Our travels have taken us to the ends of the Earth from deep in the heart of Africa to so far north in Finland that the sun didn’t set. When we had the chance to go to McCarthy, Alaska, we knew we had to take it.
In summer, McCarthy is the gateway to America’s largest National Park, Wrangell–St. Elias. In winter, the road closes and the population drops to fewer than 100 residents.
How did this tiny town rise up in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness, and why is it still here? We found staggering scenery, a place humming with history, and an extraordinary cast of characters who call McCarthy home. Come with us to the end of the road, and see if McCarthy is calling you too.
McCarthy Road Trip
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
The first question we asked was: where in the world is McCarthy? The next one was: how the heck do we get there?
McCarthy sits roughly 300 miles east of Anchorage, but the final 60 miles are on a dirt road. Our options were: find a local rental company that allows their vehicles on McCarthy Road, rent from a national company and catch a shuttle or flight into town, or charter a flight from Anchorage.
Costs and logistics pushed us toward renting from Alaska 4×4 and turning the journey into an extended road trip. The Glenn Highway was gorgeous through the Matanuska Valley, and we rolled along without drama all the way to Chitina. We knew we were truly headed off-grid when we pulled into the 24-hour Chitina fuel “station”, which was just a pump with a credit card reader. The last espresso shop was closed for the season so we used a vault toilet at the rest stop. Then, we said goodbye to blacktop for the week.
The McCarthy Road
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
The McCarthy Road began with a bang at the “Rock Cut”, an old railroad tunnel that’s now open to the sky. Signs warned us of limited services and reminded us we’d be driving at our own risk. They also warned about loose railroad spikes, then told us to check road conditions…without providing any way to actually do that.
The signs even contradicted themselves: one claimed it was 62 miles to the footbridge, another said 60 miles to McCarthy. We noticed the bullet holes in the metal, took that as our unofficial welcome sign, and kept rolling.
Gravel kicked up through the Rock Cut, then it was paved again for a short stretch, just long enough to cross the Copper River Bridge. Climbing out of the river valley, the road turned to dirt again, and another sign warned that vehicle travel wasn’t recommended.
Par for the course, the final posted warning contradicted the park service page that said the road was usually passable to passenger vehicles during normal summer conditions. We had a full tank of gas, a 4×4 Bronco, and our eyes peeled for renegade rail spikes and meandering moose. So… onward. We later learned from Neil Darish that those signs are for winter travel only and the railroad spikes were cleared out in 2006, but why let the truth stand in the way of a good story.
Road of Bridges and Rivers
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
Some roads follow the land’s natural contours. Others exist at odds with nature, built on iron will and a refusal to quit. The McCarthy Road roughly traces the route of the Copper River & Northwestern Railway, built in the early 1900s to extract a fortune of copper from the Kennecott mines.
Shifting riverbeds, earthquakes, heavy winter snow, and raging waters constantly threatened the track, especially the bridges. Even in the middle of summer, glacial lakes can burst and send sudden torrents downstream. The last train departed Kennecott on November 11, 1938. Within less than a decade, the bridges were washed out.
The modern McCarthy Road was rebuilt in the 1970s, with steel and concrete replacing most of the derelict wooden trestles, except the historic Kuskulana Bridge, perched 238 feet above the river below like something out of a fever dream.
Our drive was a study in bridges and water: the silty gray Copper and Kotsina Rivers, the clearer Chokosna River, and countless channels braiding through the valley. We counted bridges to mark our progress, but we also started looking forward to them, because each crossing delivered a new view.
Sixty Miles of Splendid Scenery
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
The scenery along McCarthy Road isn’t a single “big moment.” It’s a steady kaleidoscope of scale and wildness, from the towering presence of Mount Blackburn to the first glimpses of the Kennicott Glacier.
And yes: the glacier is spelled with an “i,” while the town is spelled with an “e,” even though the town was named after the glacier. Alaska loves a good mystery.
Some of our favorite scenes were the mountains reflecting in thermokarst lakes, ringed by late-summer wildflowers. It felt like the landscape was showing off and we weren’t mad about it.
The End of the Road
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
After a little more than two hours, we reached the end of McCarthy Road. We knew we were close because civilization started popping up in small, scrappy bursts: ice cream, espresso, cabins, parking.
Our navigator kept insisting we should cross a private bridge about a half-mile south of the footbridge. We didn’t buy it. The handmade signs that read “Google Maps is Wrong” felt… persuasive.
