Kennecott, the Mine Tour

​I woke up to the pitter patter of rain, and my ritual every morning includes raising my shades to admire the view. I could barely see the mountain this morning. So after the normal routine, walking Jo Jo with an umbrella, and preparing breakfast, I needed to figure out what I was planning to do today. Part of my plan included, leaving, driving four hours to get to the main highway. But I also had the desire to return to McCarthy and thought long and hard about the tour that I missed yesterday in Kennecott. Luckily, at about 10 AM the rain stopped and upon checking the forecast, it showed clouds for the afternoon with late day showers. I was able to call regarding the tour and they had an opening at 1:30, so I made the plan to take the two shuttles back up to Kennecott. I just missed the shuttle to McCarthy, so I decided to walk the 1 mile to the town. 1 mile isn’t far, but in the woods with these ravenous mosquitoes, it’s certainly gave me a reason to keep up the pace. I caught the second shuttle and arrived about 45 minutes prior to the tour giving me time to settle in and listen to a ranger talk on salmon. The talk and tour was wonderful, two hours long and it led us to a fairly steep climb up the hill where we also had the opportunity to pick up any copper scraps, many of which were about a quarter of an inch large. Nice! And after several bends over to pick up these pieces, I was reminded of how much better I feel since I cracked my ribs. Only a very slight discomfort as it’s been a good six weeks now, so I think I’m healed. Yay!  Throughout my walk yesterday I noticed one rock and lo and behold, it was in fact a piece of copper ore. Whoo! The 13 members of our tour made it to the top of the hill where now we would descend 14 stories inside of the mine. Each section/level held operations of the mine starting at the top where the cable car brought in the larger rocks, and eventually things would be milled down to fine powder, even ending up in an ammonia vat to extract microscopic pieces of copper. Our young tour guide confirmed the engineering marvel that this building was designed for, considering it was more than 100 years ago. It was a wonderful tour, and even though it rained at the very end, it quickly cleared up. I was anxious to get back to the RV as I left Jo Jo in there with venting and plenty of water and it was only 70° in the rv when I got back. Suddenly I feel pretty tired over the last few days activities. I moved to a new camp spot right next to the river with the same view of the mountain. A nice change of pace as it saved me another 20 minutes from walking to the foot bridge. Getting to McCarthy and Kennecott is not an easy effort, but a very memorable and unique experience.





























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