McCarthy - Kennecott, Alaska

Well, we had a wonderful weekend. Andrew took Thursday, Friday and Saturday off... he always has Sunday off, and we went camping. Last year after we left Valdez, we stopped overnight at Chitina and camped out. Since then we decided we must do it again, so Thursday night we went to Chitina and found a campsite, set up our tents, ate cold fried chicken and potato salad, played ball with the kids, watched two huge eagles fly around, made smores and went to bed. (Let me tell you... the hard ground is not your friend at 41 yrs old)

Friday morning we headed back further towards McCarthy, Alaska. We took our time since we couldn't check into our cabin until 3pm. We stopped a few times to let the boys fish. They caught some grayling in Long Lake. The road could only be traveled at 35mph - at the fastest - most of the time we were going 25mph. Then with all the fishing we didn't get to McCarthy til about 5pm.
This is a picture of Andrew and the twins coming back from the lake (in the background) in which we fished. Notice the large rifle being carried over Andrew's shoulder.... that is for protection from large animals that roar, in case you didn't know.

This is a freaky, one lane bridge we had to cross. The gorge below had to be at least 200 feet deep, and I am not a good "guesser" when it comes to depth. Andrew may say it was alot deeper. The next picture is the bottom of the gorge but you are having to look through the rails of the bridge so it is kind of hard to see.

Drew being silly with one of the fish he caught.

Kennecott has to be one of the most interesting places here on earth. Behind us is the tallest wooden structure in North America. They say it is fourteen stories tall, but I was sure I counted more than that. Nonetheless, it is a massive structure built in 1911 (if I remember correctly) and it mined copper. As you can see, it is built into the side of the mountain. This little town, is so quaint and interesting we actually looked to see if there were any houses for sale... not to live here year round but to have to rent out during tourist season and to use every once in a while for ourselves.

God gave us a beautiful day. We hiked to Root Glacier, you can see the moraine in the background. The moraine is the mounds of gravel left by the glacier as it recedes. It was about a 5 mile hike and although it wasn't hard hike, I am still recovering. (heehee) I am not used to all of that walking, but it sure was good for me. The kids were such troopers, the twins had a hard time not complaining but the others did awesome. We saw several places where bear had left its deposits, which made me a little nervous, but we didn't see any bear. Katie and I both had to go to the bathroom (there was an outhouse way out there) and we saw bear droppings on that trail so we both picked up large rocks and made lots of noise and let all the bears know that we had rocks and we were armed and dangerous. :)

For those of you who asked to see a picture of me, here it is. I love the colors of the fireweed as it starts to turn in the fall so I had one of the girls take this picture of me next to some fireweed. This was early in the hike, I was still smiling. HA!!

Andrew and I on the trail with the mine in the background.

So this is at the top of the mine, obviously we had to walk up hill part of the way in order to get this high. The mine is very delapidated up here but we understand they are trying to salvage it and restore it.

OK, that is probably enough for now. I have lots more pictures but I only have time to post a few. Already I've spent more time than I wanted on the computer. Lots to do before I sleep!! Hope you enjoy seeing what we did this weekend.