Day 56 Ends With a Hike to Root Glacier

After our flightseeing excursion, the Wrangell Mountain Air transport for clients dropped us off in Kennecott.

The plan was to go hiking, but first we stopped to get a bite to eat. Initially, we were considering having lunch at the Kennecott Glacier Lodge, but a picnic table with a view encouraged us to grab some sandwiches from the Meatza Wagon and dine al fresco instead.

The Root Glacier Trail, which starts from the far end of the road that runs through the mill town, is only two miles long ... each way. Easily doable. I think we knew we were making a mistake doing the hike, however ... almost from the get-go.

For one thing, it was hot. The temperature gauge showed only 74F, but the brilliant sun was blazing hot. There was very little shade along the way ... no cooling breezes were getting through the brush on either side. And, as it turns out, when we stopped to leave our backpack in an empty food locker, we realized we were short on water.

Nonetheless, we persevered, but we didn’t go all the way to the toe of Root Glacier as planned. Satisfied with seeing it from a distance, we walked just a short distance down the access spur, which is at mile 1.5 on the trail. At least we got some exercise along the way.

When we got back into McCarthy, our first stop was at the Meatza Wagon for some ice cold drinks. Then we walked to the shuttle pick-up location near the NPS station. Just as we were about to board the 5:00p shuttle, the driver came up to say that he’d broken the key. Oh oh!

Long story short, another van was called ... but that was 20 minutes away. No matter. We found a bench to sit on. Happy that what was flying in the air was just pollen and not mosquitoes (for a change), we made use of the public wi-fi while we waited.

By the time we got back to the Cruiser, it was 6:30p. Too drained to do much more than crash, we sat out by the campfire for a while, enjoying a glass of wine and some snacks to wrap up our visit to the McCarthy/Kennecott area.

Tomorrow we head back on the McCarthy Road. Where we will overnight before our next destination is TBDRead more