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Chitina
The end of Edgerton Hwy is 10 miles beyond Liberty Falls State Recreation Site, at little Chitina, the last place you can purchase gas. There's a grocery store here too, and a café, an art gallery and a ranger station. Backpackers can camp along the 3-mile road south to O'Brien Creek or beside Town Lake.
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Kennicott
In 1900 miners 'Tarantula Jack' Smith and Clarence Warner reconnoitered Kennicott Glacier's east side until they arrived at a creek and found traces of copper. They named the creek Bonanza, and was it ever - the entire mountainside turned out to hold some of the richest copper deposits ever uncovered. In the Lower 48, mines were digging up ore that contained 2% copper. Here, the veins would average almost 13%, while some contained as much as 70%.
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Kuskulana River Bridge
At Mile 17 of McCarthy Rd sits the one-lane, 525ft-long Kuskulana River Bridge, long known as 'the biggest thrill on the road to McCarthy.' Built in 1910, this historic railroad span is a vertigo-inducing 238ft above the bottom of the gorge. Though the state has added guard rails and new planks and thus taken some of the thrill out of the crossing, the view of the steep-sided canyon and rushing river from the bridge is awesome, and well worth the time to park at one end and walk back across it.
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Liberty Falls State Recreation Site
Edgerton Hwy and McCarthy Rd combine to provide a 92-mile route into the heart of Wrangell-St Elias National Park, ending at the footbridge across the Kennicott River to McCarthy.
The 32-mile Edgerton Hwy, fully paved, begins at Mile 82.6 of Richardson Hwy. If you want to camp before reaching the park, the best bet is lovely Liberty Falls State Recreation Site, where the eponymous cascade sends its waters rushing past several tent platforms.
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McCarthy
Most local services are in the hamlet of McCarthy, an erstwhile ghost town so funky and cool you'll want to haunt the place yourself. Facing the Kennicott Glacier's terminal moraine and just a stone's throw from the river, the tiny community is a car-free idyll, where the handful of gravel roads wind past rotting cabins and lovingly restored boomtown-era buildings.
Showing 1-5 of 5 results
