Not that we ever stick to a plan, but today, Thursday June 9, was particularly fragmented.  For starters we had decided to head for Valdez instead of Fairbanks.  A couple of days ago I decided it was time to have a steak so I had pulled one out of the freezer to keep in the refrigerator.  We are traveling alone because other than some dear friends we find it best to keep to ourselves.

As we rolled down the Tok Cutoff toward the intersection with the Richardson Highway which would take us to Valdez I was reading in The Milepost about some other places to see along the way.  I saw that Copper Village looked like and interesting stop and a mere 35 miles out of our way was Chitina at the end of a 35 mile in and out road.  It seemed reasonable to take that side road, especially after checking my other resources and finding that there is Federal land that is available for “informal” camping.  That means pick yourself a piece of land, set up camp and enjoy.  No rules, no fees oh and no supervision.  As it happens this piece of land is located at the junction of the Chitina and Copper Rivers and is the only place in Alaska where dip netting and fish wheels are permitted. 

As I began to learn this we pulled into an overlook and met Stan and, and oh well both of us forgot her name.  We shared the thoughts and they thought they might join us.  We passed each other several times along the road but somehow we are in  Chitina and they are not nearby.  I already described the Top of the World Highway.  This route was not quite as bad, we averaged well over 30 mph while moving.  This does not include a 20 minute halt on the road for construction vehicles to move and many stops to ooh and ahh.  Finally we made it to the Wrangle Elias National Park Visitor Center, which is not in the park because the only access to the park is over really interesting roads, by plane or boat.  We heard a presentation on Wolves by a summer Ranger, nicely done, nothing particularly new, and we drove on.

We drove on slowly as the road continued to alternate potholes (Rochester you ain’t seen nothin’) with frost heaves – think of a giant economy sized speed bump with sharp sides – with whoop-de-dos, sort of like the road falls out from under you and just as you are dropping it rises to boost you into the air.  They are more exciting when they are at an angle across the road so you twist as you bound.  Opening a cupboard after a day of this can be life threatening. 

Anyhow we descended into Chitina and passed through the town and out the other side, onto the McCarthy Road and over the Bridge to the “informal” camping area. 

We decided to camp well away from the area of active dip netters as we did not want to be seen as interfering, especially as they are expected to here in force tomorrow.  Many of them have set up fish wheels.  

These scoop the salmon out of the water and shunt them in live catch wells where they wait to be filleted.  Carol and I got talking to a couple of men working together filleting fish after fish.  they had already filleted 28 fish that day – apparently there is no limit here.  As we asked questions and responded to theirs, the man doing the filleting motioned to his buddy to get a small fish out of the well and then he stunned me by asking if I wanted it whole or filleted.  After asking twice to be sure I had understood the questioned he filleted the fish before our eyes and bagged it and gave it to me with instructions not to overcook it.  Color me flabbergasted. 

The steak stayed in the refrigerator for another day while I grilled one fillet to eat half

and save the cooked part for another day.  The other fillet went into the freezer.  the net weight of fresh Copper Red King Salmon minutes out of the water was over 2 pounds.  Retail price is incalculable (well I saw it for $7.50 a pound today) and I must say taking a fish and putting it on the grill within minutes of its coming out of the water is beyond compare.

Yet another unplanned day!

Friday we decided to try the drive to McCarthy on the McCarthy road, a 55 mile drive on a dirt and gravel road reported to be a very difficult road with old railroad spikes just waiting to eat a tire, the road is laid out over an old rail bed.   The drive to McCarthy was fairly straight forward, it took 2 hours running at speeds up to 40 and a lot of 20 and 30 mph stretches. After Top of the World it was a piece of cake.  We had the bikes on the roof and I had brought along the seats and other paraphernalia necessary for bike riding.  When we got to the end of the McCarthy Road we were confronted with a foot bridge and a half a mile walk beyond that to get to McCarthy, or hiring a shuttle from the other side of the footbridge.  We got the bikes down and with much trepidation, put them together.  We had not ridden them in several months (we actually can’t remember the last time we rode them), the chains are rusty and everything was a bit stiff.  The tires were soft as well and I had not thought to bring my pump.  That was good actually as the road was dirt and lent itself to underinflated tires. 

We reached McCarthy and discovered there is not anything to do there before 5 PM, and it was not yet noon, except go on to Kennicott to tour the Kennecott Mine Mill and the Kennicott glacier.  Those are not my misspellings.  They meant to name the company after the glacier and misspelled it. 

We chained up the bikes and took the shuttle to Kennicott where booked the tour and went to Kennicott Glacier Lodge for a lovely lunch while waiting for the tour.  Here is the mill: Looking up at the 14 story structure from below knowing that it was built in 1908 we did not expect the tour to us take all the way through the remaining interior portions.  We indeed climbed to the very top where copper ore was received from the mines by tramway and followed the processing all the way to the very bottom where the finest poorest grade ore was sent to the leach plant for further extraction. 

The road we had driven was on the rail bed of the line built to haul the coal to Valdez where it was transshipped to Tacoma for smelting.  This is where Kennecott Corp got its start.  It is said they mined enough silver as a byproduct to pay for the railroad, mine equipment and the town, some $30 million and netted a profit of $100 million on the copper.  This is 1930 dollars!

Before we drove up the road to Chitna I had only the vaguest notion of what was here.  The activities we did not partake in included ice climbing, mountain hiking, white water rafting/kayaking, choose up sides softball in McCarthy, or getting drunk in any of the saloons in each of these towns.