There are three tour companies with offices in McCarthy and/or Kennecott - McCarthy River Tours & Outfitters (MRTO), St. Elias Alpine Guides (SEAG), and Kennicott Wilderness Guides (KWG), not counting Wrangell Mountain Air which provides flightseeing tours, backcountry drop-offs and other plane-related services (there is a TourSaver coupon for Wrangell Mountain Air for $75 off per person on its shortest flightseeing trip of 50 minutes).
The three non-air tour companies all have day trips and multi-day tours, although each of them seem to specialize in a couple different things. One of the specialties of Kennicott Wilderness Guides is Packrafting trips, a combination of hiking and paddling a boat that you carry in your backpack. Packrafting is mostly for those that are backpacking the wilderness, but want or need a lightweight boat for river or lake crossing.
We did our glacier hike on Sunday with MRTO, our Kennecott Mill Town Tour yesterday with SEAG, and today we're packrafting with KWG. The packrafting trips are "private tours" meaning they only take people that sign up together and the cost is reduced for each additional person in the group.
We needed four people to get the lowest rate of $145/person, but we didn't have four. However, KWG said they would see if they could find locals to joins us, but if not, they'd guarantee us a three-person rate of $175 which is much better than the two-person rate. As it turned out, we paid the three-person rate and they invited Amanda, our glacier guide from Sunday, to go on a "familiarization" trip.
Our guide was supposed to meet us at the footbridge at 10:00 a.m., but we walked up into McCarthy early to have breakfast again at "The Potato", and we requested to be picked up there. No problem.
We ordered the same breakfast as the day before, - eggs & bacon with berries - but the service today was terrible and the food just wasn't as good as yesterday for some reason.
Anyway, our guide, Sarah, picked us up and, as it turned out, we drove to the footbridge anyway. We thought we were saving her some time and distance by having her pick us up in town. Oh well.
We parked, Amanda joined us, and Sarah had us try on dry suits, booties, and water shoes. Once that was done we started preparing the our gear to stuff in the raft backpacks.
We put our dry suit, booties, 4-piece paddles, spray skirt, and inflation bag (whatever that is) in the hull of the deflated little boat. Then we folded it like a taco, rolled it up and stuffed it into the backpacks.
We put dry bags with stuff we want to access on top, added water shoes, and strapped our life jackets to the outside of the pack. Soon, we were ready to go.
The packs looked heavy but they're not too bad. We were using boats made in Mancos, Colorado by Alpacka Raft. They weigh between five and nine pounds.
Our hike began as we walked back across the footbridge, ....
through the campground and out to the glacier lake where Kennicott Glacier terminates.
The Stairway Icefall at the top of Root Glacier was staring at us.
This little half-day trip was more about the "rafting" than the "packing" as we only walked about a half mile. The full day trip includes more hiking, but you paddle the same lake.
Linda was certainly fine with the shorter walk. The calm, silty gray lake was reflecting the surroundings beautifully.
We unpacked our packs, laid out our rafts, and began inflating them using the inflation bags.
Before inflation, we stuffed our backpacks (and any items we didn't need access to but didn't want to get wet) into a waterproof zippered compartment at the front of the boats. It's hard to believe that stuff fit in there.
Now, there is no pump, so you attach the inflation bag to a valve, fill the bag with air (easy if there is a breeze) and squeeze the air out of the bag and into the boat. Here's a video on how it's done.
With no breeze today, and us being newbies, it took a while. When the boat is pretty full of air, there is a mouth valve you blow to top it off.
Also, there is a mouth valve to blow up the inflatable seat and backrest which are attached to the hull. Here are the ladies' boats ready to go.
Oh, because the boats deflate a little when they hit the cold water, Sarah had us "temper" the boats by splashing ice cold lake water on them to reduce the amount of deflation. We then used the mouth valves to top them off again. Out on the water, we would top off each others' boats if necessary as there is too much risk of flipping to do it yourself.
Then we put on our dry suits, booties, water shoes (that fit over our booties), and life jackets. KWG doesn't let you paddle on a glacier lake without a dry suit, although we did just that in our Sea Eagle a few days ago in Valdez, and I would have done it here as well.
We all put on our spray skirts, but none of us used them because there were no rapids or spray - the lake was dead calm.
Sarah then demonstrated the two options for getting into the boat.
The "plop" method is the one we're quite familiar with and use with our own inflatable.
Finally, we were off.
