Across Alaska – Council to McCarthy

August 19, 2016

Across Alaska -Council to Mccarthy -June 24th- July 1st, 2015

I pick up the story of our big summer adventure in Council, a small town (if you can call it that) on the Seward Peninsula.

We stayed at a friends cabin,

and I ate hotdogs on the deck.

With a little less than two weeks left of vacation we decided to make our way to our favorite place in Alaska, The Wrangell St. Elias National Park.

When Woodsen suggested following the Yukon to Fairbanks, then heading to Mccarthy from there, my initial response was “Fairbanks? What would we do there?” Well, Woodsen had a few ideas. It just so happened that a friend Woodsen had flown with in Bethel owned a graveyard in Fairbanks and loved to have friends help dig graves. Ha, well that would be a new experience! She gave us a quick lesson in the backhoe and let us loose.

We mostly pulled up pesky trees but it was still fun. Our friend even got stopped by a pair of Q-tips (old ladies with white hair and white shoes) that were concerned because it appeared a pair of bedraggled teenagers had stolen her backhoe. Haha, oh no Ma’am that’s just the Saunders.

After getting dirty in the graveyard and eating at the Pump House, a nice local restaurant, we made our way back to the airport and spent a night at the amazing airplane camp ground on the East ramp. We were excited to find that for 15 dollars a night we got a campsite with tie downs, a warm shower, access to a grill with a covered eating area, and bikes to borrow to get into town for a morning coffee run.

After Fairbanks we followed the Tanana River then eventually headed south to visit our friends in Gakona. We hung out with McMahans for the rest of the day, got to see Tell’s new snorkeling gear,

and we even got to read bedtime stories. 🙂

The next Stop was McCarthy and a trip to our favorite Kennicott mine.

Every summer McCarthy gets plenty of tourists who either brave the dirt road from Chitna or stop in Chitna and get a lift from Wrangell Mountain Air over to McCarthy. McCarthy has a lot to offer visiting tourists, everything from exploring glaciers to mine tours, river rafting, and flight seeing. A few years ago I remember stopping in at Wrangell Mountain Air to visit friends and being surprised at the amount of flight sees they did despite it being one of the more expensive day trip options in the area. Well, obviously I hadn’t flown around the area much because, man… it’s worth every penny. I’ve flown around Alaska a lot and if there is anywhere you should go on a flight see it would be in the Wrangell Mountains, and the area right around Kennicott Mccarthy is breath taking.

Don’t take my word for it, here is my proof, these photos speak for themselves. The Wrangell Mountains are diverse, colorful and all around breathtaking!