We parked at McCarthy River Tours, a few paces back from the footbridge, because parking was only $5 a day and their coffee shop was open. We intentionally packed light, everything fit in our photography backpacks and our trusty Seg45 Travel Packs. I was loaded down like a rented mule, but it left Jenn’s hands free for photos, which was the whole point.
We used a wheeled wagon to cart our gear across the footbridge. Then we stopped in the middle and just… took it in. When you cross that river, it doesn’t feel like you’re arriving somewhere. It feels like you’re leaving the modern world behind.
Walking the Final Mile
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
Google Maps regained its confidence after the footbridge and declared it was just one more mile into town. We knew there was a shuttle, but we didn’t know the timing, and we didn’t feel like waiting around. It turned out the Copper Town Shuttle leaves 15 past and 45 of the hour every hour – 8:15 am to 6:45 pm, but alas.
A mile didn’t sound bad, maybe a 20-minute walk, but it felt a little ridiculous to drag the wagon the whole way. Since I was carrying most of the load, Jenn gave me the deciding vote. I chose to hoof it.
We passed a gorgeous lake, also known as the McCarthy swimming hole, and I made a mental note to return. Then we hit a hand-drawn sign pointing to a “shortcut” to town. We figured: why not?
We crossed another stream, slipped behind the tiny McCarthy power plant, and then, like a curtain lifting, we got our first glimpse of town.
So This is McCarthy
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
We’d seen postcards of McCarthy that made it look like a western movie set. Usually, those shots are more photo-op than reality.
Not here.
Vintage cars were parked in front of wooden buildings with restored false facades. Dogs roamed freely in dusty streets, keeping tabs on bears, porcupines, moose, and anything else that might wander in uninvited. The only clichés missing were tumbleweeds and horses.
Our instructions said to check in at Ma Johnson’s. It’s a good thing Alaska is too cold for swinging doors, because I absolutely would have pushed them open with a “Howdy partner.” Instead, we awkwardly asked about the shuttle and announced our names to the woman behind the desk—who was, of course, fully expecting us.
Checking into Kate Kennedy
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
Our hostess led across the street to a 1920s Sears kit home that once belonged to Kate Kennedy, a boomtown entrepreneur and reputed brothel madam. The house was filled with vintage artifacts, including a working Victrola and a rotary phone you could use to call the front desk.
At first, we were very interested in a basket of freshly baked cookies from the general store (Amazing!!) and how to operate the pot belly stove. Then, we put on a record and began to explore in earnest. Every drawer was filled with bobbles and relics from when McCarthy was a boom town. We didn’t only have a bed for the night, we had a window into the past.
Dinner at Salmon and Bear
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
McCarthy draws all types, and they all end up at the Golden Saloon sooner or later. We met a young guy from Michigan with the luxury of time; he drove himself and his dog up to Alaska for a summer of car camping. We met two women from Fairbanks who regularly duck into the wild on weekends. They were car camping and slipping into town for a hot burger and a cold pint. Staying at the McCarthy Lodge and dining at Salmon & Bear was well above their price point.
And yet, Salmon & Bear has quietly earned accolades that stretch far beyond this 60-mile dirt road. The restaurant was recently featured in National Geographic Traveller Magazine’s inaugural Culinary Collection “50 Gems,” and it has held Wine Spectator’s Award of Excellence every year since 2020. It’s the kind of recognition usually reserved for city dining rooms with valet stands out front, not a refined outpost at the edge of Wrangell–St. Elias.
Salmon & Bear is a culinary gem at the end of that long gravel stretch: locally sourced cuisine, an extensive wine list, and real care in the details. We had the chance to speak with Chef Sam Higgins about his signature dish, salmon with a wild-foraged morel mushroom sauce.
He told us something we can’t stop thinking about: he noticed plates coming back with the salmon skin left behind, which he considers the best part. So he removes it, dehydrates it into a crispy chicharrón, and uses it as a finishing garnish. It’s smart. It’s intentional. It’s the kind of detail you don’t expect in a place this remote and yet, somehow, it makes perfect sense.
With extensive wine pairings available and a cellar recognized year after year by Wine Spectator, it would’ve been a great meal anywhere. At the end of a 60-mile dirt road, it felt downright unreal.