The little boats are stable and turn on a dime. There is no skeg or rudder and they are so lightweight it took a few minutes to get used to the "wobble" as they go in the direction of the last paddle stroke.
We posed for a photo.
Paddling around the ice under the dirt and rocks of the moraine.
Linda struggled with her life jacket all day, but she was smiling under there.
The Kennicott River runs through the lake and, in some sections, we had to paddle upstream through the current.
Again, the boats are really lightweight, so it wasn't easy, but Linda powered through.
We started in the lower section of the lake and we were now in the middle section.
This was the primary view for our few hours on the water.
I took a little minute and a half video when I paddled ahead of the gals for a few minutes.
Here are Sarah and Amanda doing a mutual air top-off.
My boat kept deflating a little more than the others, so all three of the women kept having to blow my boat back up, and that led to all sorts of innuendoes instigated by my wife.
Paddling around a small ice formation.
Heading in to the upper part of the lake.
This formation and ice cave were pretty cool.
Lots of little rocks from above the cave entrance were falling, otherwise I would have ventured in.
Sarah took photos of us in front of the cave.
Here's Amanda.
I paddled on ahead to this spire formation.
Just beyond that was the end of the line as the river flowed in from somewhere under the glacier and blocked our way. Sarah paddled up into the current of the river and floated back, so we all did the same. Here's a video of Linda.
By then the formal "guiding" was over as Sarah realized there wasn't much to tell us we hadn't already heard, so the ladies bonded .....
and we just chatted like friends. Sarah has been to some amazing places and will be working in Antarctica this winter. Coincidentally, Amanda was in line for a position at the same place, but turned it down when she got promoted at her "real" job working with the tribal college in Barrow, Alaska.
While they talked and just had fun, ....
I took another little video of them, the river, and the mountains.
We started back, and Linda paddled by the spire and an ice "wave".
A look behind us as we went back by the ice cave.
Linda and Amanda in front of a large ice wall.
Linda and Sarah with the ice wall and a small waterfall off to the left.
I took one last video as we continued to float back with the current.
Linda appreciating the scenery as we neared the end of our paddle.
We took out at a different place than we put in, and hauled our rafts still inflated up to a warmer pond the locals use to swim. There, we cleaned the silt off the rafts just as it started to rain. We carried them out to the road where we deflated the boats and took off our dry suits and gear while Sarah fetched the van.
Our tour ended up being an hour or so longer than it was supposed to be, but none of us were in any hurry. We had a good time and got our introduction to packrafting. It was a bit pricey in my opinion especially considering we could have inflated our own boat, carried it over, and paddled the same lake. But the packrafting was something we had never done before, and it was basically a private tour with gorgeous scenery, so no regrets. Also, we probably would have seen better value if we hadn't just paddled Valdez glacier lake on our own a week before.
We said our goodbyes and thank yous to Sarah and Amanda and wished them well in their futures.
It was a short walk back to the Jeep which was ready to go. Someone had come in and parked between us and the neighboring truck camper, so they were really close. I made a comment to them, but it didn't matter as we were leaving anyway.
On the way out, we stopped at Glacier View Campground to have one of the recommended burgers made by Chris.
We had been warned not to expect it to be fast, and it wasn't. And, unfortunately, the burger wasn't that special. It was a bit overcooked, and certainly not worth the $16 price tag. It was our most expensive meal of our time in McCarthy/Kennecott, but Chris is a nice guy, and it can't be easy making a living out here.
It was about 6:30 when we got on McCarthy Road to drive the 60 miles back to Chitina and our RV. We stopped only to take a photo of a train trestle left over from the railroad built to transport the copper out of Kennecott.
We saw rabbits, but no moose or bear on the return. It took us exactly two hours.
Getting back to Wrangell View RV Park, the rig was still there and looked untouched.
After unpacking, we got much-needed showers and soon crawled into the luxury of our bed.
So, that was a good three-day, two-night adventure to McCarthy/Kennecott and the Wrangell - St. Elias National Park. Of course, with the park being 13.2 million acres, we only experienced the tiniest fraction in the only "developed" area. But it was a National Park visit, so check that one off, and we now have 46 of them under our belts.
Tomorrow, we're moving only about 50 miles to Copper Center to do some fishing on the Klutina River. Hopefully, we'll catch lots of salmon and be able to ship some back to the lower 48 for future consumption. Until next time.
That ice cave is amazing! And I can imagine the fun Linda had with those raft-blowing innuendos! ;)
Posted by: Cinn | Friday, July 05, 2019 at 08:21 PM