McCarthy, Alaska - Part 1

The weather, as expected, threatened rain, and as I rode out beyond the outskirts of the city and moved into more open land, a blanket of clouds obscured my view. The ride, three hundred miles along the beautifully paved Glennallen Highway, is supposed to be some of the most spectacular scenery in Alaska, but the cloud cover made it nearly impossible to see anything. I stopped only a few times to take pictures, once in an attempt to photograph a glacier that was visible from the road.

This was probably the clearest the weather got on the ride.

I knew that there was a spectacular view there, I just couldn't see it...

A close-up of the glacier.

Not having the distraction of awe-inspiring views, I hunkered down to the task of making the trip as quickly as I could. I had gotten a later start than I had wanted to, and, never having experienced the McCarthy road before, I didn't know how long that would take me once I left the relative ease of the paved highway. So, one hundred and eighty miles and three and a half hours later, I pulled into the only gas station for miles, at the end of the Glennallen Highway where it meets up with the Richardson Highway; known to the locals as "the Hub".

A fine rain had been falling, and it was a relief to get off the bike, fuel up, get inside, and take a break. I called my friend Elizabeth, who didn't sound as confident as I would have wanted her to be about my arriving at a decent hour. But, with the trademark laugh that I remembered so clearly from twenty years ago in college, I knew that she was finding the notion of my adventure amusing nonetheless. She would wait up for me, she said, but that I should call again before I got onto the McCarthy road, as she needed to give me more directions, and that it would be the last point at which I could get cell service.

While suiting up and preparing to head out, a man approached me. From his appearance, I assumed that he was a biker; jean jacket, boots, long hair, scraggly beard; unusually tall and angular, looking as though he had been carved from a tall, thin tree trunk, the bark left behind where his wrinkled face now was. After asking me where I had come from and where I was going, he told me of how he had initially come to Alaska from the lower 48 back in the late 1960's, making the entire ride on a motorcycle. Back then, he explained, there was nothing to accommodate travelers of any kind on the Alcan Highway through Canada, and that he and his friends had several close calls while making there way out, one of them damaging his bike so badly that he had to abandon it on the side of the road and hitchhike the rest of the way. When I told him I was heading for the McCarthy road he looked at me, looked at my bike, and nodded in quiet approval. In the motorcycle world, that was as good as a blessing from the Pope, and I climbed back on my ride with a little shot of adrenalin mixing with the blood in my veins, ready to take on the last leg of the trip.

The sixty miles to get to the McCarthy road went uneventfully, but I began to notice just how desolate things were becoming. Along the Edgerton Highway, the last thirty three miles before the start of the McCarthy road, towns were becoming more infrequent (not that they had ever been that frequent anywhere else in Alaska, mind you), and the few I did pass became smaller and smaller. I called Elizabeth before I passed through Chitina, the last town before the end of pavement and the start of gravel. She told me that when I did reach the end of the McCarthy road, there was a phone at the base of the footbridge into town. I could call her from there to get the last of the directions. Again, I heard apprehension in her voice, but I chose to ignore it.

When I approached the entrance to the road, a narrow cave-like separation blasted out of rock, I knew that there was no turning back. For the first mile or so it didn't seem like it was going to be that bad, but as I ascended a small climb that overlooked a river, the gravel became thick, and all of a sudden I found myself fighting to keep the bike tracking straight. I downshifted, fighting to keep the bike upright. At this pace, it was going to take me hours to make the trip. And it did.

You're not kidding...

The passage that marks the beginning of the McCarthy road.

Passing over the first, and probably only sizable landmark on the road, the Kuskulana Bridge at mile 17, I stopped. At 238 feet above the river below, it took everything I had to get close enough to the edge to take a picture, and I remembered reading in the Lonely Planet guide that, until recently, the one lane bridge had consisted of only two planks and no guardrail, something that would have probably had me turning the bike around right there and then...

The bridge was scary enough as it was - I couldn't imagine what it was like before it was renovated!

Yikes.

The miles dragged on, and even with the longer hours of daylight, dusk was starting to settle in. My hands, just as on the road to Manley, were starting to cramp up, and I could no longer ignore the soreness in my back and arms. I tried to keep my focus on the road, maneuvering around potholes and loose gravel, knowing that the more tired I became, the more chances I had of making a mistake.

20 miles to go...

Two and a half hours later, completely exhausted both physically and mentally, I reached the footbridge at the Kennecott River, and I rang Elizabeth on the payphone at its start. Even though cars were not allowed in McCarthy, she told me it would be fine for me to cross the ultra-narrow footbridge on the bike, and that I should then make my way about a mile or two past the town, turning right on a trail that dipped into the woods. I asked if the trail would be safe for the bike, her answer only being that she and her family drove it on their four wheelers. Too tired to question her further, I set out again, assuring myself that it would be fine. I motored carefully across the footbridge, heading out on the gravel road that lead to McCarthy.