Enjoying the Remains of a Perfect Day
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
We cleaned our plates and barely had room for dessert. We’d hoped for fireweed ice cream, but they were out for the season, so we went with their signature cheesecake instead and didn’t regret it for a second.
We left Salmon & Bear with our bellies full and our imagination on fire, much like the sunset streaking across the Wrangell–St. Elias Mountains. The lightshow was too good to waste, so we took a twilight hike back toward the footbridge.
Without packs on our shoulders, the world felt quieter and sharper. We noticed everything: tepees across a shallow lake (guide housing, we later learned), “zombie” trout living out their last days after spawning, and colors that shouldn’t exist together, brilliant reds overhead, deep blues in the glacial ice, and that strange, lingering twilight that makes you forget what time it is.
Best Night Sleep Ever
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
We stayed out until the last light left the sky, then lingered under blazing starlight until the cold finally convinced us to go inside.
A low murmur of voices and laughter escaped the Golden Saloon as we passed, but we had a soft bed and a warm stove waiting at the Kate Kennedy House. There was no traffic noise, no distant trains, just the low hum of generators powering the lights.
We shut them off, and drifted into a deep slumber filled with dreams of wilderness and exploration.
Exploring Kennecott
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
Over breakfast, we shared a table with the aforementioned Neil Darish, part-time TV personality, full-time Director of Operations at McCarthy Lodge, and the kind of guy who can talk logistics, history, and philosophy before you’ve finished your first cup of coffee.
We asked how to optimize our time in McCarthy, and the answer was clear: start in Kennecott, the reason there’s a road into the heart of this wilderness in the first place.
The mill tour is a must-see attraction, but Neil strongly advocated for us to hike up to Bonanza Mine while we were there. We had watched enough episodes of Edge of Alaska to know Neil himself had tried, and failed, to reach it more than once. Add in the reality check that it’s roughly a 9-mile hike with 4,000 feet of elevation gain and… we suddenly became very interested in “seeing how we felt.”
We told Neil we’d try our best and almost believed it ourselves. Then we walked down to the McCarthy General Store to catch the shuttle up to Kennecott.
Kennecott sits four and a half miles uphill from McCarthy. Back in the mining days, it was a strict company town, opposite the wilder, more jubilant McCarthy down the road.
That dichotomy still exists. Much of Kennecott is managed by the National Park Service, including the historic mill, post office, and the general store/welcome center. The shuttle dropped us off just outside town, and we walked into Kennecott—and straight into the past.
Kennecott Trapped in Time
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
When the last train left Kennecott in 1938, it carried ore and people, but almost everything else was left behind. After the bridges washed out, the town became a time capsule.
From 1939 until the mid-1950s, Kennecott was deserted except for a family of three who served as the watchmen until about 1952. Long before it received official designation as a National Historic Landmark in 1986, nature did the heavy lifting: it preserved the place in a way that feels eerie, intimate, and strangely alive. No wonder it’s considered the world’s best-preserved example of an early 20th-century copper mining town.
We met our mill tour guide from St. Elias Alpine Guides at their storefront on the outskirts of Kennecott. The tour started immediately—because in Kennecott, even the walk to the mill is part of the story.
Our guide paused at the Kennicott Depot near the bridge over Bonanza Creek and pointed out the shell of the old hospital. He urged us to look past flaking paint and broken windows and remember: this remote hospital had the first X-ray machine in Alaska. It’s hard to wrap your head around that kind of ambition in a place that still feels like the edge of the map.
All Mines Lead to the Mill
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
Before entering the mill, we toured the company offices and studied maps of the mines. From 1909 until 1938, Kennecott produced over 4.6 million tons of ore that contained 1.183 billion pounds of copper primarily from three ore bodies: Bonanza, Jumbo and Mother Lode.
We climbed up a steep trail to the top of the mill, where an aerial tram station connected the 70 miles of mines on the ridge to the mill below. Gravity carried the ore down to the mill while pulling the empty buckets back up the mountain.
Our guide showed us black-and-white photos of miners riding those buckets as a shortcut to work before he unlocked the gate and we stepped inside.
The Mighty Mill
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
Our guide said the concentration mill building was the world’s tallest, freestanding wooden structure until 2018, although, I don’t know how they counted stories. The 14-story building is an architectural oddity, especially when you learn the exterior structure went up before the interior process was fully designed. The windows look random, sometimes even misplaced, like the building itself was improvising in real time.
