I first visited McCarthy 13 years ago with my friend Lisa (photos from that trip), and ever since then I’ve wanted to come back and do a glacier trek. There are 2 bridges into McCarthy: one for locals (you need a key for the padlock to open the gate), and the other a footbridge. There is a huge campground next to the footbridge with great views, a few pit toilets, and a food truck selling hot dogs.
Many folks warned us that the road to McCarthy was really bad, and to bring an extra spare tire, but advice is based on what the road was like 10+ years ago. The road was not bad at all, and no worse than the stretches of the ALCAN or Denali highways)
For my 60th birthday I treated myself to a 5 day trek out of McCarthy, Alaska. Five hard days of hiking with a 45-50 pound pack over glacier ice, rocks, mud, and a lot of bushwhacking. It was completely amazing. There were 4 of us on the trek: myself, my friend Leanne from Tucson, a great new friend, Alfredo, from Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Monet, our guide. We hiked about six hours per day. I’m so glad I did this while my knees and back could still handle it. We saw a total of 5 bears (2 were young cubs), but all were far away.
While I was trekking, Christine relaxed in camp, and did a tour of the Kennecott Mine (highly recommended), which I did when I was here in 2009.
To better understand the town of McCarthy, check out the book Pilgrims Revenge (available as an eBook from the San Francisco library). It’s a fascinating story, and there is a lot of history of the town and the national park thrown in.
From Haines you have to cross the Yukon to get to the rest of Alaska. There are a complicated and randomly enforced set of rules on what food you can take when across the border. But Canada ended up letting us bring everything in, and the US just took away our citrus (even though it was purchased in the US).
Our first stop in the Yukon was the Congdon Creek Campground, right on Kluane Lake. This is the first time I’ve seen a campground with an electric fence for tent campers (to keep out Grizzly bears), and free firewood. We didn’t see any bears in the campground, but we did see a small grizzly near the road about 10 miles away. While there I hiked the Sheep Creek trail, which is a steep hike with amazing views. There was still a ton of ice on Kluane lake when we arrived, but most of it melted during the 2 days we were there.
Next on to McCarthy in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, America’s largest national park. On the way we stayed at Uncle Nic’s RV park in Copper Center Alaska. Wow, what an interesting place! They have an amazing model train of the Copper River Railway, and we had a great time talking with several locals, who were all interesting/odd characters.
The three day ferry trip to Alaska was very relaxing. Day one was cloudy and rainy, so we could not see much, but days two and three were glorious. Along the way we stopped at Ketchikan, Wrangle, Petersburg and Juneau to let folks on/off before arriving in Haines. The ferry is quite comfortable in that government service sort of way. We had a two person cabin with a bunk bed, but the upper deck of the ferry was covered in tents for those wanting to save some money.
In Haines we stayed at the Oceanside RV park with fantastic views, and right next to several restaurants and bars. I was able to Kayak right from the RV park, while Christine did a 4×4 tour. There were humpback whales and bald eagles everywhere. A whale breached only about 100 yards from me while I was kayaking, which is pretty scary when you are in 45 degree water.
Unfortunately the famous Haines Hammer museum was closed while we where there, and we were a couple weeks too early to see the salmon spawning on the Chilkoot river. But we really liked Haines, and would come here again.
We also did a tasting of the spirits made by the Port Chilkoot Distillery. I recommend their gin and bourbon.
105 weeks later than originally planned (thanks to COVID-19), on May 15, 2022, we departed for Alaska! We plan to be on the road until Oct 1. We spent 2 weeks working our way north to Bellingham, WA for the ferry to Alaska. (soundtrack for this post is here)
Usually I try to do a weekly blog post on our travels, but this one covers two weeks, so will be a bit longer than usual. Hopefully I’ll get back to weekly, depending on cell coverage. I’m writing this on day one of a three day ferry ride to Haines, AK. So far we’ve mostly only seen dark or fog, but it is now starting to clear.
Our first night was just outside of Medford, OR, then a quick lunch stop in Eugene with my buddy Steve, then on to check out Salem, the Oregon state capital. The following day we continued on to Olympia, the Washington state capital. Based on our short visits, both Salem and Olympia seem to be very livable cities. It was interesting comparing the capital buildings in each: The Oregon capital building (1938) was the least ostentatious capital building I’ve ever been in, and the Washington capital building (1928) the most ostentatious. I prefer the Oregon building.
We spent the next week meeting up with old friends: Jimmy D, bass player from my high school band, who lives in Belfair, WA, and Elinor and Mark, friends from Berkeley in the 90s, who live on Bainbridge Island. Elinor and Mark joined us for two of the four nights we spent camping at Heart O’ the Hills Campground in Olympic National Park.
Olympic National Park is huge, so we really only explored the northeast corner of the park. Most of the campgrounds in the park are ‘first come first served’, which is great if you arrive mid week. I did several long hikes (forced to turn back when I hit too much snow at around 5500 feet elevation). On the last day the four of us went to Sol Duc Hot Springs, which was quite nice. Both the hot pool and the cold pool were perfect temperatures. We then spent a night in Port Townsend on the way to Bainbridge, Island. We had a great meal in Port Townsend at ‘the Old Whiskey Mill’, which, according to the waitress, has the actual crew boat from the book The Boys in the Boat, which I really enjoyed reading.
Christine wanted to do a night in Seattle, so we left the van in Bainbridge and took the ferry over for one night. We had great cocktails at Zig Zag, and a great meal at Elliott’s on the wharf. We stayed at the brand new “CitizenM’ hotel next to the ferry port, which was quite disappointing. The room was about the same size as our van, and had no coffee maker or hot pot. All the lights and blinds were controlled using an iPad, which was really confusing. It took us about 10 minutes to figure out how to turn on the bathroom light!
Next was a very rainy week in North Cascades National Park. Two of the five days we were there it rained so much we never left the van. In between the rain I was able to hike, bike, and kayak. We spent the first 4 nights dispersed camping near a waterfall along Cascade River Road, and the last night (after the holiday weekend) in Colonial Creek Campground. I had no idea there were so many waterfalls in North Cascades National Park. Oh wait… Duh…
The campgrounds in this National Park have a very interesting reservation system: All spots are reservable, but if they are not reserved 24 hrs in advance, they are free. Apparently the park went ‘cash free’ 2 years ago, and the only way to pay is online. There is basically no cell service in the park, so if the site is not reserved, its free. The only catch is that you might have to move on with short notice if you want to stay a second night.
Then on to Bellingham to catch the ferry. Bellingham also seems like a very livable city, especially if you like west coast beer. There are 14 breweries in Bellingham, of which we sampled 2 of them.
Full set of photos for these two weeks can be found here.
North Cascades National ParkOlympic National Park with Elinor and MarkDiablo Lake, North Cascades National Park
Recent Comments