The Road to McCarthy

The towns of McCarthy and Kennecott are deep within the borders of the Wrangle –St Elis National Park. It is the site of an old copper mine that died out in the 1930s. It is only accessible by driving down a 60 mile dirt road that they recommend RVs not try and rental RVs are forbidden to drive.

Imagine driving 60 miles at an average speed of about 20 MPH. Every tenth of a mile you need to shift to the other side of the road to avoid pot holes that would scare even a Bostonian cab driver. Bridges allow only one lane of traffic are normally made of wood and one went over a gorge of 350 foot below us. Our only saving grace was that at 6-9am there were only one or two other cars on the road at the same time as us.
 

The Simsbury Crew rented a school bus and enjoyed the ride together. The Rice family drove it in the Dutchman and made it 59.9 miles before getting a flat tire and having to limp off the road at the end into a parking lot. A call to AAA told us that they had no service providers in the area (no surprise there), but we were able to find John Adams up the road about a mile who agreed to fix the tire while we met with the rest of the group and hiked over a footbridge and into town a half mile up the road.

After the bus people dropped off their gear at the hotels they were staying at, we went for a hike.