We worked our way down the interior of the mill learning how the ore was extracted. The process was both brutal and elegant. As the rocks came in, they were crushed finer and finer. They traveled onto shaker tables where heavy copper-rich material stayed put while lighter waste bounced away. Again and again, the same principle repeated and refined to an industrial rhythm.
Long Live King Copper
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
By the time the ore made it to the bottom of the mill, it was nearly pure copper, packed into cloth bags and loaded onto railcars.
As effective as the shaker tables were, the mines also pioneered ammonia leaching to extract copper from tailings. Our guide showed us the leaching plant, which looked like a steampunk brew pub, but it wrung millions of dollars of copper out of scraps. Kennecott pioneered the use of ammonia leaching to extract copper, just another example of how this remote town was a technological center in the early days of Alaska.
A Food Truck Beyond the Road
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
We worked up an appetite climbing up to the top of the mill and then descending through its guts, so we hit the Meatza Wagon, a food truck beyond the end of the road.
The food was excellent. The views were endless. But our favorite part was meeting the owner, Madz Volk.
She came out as a seasonal worker, fell in love with Kennecott, and worked in the Wrangells for three years before saving enough to buy the Meatza Wagon. Today, everything is made from scratch daily, and many of the herbs and vegetables are locally grown. It’s the kind of story you hear a lot out here: someone arrives for a season, and then the place quietly rearranges their life.
After the Last Train
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
Bonanza Mine kept whispering at the edges of our day. From the dining area at Meatza Wagon, we could see the expanse of the Wrangells and the rocky sweep of the Kennicott Glacier. Neil claimed the views from Bonanza Ridge are even better, an expanse larger than looking over the Grand Canyon.
We were tempted. But Kennecott has gravity of its own, and we couldn’t stop wandering.
The Park Service maintains several key buildings that are open to the public. We toured the power plant, massive compared to the little generators in McCarthy, and imagined what it took to power and heat a town of hundreds plus a full industrial mining operation. We also stepped into the general store, where 100-year-old supplies still sit on shelves like time forgot to clean up.
In the back, interpretive plaques and films ran on a loop. We were especially captivated by Crown of the Continent by John Grabowska, an autobiographical short about his family’s journey to Alaska decades ago, back when the Alcan was still an epic gravel slog. One line stuck with us: Wrangell–St. Elias is bigger than Switzerland, with higher mountains. That scale is hard to hold in your mind until you’re standing there.
Kennicott Glacier Lodge
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
We closed out our Kennecott day with dinner at Kennicott Glacier Lodge—named after the glacier with an “i,” not the town with an “e.” (Alaska, never change.)
The lodge is a 43 room boutique property with historic-inspired apartment replicas and a cozy, authentic feel. Dinner is served as a preset menu at 7:00 p.m., a practical way to solve wilderness logistics while still delivering a memorable meal.
We finished just in time to catch the last shuttle back to McCarthy, and then met up with Neil at the Golden Saloon’s open mic.
If you spend any amount of time in McCarthy, chances are you’ll run into Neil. He’s the kind of energy that belongs in a wilderness lodge, not behind a desk. He was buzzing about the upcoming McCarthy Prom—end-of-season celebration, town tradition, and (from what we could tell) the social event of the year.
He loved our phone photos of Kennecott and the sunset over the glacier, but he’s not one to get pulled into screens. The conversation quickly turned to prom, logistics, and whether we were “really” going to do Bonanza. Then something called him away, another fire to put out, so we finished our drinks and walked next door to the Kate Kennedy House for well-earned sleep.
McCarthy Appreciation Day
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
Alaska’s fickle weather arrived right on schedule on our second full day. The forecast called for scattered showers, and a blanket of gray clouds confirmed rain was imminent.
The weather wouldn’t affect prom, but it made us second-guess hiking up toward Bonanza Ridge at an elevation of 6,000 feet. So instead, our plan morphed into our McCarthy Appreciation Day: learning the town’s rich history, meeting the local cast of outrageous characters, and letting the place unfold at its own pace.
Breakfast at McCarthy Lodge
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
We saw Neil again over breakfast at McCarthy Lodge. He was hanging with Sarah McAndrew, a Vermont-based musician who writes, produces, and performs original feel-good music as McWavy. They were plotting a trip up to the Kennecott aerial tram station to shoot a music video.
We didn’t try to monopolize Neil, he had too many moving parts with prom coming, but we did ask what we thought was a harmless question:
“Why is there a car parked in front of the Kate Kennedy House?”
