July 27: It's time to leave Valdez behind and start on our next adventure! Our next destination is McCarthy! Sean and I headed out excited to get to this next experience because we had something BIG planned. But, first, we had to get to Basecamp at the end of McCarthy Road, which is not for the faint of heart because the road is ROUGH and we were expecting it. We were ready to the best of our ability, but we never expected what would happen...
Leaving Valdez RV Park, one last picture...
Such a beautiful road in and out of Valdez.
One last chore to get done before getting far down the road, maintenance of the generator. Changing oil, oil filter, and air filter.
Then it was time to drive through Thompson Pass... always so pretty.
Soon followed the turn for Chitina & McCarthy. Luckily, the road is paved to Chitina, but then, 60 miles of rough chip seal & washboard gravel follow.
First glimpse of Wrangell-St. Elias Mountain Range from the road.
Topped off fuel in Kenny Lake (last reliable stop for fuel the rest of the distance to McCarthy).
The start of the McCarthy road.
Very narrow, but our motorhome fit without any issue.
Soon after you find the very wide Chitina River that mixes with Kotsina River.
Chitina Bridge crossing Kotsina River.
After crossing the bridge you see this sign. For some reason, we kept going...
Looking for the fish wheels, but we couldn't see them. Apparently, fish wheels are used in this river to catch salmon.
This picture shows the old railroad lumber peeking through the gravel road.
There are some sections of chip seal, but with lots of potholes and some heaves.
Entering Wrangell-St. Elias NP & Preserve! Getting closer!
Kuskulana Bridge, which is a Historic Railway Bridge that spans 525ft across the river gorge and 238ft above the Kuskulana River.
On the other end of the bridge, we pulled over to check it out. Under the bridge, was a large concrete piling that looked to be climbable to a maintenance/ pedestrian walkway that you could go the length of the bridge. The motorhome ladder became our good friend for this one since one of us is short legged, lol.
After our small excursion, we continued on and discovered how bad the road could be. There were many areas after the bridge that were washboard. I think from this point forward, we didn't drive faster than 8mph.
There were some pretty views, though.
We and the pups made our way over to the river to cool off and splash around for a moment.
Everything was going great, slow, but great. Then, this happens... How does a speedometer just stop working?!
We continued on until it threw a code for a check engine light. Sean got his fancy gadgets out and things weren't making sense. We thought maybe the sensor was dirty because we have been on a lot of dirt roads. This did not help. It didn't limit us, so we kept moving. Then....
...this happened... My microwave/convection oven decided it was done with the rough roads. Luckily, the back bracket kept it from falling onto the counter and tile floor. Sean wasn't able to stop to help me because there were no pullouts and the road was narrow at this point, so I stuffed some pillows under it in case it came the rest of the way down and waited for Sean to be able to stop to help me get it off the back bracket and stow it away. We ended up stowing in under the dining table until we got settled at a site in Basecamp.
We eventually arrived to Basecamp at about 10pm and couldn't figure out how to pay for a site at night. We ended up just settling into a site with the intent to pay for the night and the rest of our stay in the morning. Sean helped me get the very heavy microwave set back onto the counter and we made chili dogs that night. Exhausted, we finally made it to bed well after midnight.
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