Wrangel - St. Elias

(sara & chrisch) This is the world larges national park – roughly 1.2 times the size of beautiful Switzerland. The highlight of this area, is the abandoned Kennecott mine. It was once one of the best copper mines containing ore with purity up to 70% copper.

Mt. Blackburn (aus USA Rundreise: Alaska)

Despite Kennecott is located at the edge of the park it is only accessible by unpaved road, following the former rail road track, which we were not allowed to drive with our rental car. We decided to obey this restriction and hired a shuttle bus to bring us in and out. This was worth its costs. On the way back from McCarty we learned why we shouldn’t drive our car on this road – the tour operator had on two different cars a flat tire due to old railroad spikes or sharp stones…
We stayed for two nights at a campground with marvelous view to the Kennicott Glacier and Kennecott on the hill side.

Kennecott Mine (aus USA Rundreise: Alaska)

On our first afternoon we hiked up to the abandoned miner’s village and saw a black bear with a cup cross the road approximately 100 – 150m in front of us. This was our first encounter with bears and we got quite excited. Alone on the road having no place to hide - that’s different than watching a bear in a zoo. Thankfully the bears were not interested in us and disappeared in the forest.
We took a guided tour through the village and the 13 story mill, where the copper ore was grinded and purified.

Ascent to the old mine (aus USA Rundreise: Alaska)

The next day we wanted to hike up to one of the mines. Due to a strong winter with a lot of snow fall all the trails up to the mines were still covered in snow. We decided to try it anyways and left early. However, the snow and mud proved to be too much and after we went almost ¾ up, we decided to enjoy the view and turned around.