That’s how we stumbled into what we now call: The Great Subaru Mystery.
The Great Subaru Mystery
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
One of the superpowers of ADD is the ability to switch focus instantly and completely. Neil downed his coffee and we were off, investigating a stray Subaru like it was a federal case.
There aren’t parking signs in town. There aren’t any police, either. Things get handled through conversation and community.
This mystery would be solved by good, old fashion detective work. Our first clue was a handwritten note on the windshield: gone for help.
We started by trying the doors, which were unlocked. The car had no plates, and looked like it hadn’t been registered in years. Then we opened the glove box and found something we didn’t expect: the car title, signed and notarized, with the current owner left blank.
Neil recognized the previous owner: Ian Gyori, who owns The Roadside Potato. A quick call confirmed Neil’s suspicion—this was a “Lobo” car, sold to Jason Lobo, a lovable misfit who showed up regularly on Edge of Alaska.
As you might guess about someone who keeps a notarized blank title in the glove box, he doesn’t exactly live by the rules of traditional society. Tracking him down would take more than a phone call, but Neil knew exactly who to contact to get the car safely off the street before prom. So he made that call instead.
Mystery “solved,” McCarthy-style.
Gold in the Hills
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
A light drizzle started. Neil had plans for a photo shoot with Chef Sam Higgins later, so he used the in-between time to introduce us around town.
We stopped at the lodge’s back office where a local prospector, who will remain unnamed, was selling gold from a recent panning expedition. Which is a very McCarthy sentence, now that I type it out.
Somewhere in that conversation we learned Neil is a fan of Ayn Rand, and he considers McCarthy his own Galt’s Gulch, Atlas Shrugged’s fictional remote valley where rugged individualists gather.
If you haven’t read Atlas Shrugged, I’ll save you 1,200 pages: the idea is radical self-reliance and choosing your own life without guilt or gun based obligation. It fits McCarthy’s vibe… with an important twist.
Out here, rugged individualism doesn’t mean nobody helps anyone. It means the community takes care of itself, without bureaucracy, without performative virtue, and without needing a “system” to force it. People help because they want to, because they live here, because it matters.
That paradox, independent, but interdependent, is McCarthy in a nutshell.
McCarthy Museum
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
We spent hours with Neil, philosophizing about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. There was a break in the clouds, but not enough time (or confidence) to gamble on Bonanza. So we headed out on foot and explored.
Our first stop was the McCarthy Museum in the old depot. McCarthy existed before Kennecott, but it rose to prominence as the last flat spot before heading uphill. Trains would enter a giant turntable here to reverse direction and head back out loaded with ore.
The museum displayed photos of trainworks now swallowed by forest, and highlighted local figures like Kate Kennedy, Ma Johnson, and “McCarthy Rose” Silberg, a prostitute whose murder remains unsolved.
The Roadside Potato
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
After the museum, we decided to check out another local classic, The Roadside Potato.
The restaurant dates back to 1995, when it started as a food truck by the McCarthy tram. Before the footbridge existed, people used a hand-powered tram to pull themselves across the river. The Potato changed hands a few times over the years and eventually opened a second location in Valdez Harbor.
They’re true to their branding, straight-up good Alaskan food, especially their signature hand-cut fries.
There’s a romantic idea that dog teams “saved” Alaska by delivering medicine, and those stories are real. But if we’re talking about survival at scale? Potatoes probably kept more people alive than any heroic sled run ever did.
McCarthy Cemetery
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
After lunch, we visited the McCarthy Cemetery, which was a surprisingly interesting trip. Historical signs told the stories of the most famous entombments, including how they lived and died, but there was even more devil in the details.
You could see family size and connections by the location of the graves. You could tell wealth or prominence, especially with the final resting place of McCarthy Rose. Even though her original headstone was vandalized, the replacement is one of the most beautiful in the cemetery. You can tell a lot about a town when a woman of the night has the best kept grave.
The Wagon Road
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
There was more traffic than you’d expect on the road to Kennecott, considering it’s beyond the nominal “end of the road.” Shuttles passed every twenty minutes, kicking up dust like Pig-Pen from Peanuts.
Fortunately, there’s a road less traveled, and it makes all the difference: the historic wagon road. It follows roughly the same path with far less dust and a much better vibe.
