Out the Road

Our instructions for meeting Lucas Borer, our guide for today’s tour, were simple.

“Meet me at mile marker 36 ‘out the road’. Bring your own food and beverages. I will provide the firewood.”

Out the road … this is how the locals refer to the Copper River Highway, the only road here other than the streets in town. You see, there is no road linkage to Cordova from anywhere in Alaska. If you want to get here, you have to do so by boat or by plane. Hence, yesterday’s ferry ride.

Designated a scenic byway, the highway is 48.6 miles long. But the road past mile 36 is indefinitely closed due to several wash-outs, including a bridge just past our meet-up point (in 2011) and the road itself at mile 45 (in 2018).

The highway was built in 1945 on the abandoned railbed of the Copper River & Northwestern Railway … which used to link Cordova with Kennecott back in the days when the copper mines were still operational. In June, we saw the other end of the linkage between the mill town and the port town. Today we drove this end of the linkage. The section in between was to have connected to Chitina, but … well, let’s just say that the Good Friday Earthquake of 1964 brought those plans to a screeching halt. More on the why in a later post.

Unsure of the road conditions, we didn’t make too many stops along the highway this morning … we didn’t want to be late to our meeting … a decision I would come to regret since we had rain on the way back and the views were hidden. But we had to get at least some shuteye after our past-midnight bedtime last night, so an earlier departure wasn’t feasible. It is what it is.Baca selengkapnya