This section of road turned out to be just as pitted and precarious as the rest, and when I finally arrived at the turnoff, I mentally crossed my fingers, pointing the bike into the woods. The first section of the trail wasn't so bad, but as I drove on, the sky truly dark now, I had to ride with both legs extended, as the road became a sea of ruts, rocks and loose earth, and keeping my feet out was the only insurance I had that I wasn't going to tip the bike over. I was bottoming out constantly, though, and I feared that I wouldn't have the strength to keep the bike from falling, let alone the strength to pick it back up if it fell. At one point a run-in with a rock threw me backwards, and my hand, locked tightly to both grips, unintentionally gunned the throttle. It was shear luck that I had the reflexes to grab hold of the clutch lever and brake in time as the engine roared and the bike blasted forward, the rear wheel fish-tailing in the mud. If I hadn't, I would have certainly collided with the trees ahead of me.

My mind was racing now, adrenaline having every nerve in my body on high alert as I fought to control the bike with all the strength and focus I had left. When I struggled through a particularly thick section of rocks, though, the underside of the bike crashed into one, the shock of stone colliding with metal shooting straight through my body. The sound of the bike changed almost immediately, the engine much louder now, with a throaty rattle that I had never heard from it before. I assumed I had punctured the exhaust, but I was in no position to stop and investigate. I pushed forward for another mile or more, finally seeing hints of my destination in the form of hand made "slow down - children at play" signs. And suddenly, as if out of nowhere, I saw Elizabeth standing on the trail, illuminated only by my headlights.

It was an unusual way for two people who hadn't seen each other in almost twenty years to meet again, but after parking and unloading the bike, we hugged and laughed, and I followed her into the house, still somewhat in shock over what I had just been through. It was dark now, and all I could make out was the illuminated windows as we made our way along the short path to the yurt.

Her children Avery, age eleven, and Owen, age eight, were naturally shy at first, but seemed to warm up to the idea of a stranger coming to stay with them fairly quickly. It was late, though, and I had very little left in me to make good company. Elizabeth showed me to the guest cabin, where a fire was already roaring in the stove. I fell to sleep immediately in the comfort of the warm room, not stirring once all night.

The family yurt; two floors of wood heated, solar powered awesomeness!

The kitchen.

The unmistakable feature of any yurt; the round skylight.

The guest cabin - the room I stayed in was on the second floor, above the bear-proof storage area below.

Reduce, reuse, recycle; the kids playground.

This was the outdoor shower, which was heated by the custom built wood-fired stove to the left.

A close-up of the stove - it also heated the water in the yurt for doing dishes.

The outhouse, complete with emergency whistle just in case a bear decides to stroll by... or if you run out of toilet paper.

Owen putting his shoes on before we make our way out for a hike.

Avery, taking advantage of the good weather.

My time with Elizabeth and the kids was nothing short of idyllic. I watched in amazement at the routines of there lives in and around the house. Without electricity, sewer or "conventional" water, incredibly creative solutions had been devised over the years to make the home livable; gravity-fed fresh water was pumped in via PVC pipes that linked to a nearby stream uphill; a small solar panel on the roof made the most of the available sunlight; a specially-made wood burning stove stood ready to heat the water for the outdoor shower as well as the kitchen sink; another wood stove inside served as the home's only heat source, and a composting outhouse was situated out back. What most of us would consider incomprehensible conditions, they simply treated as any other day in their lives.

I tried my best to blend in with their routines, helping to start a fire to heat the water for washing the morning's dishes, or sweep the kitchen floor that seemed to perpetually collect dirt. I would still watch in amazement, though, as Avery would, with very little prompting from her mother, step outside to chop wood with a hatchet that was almost as big as she was, or as Owen would open the "rot box", a compartment under the floor of the kitchen that served to keep food cold in lieu of a refrigerator, pulling out food to prepare his own lunch. The kids were more independent than any that I had every come across, but there was no pretense in any of their actions. They put no more thought into chopping wood as anyone else would think of turning up the thermostat; it was simply what needed to be done.

It was unfortunate that I wouldn't have the opportunity to meet Elizabeth's husband Howard, who, back in the eighties, became one of the pioneering figures in making McCarthy what it is today. The family spent most of their winters in a condominium in Anchorage, as Howard was a school teacher there, and since the school year was fast approaching, he had already returned to prepare for classes. McCarthy was not big enough to support a school, and so the kids attended the public school in Anchorage, which was also starting soon. This did afford me, though, plenty of time to catch up with Elizabeth, each of us filing the other in on all the goings on of our mutual college friends that one or the other had lost touch with, as well as our respective families. For me, it was as though no time had gone by at all; Elizabeth looked exactly the same as she had twenty years ago, and she was living the life that she was clearly destined to be, even based on the person I knew back in college. There are few of us in life that can say that we have truly made the life that we dreamed for ourselves at the age when optimism and idealism are at their highest, and being at the house, witnessing the reality of this taking place all around me, was an absolute joy.