We came to Blackburn, a serious competitor to become the train turning point over McCarthy. It also flourished as a speakeasy during prohibition, especially when the train engineers would sound a coded whistle to let them know the law was approaching. For us, it was the trail junction with the Toe Trail.
Toe of the Glacier
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
The “toe of the glacier” refers to its lowest, farthest point, the terminus or snout. I don’t love the imagery, but the view doesn’t need my approval.
We hiked out to the edge of the Kennicott Glacier, which stretches 27 miles toward the flanks of Mount Blackburn. The moraine felt like the surface of the Moon, with rocks and grit and strange textures, except for patches of stubborn wildflowers doing their best.
Sunlight punched through the clouds and lit up the glacial lake. The silence was profound, broken only by the occasional small calving splash, more trickle than thunder, but enough to remind you: glaciers are alive, always moving, and this one is unfortunately retreating.
We stayed longer than we meant to. Then we headed back toward McCarthy. We’d only been out an hour and a half, but we accepted a ride from a passing shuttle anyway.
We told ourselves it was because we were saving energy for prom.
McCarthy Prom
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
Posters around town advertised the night’s festivities as: “The prom you woulda had if your high school was a bar.”
Usually prom themes are secret. Neil told us this year’s theme was Studio 54 Disco, so we came prepared in our most technicolor best
The evening opened with McWavy providing musical accompaniment for the Big ‘Ol Cookout and the festivities continued in the Golden Saloon, which was transformed into a bonafide prom venue, especially if you went to school in a bar.
It wasn’t the decorations or the playlist that made the night unforgettable. It was the people.
This was end-of-season. Seasonal workers and locals were saying goodbye with joyful, chaotic glee as the Prom band, the Jephries, & French Jessica played on
And then there was the Glitter Viking.
A towering ginger guy in his twenties, bare-chested with a rope belt, a magnificent red beard, and enough glitter to be visible from space. We outlasted a lot of folks, but we knew we couldn’t keep up with the Glitter Viking and his crew. We tapped out, but could hear the party continuing late into the night from our warm and cozy bed.
Root Glacier
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
Blue ice forms when immense pressure squeezes air bubbles out of compacted snow, creating dense, clear ice that absorbs reds and yellows and reflects that electric blue back to your eyes.
I’ve always dreamed of sloshing through a blue ice cave, which is possible in Kennecott, but not on the titular glacier, but a small side slab of ice called the Root Glacier.
I was wildly excited. Growing up in Ohio, glaciers felt ancient and mythical—forces that carved the Great Lakes and left grooves etched into stone. I’d seen glaciers from a distance before. But today we’d be strapping on crampons and walking on one.
Only, we had a bit of house keeping to take care of first.
Checking Into Ma Johnsons
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
The locals were buzzing about an upcoming wedding. In a town of about 100 year-round residents, the marriage pool is more of a puddle. Today was the day, and the Kate Kennedy House was reserved for the bride and groom, so we transferred across the street to Ma Johnson’s.
The lobby was still as charming as ever, but the rooms are true to their boarding-house roots: simple, snug, and (for many) shared bathrooms.
It was living history. It was cozy. And it was infinitely better than camping.
McCarthy Mercantile
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
We discovered the coffee at McCarthy Mercantile on day one, and it became part of our rhythm.
While staying at Ma Johnson’s we spent a lot of time in the shared spaces with porch conversations, lobby chatter, impromptu story swaps. When seats were full, we’d wander down to the Mercantile for coffee and more conversation.
We made friends with the barista/cashier who made her way to McCarthy via Antarctica. She said the vibe was similar with small groups, isolated places, and the same faces every day, just fewer penguins.
Copper Town Shuttle
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
The Mercantile is also where we caught the Copper Town Shuttle. It runs on an impressively reliable schedule for the backcountry, but then again, traffic is predictably light.
They also wait at stops for passengers, which,miracle of miracles, means they actually depart and arrive on time.
Within minutes we were back in Kennecott at the St. Elias Alpine Guides storefront, getting fitted for crampons and doing a gear check. We were just about ready when a familiar face walked in.
Our Viking Guide
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
Our guide for the day was none other than last night’s Glitter Viking—now fully clothed, thankfully—introducing himself as Benjamin Grabowska.
Yes, Grabowska… as in the film playing on loop at the visitor center. He told us his uncle John directed Crown of the Continent, featuring his dad, uncle, and grandpa, with grandma doing most of the filming. He also mentioned he had the most backcountry days of any guide this season.
