If you're looking for one adventure that captures much of what is amazing about Alaska (enormous glaciers, incredible mountains, remote communities, resource-extraction history, wildlife, rushing silt-filled rivers, etc., etc.) without breaking the bank for a chartered float plane or getting out on the water this is our favorite. The combination of the journey to McCarthy with the incredible hiking/camping opportunities once you arrive in this truly wild and stunning place makes it one of if not our absolute favorite.

The McCarthy Road:

Worth the trip on its own right is driving the ~60 mile historic route of the Copper River and Northwestern Railway from Chitina to McCarthy. The road goes over historic bridges with tremendous views of the surrounding landscape and great wildlife spotting opportunities. We highly recommend listening to this extremally campy audio tour during the drive from the NPS. Make sure to download before you go since the internet and cell service is spotty at best. We stopped a few times including memorably to walk the pedestrian path under one of the narrow bridges across a deep canyon. Unfortunately we did not see any Dall Sheep!

While the road is gravel, we drove it in a rented VW Jetta with 2wd and almost no ground clearance and had no issues. If you're as into the railroad history as much as we were, there's an old fascinating book called the Copper Spike where a local reporter pieced together the history behind the railroad's construction. Some highlights included literal pitched battles over strategic canyons and lots of absurd feats of physical endurance and engineering in the incredibly harsh climate.

McCarthy & Kennicott: 

Once you reach the end of the road, you must leave your vehicle in a lot and take the foot bridge over to McCarthy. The town is small with only a few dozen year round residents. Apparently there is intense, sometimes physical competitions regarding the parking spots in front of the lone saloon! Two highlights we'd recommend are the Roadside Potato (try to rosemary garlic fries) and the McCarthy-Kennicott History Museum which is a quaint small room featuring old photographs and items from the town's glory days run by two very nice women.

Shuttles are available from the bridge to Kennicott, but we actually walked the ~5 miles along a nice historic wagon route. Definitely not a must-see, but not too bad if you don't want to spend the time/effort/money organizing the shuttle.

Kennicott itself was once the world's most profitable copper mine. Dan could go on for hours about the fascinating mill structures left behind, but we will spare our dear readers this screed. There are numerous well-preserved buildings where you can get a flavor for the scale of the operation in a ridiculously beautiful location. Definitely worth taking at least 30 minutes to wander around and read the signage and the national park does offer tours. The Root Glacier hike leaves from the far side of Kennicott so you'll get a good look at the time on your way in and out in any case.

Root Glacier Hike:

The hike onto Root Glacier is fairly short and straightforward. It proceeds for ~2 miles from Kennicott above the moraine until you pass the first camping area and the trail heads down to the glacier itself. We camped here near the first bear boxes and its a great spot with awesome views of Mt. Blackburn the 5th tallest peak in the US on a rare clear day. It's an ideal spot to camp so you can drop your pack and explore both trail spurs with a lighter load. Please be bear aware! Coming around a boulder by the bear boxes we came across a black bear just a few feet away. Both Dan and the bear fell to the ground in shock and slowly backed away (yes we know that's not the correct technique but sometimes pure shock overcomes even the best intentions). Thankfully our friend was far more interested in munching on soap berries than dealing with us.

Hiking on the glacier itself is amazing. The surface is incredibly dynamic, filled with various streams and waterfalls and steep ridges and valleys. We would suggest budgeting at least 30 minutes and ideally a more to get the real experience. Please be safe especially if you don't have experience on this type of terrain. We used trail crampons and trekking poles and would recommend some type of traction device to avoid what could be a very dangerous split. Also it's safest to stay on the beaten path across the glacier. There's still plenty to explore even while you do so.

The trail continues on across the glacier to a second camping area between the junction of the two glaciers. We were a bit too intimidated by the glacier crossing to plan on camping there our first trip but plan to give it a try the next time we make it back.

Erie Mine Spur:

Once we got back on solid ground, we continued along the side of the glacier on the Erie Mine trail spur. Here you'll see plenty of industrial debris including cable cars that used to take ore down from the mine high above to the right. The trail is exceptionally beautiful as you gradually approach the imposing Stairway Icefall which looms ahead. We traveled ~3-4 miles on the trail before it started to peter out past the mine and then decided to scramble up a scree-filled little valley to get a better overlook of the ice fall. We definitely do not recommend what we did given the ascent was almost impossible given the loose scree and at the top became almost rock-climbing to reach a very narrow and terrifying overlook. That said, the spur itself is absolutely worth exploring and finding your own route. There's also group tours that apparently will climb a portion of the icefall if that's of interest.