 Her children, unencumbered by the distractions of television, the internet, or any number of other things that prevent children from using their nature instincts to explore the immediate world around them, were too busy playing, reading or making art to ever miss any of it. On one particular day, I found Avery combining two of those activities into one, which I captured on the video below...

I made several trips to the Kennecott mine to photograph while staying with Elizabeth and the kids (the walk was no more than half a mile), and since Elizabeth had worked at the mine as a tour guide, I was able to get the inside scoop on the history of the place, as well as a look into some areas that are usually off limits unless you're taking an official (a.k.a. paid) tour.  Even the kids, having heard their mother recite the stories so often, started giving me all the information themselves, and as we made our way through some of the main refinery buildings, they eventually took over the "tour" completely!

The view of the Kennecott mine a short walk from the house.

 And this is a video clip that gives you a much better understanding of just how expansive the view really is:

One of the photographs I took inside the recently renovated women's quarters that was once part of Kennecott mine.

You're never too far from home...

I also had the opportunity to ride the four and a half miles back into McCarthy with Elizabeth one day, finally getting to see the historic "downtown". Apparently the town got its start at the turn of the twentieth century because Kennecott forbid both alcohol and prostitution, both of which McCarthy was more than happy to supply in spades to the miners. When the mine shut down in the late 1930's, the town all but died, and it was practically abandoned until the 1970's. But even now, as of the latest census, there are only 42 people living in McCarthy, and I don't think that all of them are even year-round residents. Tourism has replaced the debauchery of a hundred years ago, and now people come to McCarthy to hike the glacier, take a plane ride, raft the Copper River and tour the nearby mine. Here are a few pictures to give you a sense of the place:

Creative uses for abandoned vehicles.

The old hardware store is now the home of the Wrangell Mountains Center, a supporter of environmental and arts education.

Now you know that people were up to no good in here back in the day...

Elizabeth, checking the time in the place that time forgot.

One of the most exciting things I had the opportunity to do while staying in McCarthy was hike on the Kennicott glacier that stretches along the valley below the mine. We filled our day packs, borrowed crampons from the National Park Service office (another perk of Elizabeth's former affiliation with the park), and made the hike to the base of the most navigable section of the glacier. The views were stunning, and there is something indescribable that came from traversing something not only so vast, but also ever-changing. Glaciers expand and contract at a pace that is imperceptible by a days observation, but knowing that they do makes it almost feel as though you are walking on a living, breathing organism; both thrilling and humbling at the same time. Below are some of the pictures from that day:

Believe it or not, that's ice underneath all that gravel.

The happy hikers!

The first look at the hike-able section of the glacier.

  

There were several groups hiking the glacier at the same time - this is the ascent that starts the hike, which can be a little tricky if you're not used to wearing crampons.

Crampons - like having big, metal teeth on the bottom of your feet - but in a good way!

The intrepid hikers.

Sometimes it wasn't the really big stuff that was the most impressive...

Avery checking out the running water from above...

...and then all of us checking it out from below.

Dori, the wonder dog - ever vigilant!

C'mon, I had to get this shot!

And, of course, some video to put it all in perspective...

After five days, it was time to pack up my things and get back on the road. Elizabeth was driving with the kids back to Anchorage, as they were starting school the next day, and her husband Howard had already started his school year of teaching. I had thought little of my bike and the sound that it had made after hitting the rock on the trail, but a quick inspection the day before had reveled no signs of problems; no holes, no leaks; nothing. I started her up and drove out to the edge of the trail. The engine was still unusually loud, and after lugging out my gear and going through the now completely familiar routine of lashing everything up with bungy cord, I sat down on the bike, still perplexed as to why it was making that noise.

For no particular reason, I decided to take a look at the oil level, even though I had just changed the oil in Anchorage and knew that I had topped it off correctly. What I saw in the circular window close to my right foot threw my brain into shock; it was empty. I looked again, hoping to see something different, but the small glass window was as clear as it had been a moment before. I climbed down on the ground next to the bike, looking for some sign of a leak, and there, almost hidden from view, was a circular, threaded opening on the side of the crankcase, exposing far more of its insides than it should have. It appeared to be another drain plug for the engine, and the rock I had hit had clearly made a direct hit on the cap, sheering it off completely. I had run the bike those last few miles on the trail completely without oil.

As I lay on the ground in shear disbelief, the reality of my situation started to swirl around in my brain. Here I was, three hundred miles from anywhere that would even remotely have a facility able to acquire the part to replace, and even if I was able to get it, I had no guarantee that it would completely fix the leak. And on the off chance that I did and I was able to get back on the road, what would the effects of having run the engine without oil be - would the engine even survive the 5000 mile journey home? I was starting to panic, and for the first time since I had set out on this journey, I truly believed that I had found myself in a situation that no luck in the world could fix...