Between the family legacy and that kind of time on the ice, we figured we were in excellent hands.
The initial hike out was a surprisingly mellow and well-maintained trail, mostly flat, even a couple of vault toilets. Ben kept things lively with bad guide jokes and taste-testing edible plants.
After about an hour, we hit ice.
Ben didn’t mess around. Crampons went on immediately.
Alaska’s Most Diverse Glacier
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
Ben loves the Root Glacier because it’s close, you can literally walk to it, but also because of what’s happening geologically.
The Kennicott Glacier compresses Root from the side, which creates a concentrated mix of features you don’t usually get so quickly on other glaciers. Instead of hiking miles to find the “cool stuff,” you get it right away: compression fins, wave-like surface texture, blue pools, moulins, waterfalls, streams, and pockets of surreal color, all within a short distance.
That’s why their tours can work for almost anybody. Even a half-day trip can deliver a full-blown glacier experience.
Backcountry Hospitality
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
Hospitality looks different in the backcountry.
For Ben, it started with making sure our gear fit and we knew how to use it. He carried a heavy pack with rescue gear—stove, ice axe, the works. With hot water and a clean ice axe, you’re basically one cocoa packet away from joy.
We tucked into a hollow on the glacier near a waterfall and drank hot chocolate like it was the best thing we’d ever tasted. (It might have been.)
The biggest perk of a knowledgeable guide, though, was simple: they know where to go. The glacier changes daily, but the guides share info, so you always get to the good stuff.
Later at the Golden Saloon we compared glacier photos with a group of Latvian hikers. Their pictures were flat compositions of ice and snow. Ours were blue ridges, flowing water, and colors that looked edited… but weren’t.
McCarthy Rose
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
The Golden Saloon isn’t just a bar. It’s the community center for a hundred miles in every direction, and that includes community theater.
The annual production is titled McCarthy Rose, telling the true story of McCarthy against the backdrop of Rose Silberg’s murder. We ended our glacial day with the final performance of the season.
Many of the main performers were tied up with the wedding, so tonight was an understudy’s moment. Rose was played by a kid named Jacob. I asked his age. He said fourteen.
Then he added, completely straight-faced: “But I identify as an adult.”
Naturally, I asked why.
He said, “Because I get to decide what I want to do or not do on any given day.”
Honestly? That might be the best definition of adulthood I’ve heard in a while, and I wasn’t sure that I qualified under it.
He told us they’re almost self-sufficient on their homestead and rarely come into town. And in this context, “town” wasn’t Chitina, or Anchorage, or anything on a highway. It was McCarthy.
That night, as we drifted off, we kept thinking about perspective.
McCarthy isn’t special because it’s remote. Alaska is full of remote places.
McCarthy is special because it’s reachable with lodges, restaurants, guides, and civilization sitting at the end of the only road into the interior of America’s largest contiguous wilderness.
Flying High and Making Waves
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
We reached our final full day in McCarthy and still hadn’t hiked to Bonanza Mine. I’m not convinced our 50-year-old bodies would’ve loved that plan. Luckily, our 50-year-old sensibilities had a better one.
We booked two half-day adventures, flightseeing and whitewater rafting, to get wildly different perspectives on the wilderness without relying entirely on our feet.
Flightseeing with Wrangell Mountain Air
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
The air was crisp and clean when we woke—perfect flying weather.
A short shuttle ride took us to the McCarthy airstrip, where we saw the most Alaskan thing imaginable: private pilots had pitched tents next to their planes parked along the tarmac. It’s the bush pilot version of car camping.
After a couple air taxis arrived, our pilot from Wrangell Mountain Air found us and we boarded for a 90-minute flightseeing trip.
Water and Sheep
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
For the first half of the flight we followed canyons separating the Wrangell Range to the northwest and the St. Elias Range to the southeast. The geology out here is intense: the St. Elias Mountains formed at a tectonic plate boundary. They are the highest coastal mountain range on Earth and include all of Glacier Bay National Park. Conversely, the Wrangells are volcanic with the second and third highest volcanoes in the United States.
Our pilot pointed out active mines and sheep grazing on steep slopes like gravity was optional. He named peaks and traced rivers as we followed them up-valley—the Nizina, the Chitistone—threading deeper into the wilderness.
Crossing the Icefall
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
Following the rivers was smooth.
Crossing mountain passes above glaciers was… less smooth.
