we then had to take a shuttle to the mines.

Geni: Very long drive on very bumpy, dirt road (over 2 hours) to get to a place that was once filled with lots of people mining copper and workers who processed the ore in factory. Also included were those who were part of making it into a community (cooks, dr/nurses, teachers, store keeper etc.). It was weird walking down almost deserted, run down streets thinking about all those people who lived there. We learned about the hardships the people endured to produce lots of copper and make Kennecott Mine owners very wealthy, although the workers made good money also. Now it is filled with so many young kids working in restaurants or for the national park and living an adventurous life.

Moose seen on dirt road

Old railroad trestle. The copper ore was taken to Cordova via a train and then shipped to Washington to be refined

This iceberg in middle of river was not there yesterday. Leak in glacier caused piece to break off

Close up of little iceberg, which was washed away downstream by the time we left.

Main street in McCarthy - 4 miles from Kennecott where miners went to drink and gamble

This is real thing as it looked many years ago

Really artistic iron gate

Hotel now, but was once was home to residents of Kennicott

The tailing left after the copper ore was removed


It would be very expensive to ship the ore to Washingtn without trying to first isolate the copper. This structure house the equipment to extract most of the copper out of the ore.


General store as it looked in old days stocked with products of its time

The remnants of the hospitol - I think it needs a doctor or two :)

The start of the dirt road runs right through this rock cut. We didn't take the campers down the dirt road.