July 28-29: The morning following our exhausting McCarthy Rd journey, we woke to a letter on the motorhome wiper blade to pay at the office. Of course, Sean obliged them and went to pay for our slice of beautiful riverside camping. We were grateful they didn't get angry and start banging on the door demanding their dues or kicking us out, lol.
Basecamp offers campsites and a parking lot for those who drove their vehicles, for a price. Camping was $35/night; oversized rigs $45/night; parking $12/day.
You can see the icefall, literally looks like a frozen waterfall, but is a part of the glacier that flows over a steep incline. This icefall on Root Glacier is the 2nd largest in the world!
After observing our surroundings for a bit, I got to work on how to get the microwave to sit back in its allotted spot. Turns out the top brace was only held with 4 screws! That microwave is very heavy and this surprised both of us. I was able to drill more holes in the aluminum bracket and added a few more screw holes to hopefully give it a better chance to hold the weight of the microwave. With Sean's help, we got the bracket up and got the microwave back in place. *Cross Fingers*
Sean gave up on trying to figure out the speedometer issue. He wasn't able to find anything that was actually wrong, but he thought it wise to go ahead and buy new sensors, just in case. Luckily, Verizon customers have service in this very remote area, which we were very grateful to have in this situation.
Since most of the issues were taken care of, we decided to take advantage of our beautiful surroundings and take the pups for a walk. This is the glacier lake of Kennicott and Root Glacier with the Icefall visible.
We wanted to explore McCarthy a bit and get some steps in, so across the footbridge we go!
The start of Kennicott River from the glacier lake.
The pups got to enjoy cooling off in the river! The water is soooo cold!!! Hershey didn't mind at all.
There's not much to McCarthy. A couple of hotels, basically one shop, a museum, 2 airstrips, a few restaurants, and some adventure guides.
It was hot! We headed back home and enjoyed the beautiful weather in the shade.
The later in the day it got, the cooler it got, lol! We eventually needed the fire pit. We went to bed early because the first day of adventure will begin in the morning!!!
Today is the start of a 3 days full of adventure! Across the footbridge we go!!!
We signed up for a Raft & Fly trip for the first day. Our guides picked us up at the end of the footbridge and took us to their headquarters to get geared up (large dry bags, neoprene tops, and mud boots). Then, we walked down to the rafts, which were set up right across from Basecamp. You can see the motorhome in the far right of the bottom picture.
After a very detailed safety briefing, we headed out onto the tumultuous Kennicott River! This river is fast!!! Our guide's name is Katrine.
The other guide's name is Jeff, in the red raft. They travel in 2's for safety. Also, guests are not allowed to help row for safety/liability reasons: hypothermia if someone falls in incidentally, changing hazards in the rivers, lack of close healthcare, etc.
After a few hours, we beached for lunch. While our guides set up our "feast", Sean and I went hiking around the river shore. We were looking for fossils in the river rocks, but weren't successful...
We heard our guides call for us that lunch was ready, and we weren't expecting all of this! I was ready for a PB&J, lol.
Katrine even made some brownies!
Jeff had a gold pan with him and we got to talking about our gold panning woes, lol. Still no luck finding gold...
Found some quicksand!
Before we knew it, our guides had everything loaded up and we were off again.
We stopped for a short hike.
Found a bear footprint!
After about 17 miles from our starting point, it was time to pull the rafts out of the water and break everything down. We are not used to being on the sidelines, so we pitched in to help where we were allowed.
The area the guides had stopped at has a bush airstrip on it!
Showing us on a map the route we had come.
I'm sure you're wondering at this point, "what's next?" or "how do they get back?"
Well... this is how. On a bush plane!
Our plane had arrived from McCarthy to take us and the equipment all back home. This was first time in a small plane and Sean's second time.
Everything was crammed into the small plane (us included), lol!
Sean sat in front next to the pilot.
The rest of us filled the other 3 seats.
This is the video of the flight. Below are snapshots from this video.
Nizina River
Kennicott Glacier
A large moulin on the moraine laden part of Root Glacier.
Got a good view of the motorhome from the plane.
Coming in for landing in McCarthy.
Once finally home, Sean fought through a cold all day, and could finally rest. The pups and I went for a long walk and sat outside to give Sean some quiet time. I was trying to read, but kept reflecting on what a wonderful day this adventure turned out to be.
Now, we had to be ready for Day 2!!!
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