Glaciers create their own weather. Cold air, shifting winds, turbulence concentrated between peaks. Our pilot was unfazed. I was deeply grateful we were on a morning flight when the thermal gradient was lower.
Then we saw it: the Stairway Icefall.
It’s a massive wall of broken ice feeding Root Glacier, a view that looks dramatic from a distance and downright unreal from above. Ben had mentioned it the day before, describing it as unstable, with chunks breaking free without warning. From the air, you could see the shattered surfaces and the vertical scale—ice poised on a cliff edge, waiting for gravity to decide.
It’s one of those views that rearranges your brain a little.
Kennicott Glacier
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
We flew back toward McCarthy following the Kennicott Glacier like a frozen freeway. The air calmed as we moved away from the peaks, and our pilot pointed out features like empty glacial lakes—places where ice dams had broken earlier in the summer.
These glacial lake outburst floods have taken out bridges along the McCarthy Road in the past and still threaten the town’s lifeline. From the air, you can see exactly why: water out here doesn’t care what humans built.
Soon the red buildings of Kennecott came into view, then the patchwork of homes and homesteads around McCarthy. Then it was time to land.
Kennicott Lake
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
Our afternoon activity was even colder and more turbulent: white water rafting with McCarthy River Tours.
Neil told us when the footbridge was built, Kennicott Glacier nearly reached the road. A quarter-century later, it retreated enough that lakes formed at the toe.
Our rafting trip started with a flatwater paddle across the lake, which was separated by a ridge of terminal moraine from the one we saw the other day on our hike. It was decidedly warm on a flatwater paddle on a sunny afternoon in our drysuits. I’m sure our guide appreciated the chance to train us up before we hit our first rapid.
We also saw another Lobo vehicle stranded on the lakeshore: a dilapidated catamaran.
Our guide told us Jason Lobo’s cabin burned down in 2017 and the town pitched in to build him a new one. Instead, he used the money to buy two catamarans with a dream of lashing them together into a floating restaurant. The restaurant never opened. One boat washed away in a storm. This one stayed behind like a punchline at the edge of the lake.
In Spanish, only one letter separates lobo and loco.
Kennicott River
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
Just past the catamaran, the current picked up and the lake transformed into a raging river.
The opening rapids were continuous but manageable as we passed under the footbridge, and then the private bridge Google insisted was passable. After that, the run alternated between Class II–III rapids and calmer stretches where we could catch our breath.
Nothing felt extreme, but the cold water made the stakes higher. Good guide… Good drysuits… Very glad for both.
Our safety boat flipped near the end, and the swim looked… deeply unpleasant.
We exited at a small ramp, loaded the rafts, and climbed onto a bus that looked like it belonged in Into the Wild. Fifteen minutes of bouncing down a gravel road later, we were back at the outfitters.
Golden Saloon
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
Once again, another day, another addition of “we can’t believe this is real” and drinks at the only Saloon in a National Park.
We had seen blue ice and watched live theater in the wilderness followed by live music with McWavy. And given the size of our room at Ma Johnson’s, we stayed a little later than usual at the Golden Saloon swapping stories with our new Latvian friends.
They planned to canoe the Kennicott River, which sounded questionable considering we’d just run it in drysuits. They were traveling on the cheap, splitting French fries for dinner. By the end of the night I was convinced: it’s money well spent out here to stay somewhere comfortable, eat well, and hire guides—especially when you compare your glacier photos at the bar later.
Leaving McCarthy
Photo Credit: Jenn Coleman.
We left McCarthy with a fresh perspective, and a little more knowledge than we arrived with.
Instead of hoofing it back down the road, Neil arranged for us to be chauffeured to the footbridge in a 1936 LaSalle. Kennecott was still a thriving town with rail service to the coast when that car was made, which somehow made the ride feel even more poetic.
We drove out with new experiences and enough material to write about things to do in McCarthy and what it’s really like to drive the McCarthy Road. But more than that, we left feeling like we’d been temporarily woven into the town’s strange, beautiful tapestry.
McCarthy etched itself into our minds and hearts, and we’re already planning our return—ice caves, maybe even a fly-in packrafting trip, and yes… maybe Bonanza, if we’re feeling brave (or foolish).
McCarthy is the kind of place where you arrive as a stranger, but leave with your mind so full of wonder, and your heart so full of adventure, that it feels a little like leaving a friend.