Trip To Kennecott

Kennecott

Last year I had wanted to visit Kennecott, the copper mining town and mines from the turn of the 20th Century in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, but we never made it past half-way there. There is only one road to Kennecott—60 miles of graded dirt road, full of potholes, railroad nails, and rough as a cob. Amy was pregnant with Riley, the road was teeth-jarring, so we stopped and picnicked at Kuskulani Gorge and returned home.  This year it was a "must do" on my agenda, and the kids were willing to go the whole hog.

Nina, Zane & Riley ready to go, in
the "Alaska Cadillac" (Chevy Suburban)

Amy's Dad had a Chevy Suburban that was suitable for the trip.  I sweated out the weather, which had rained since the second day I came.  We would head to Chitina and stay overnight in a cabin belonging to a friend, then head out the next morning.  Everything was loaded, we left and arrived in Chitina that evening. 

The cabin was a bit of an euphemism—no heat, no electricity and no indoor plumbing.  The temperature was in the 30's that night, typical fall weather inland.  Our gear was sleeping bags, a camp stove and a lantern.  Plenty of Pampers for Riley.  Neither my bones nor my bladder held up well to the night (lots of bush watering—it was a dark trip to the one-holer), but we made it through the night and headed for Kennecott the next morning.

Five miles outside of Chitina, on an uphill grade, the Suburban died.  Nothing would persuade it to start.  The lovely view of the Copper River below was taken while we tried to get it started and waited for someone to come up or down the road.

Copper River near Chitina

A couple headed to hike the Dixie Trail went around us and stopped.  They were pulling a trailer with two llamas in it, which they used as pack animals.  We held a mechanical conference and inspection, but could not determine the cause of the failure.  They turned back to their rig, just as a gush of water came out from under the trailer.  They thought it might be a radiator leak, but it was just one of the llamas, relieving itself.  I wondered at the efficacy of packing with llamas!

Finally, after several hours, we got a tow back to Chitina by a couple of hard case subsistence hunters in a beat up four wheel drive pickup.  They dropped us off at Daniel Boone's (a direct descendent no less!) garage.  He informed us after inspection that "whoever had jury-rigged the wiring for the stereo and trailer lights should be hung by the ----s" (Amy's Dad)!  Three fuses and some auto wire connectors, plus $30, and everything on the Suburban worked.  It was still only 10 AM, so we took off again.

By this time Zane was bored with the whole trip and wanted to go home.  I told him the only thing better to look at on this earth than the country we were traveling through was a good looking woman.  His mother gave me "THE LOOK," so I shut up and looked for photo ops.  I managed to get a number of pictures along the way.  I won't show any of them here, but for those who want to see them, they can be found at http://community.webshots.com/album/50972317iidLaK.

The countryside on the way is all that you can imagine, from deep gorges filled with the sounds of rushing water, to snow-capped peaks, to arctic bogs, to broad vistas of spindly Sitka spruce, yellow birch and cottonwood, to rocky flats and ridges, to alpine lakes and meadows—all the remote and forbidding loveliness the eye can take and the mind encompass.

Mile 40—the road had gotten really bad and we had slowed to a crawl.  Flat tire!  Amy wanted to change the tire, so Alex obliged.  There was a 3 inch spike in the tire, much like a railroad spike but smaller.  The spike had the number 16 stamped on the top.  We found out later that different numbered spikes were put in by the railroad to indicate when that portion of the line was constructed (1916 in this case), so they could follow up on maintenance at the right year.  We had a historical flat, which I was rather proud of, but Amy's step mom's only comment when we got back was "That was a brand new tire!"

Finally we arrived at McCarthy, which is the jumping off-place to get to Kennecott, five miles further across the Kennecott Glacier River, following the old railroad grade.  Actually, the entire 60 miles of road from Chitina was old railroad grade.  The park service ran shuttle buses up to the mine, thank goodness.

We saw the sights—the awesome mountains, the old mine town and ore works (slowly being reconstructed) the mountains of detritus pushed up by the advance and retreat of the glacier, and the glacier itself.  Riley enjoyed the ride, alternating in his pack between Amy's and Alex's back.

Alex and son, Riley

We finished up the tour ahead of schedule, so we decided to walk back toward McCarthy and meet the tour bus on the way.  We were all tired and the boys were getting cranky. 

Along the way, the mining company had shoved an amazing amount of pieces of mining equipment over the side of the road down to the valley below—a huge historical trash dump!  Here is a picture of Zane, standing on what appears to be a conveyor axle.

Zane on conveyor axle

The entire town and complex of Kennecott was an engineering marvel, especially considering it was constructed at the turn of the century.  The ore processed from there was ultra pure, averaging 40 to 60% pure.  Ultimately though, it was a market failure, closing for good in 1938, partly because of a precipitous drop in the price of copper and partly because the high grade ore was running out.  Today it is a ghost town, but 35 or 40 hardy souls live there year-round, and there is a nice summer lodge there, run by the park service.

The trip home was uneventful.  After another overnight stay and a little shopping in "downtown" Chitina, we headed back for Valdez, and more rain.

I valued the lesson of Kennecott (or Kennicott—there is a controversy over the spelling) tremendously; it is a monument to both the human spirit and the impermanence of human effort.  It is a reminder that all things human have a given span, including human industry.  It is a good thing to know that only God is forever, in a world that increasingly ignores that truth.

© Phil Hodgkins 2002

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