Luck 'O The Irish

I am sure a number of you imagine that the infrequent nature of these blog postings is due to the possibility that I laboriously write them out by hand, quill and ink well at the ready, demonstrating perfect penmanship, with completed parchment sent by barge to an IT sweat factory in India where a team of low-paid "technicians" import my words into the blogspot software.  Well, that isn't the case at all.  With neither romance nor mystery, I type them on a now old-fashioned desktop, which requires me to sit at a desk.  None of this really matters, and is just a lead-in to the fact that a calendar hangs on our wall above and to the right of my computer monitor, and since I am sitting to type out a blog post I have the opportunity to stare at it.  And guess what?  Spring is coming in two days.  I find this a surprising revelation, because looking out our windows, I don't see flower bulbs poking out from the ground.  In fact, I don't see the ground at all.  Instead, it looks something like this:

And here is a view from the walk home from work last Thursday:

Let's just say that I am having trouble believing that come next Tuesday, all that snow will be gone and we'll have spring-time butterflies and babbling brooks to contend with in its place.

It has been a near record-setting year for snow in Anchorage.  Another 3-inches will do it, and by this time I think we're all hoping that we get that 3-inches.  Who wants to get this close to the record and not surpass it?  But while all of the snow has made for a great ski season (and will probably make for a long ski season -- we may well be still skiing in June at this rate), it has its consequences too.  Like occasionally having to dig the car out:

And collapsing roofs (which are starting to go all over town):

And moose fleeing the deep snows of the wilderness for the easy walking of plowed neighborhood streets and sidewalks:

Walking to work has become an exercise in dodging moose, which are seemingly everywhere.  While usually docile, they can get pretty worked up at times, and the last thing you want is two-tons of agitated moose turning its attention in your direction.  Plus, they can have trouble finding food in these high snow years.  Horrifically, some have taken to hunting people as food.  You know what they say about a moose that has acquired a taste for human flesh.  And they are crafty, plotting ambushes from high points such that they can drop unsuspectingly on passer-byers.  A terrifying death from on-high, if you will.  The local paper caught a picture of one in position, waiting to pounce:

(Source of above photo: http://www.adn.com/2012/03/02/2348006/best-of-march-2012.html#id=2371099)

In any case, snow meant a good year for the Tour of Anchorage (a ski race celebrating its 25th year this year).  Long time blog-readers may remember that C and I skied it last year and both medaled in our age groups, C in the 40k (first place), me in the 25k (third place).  For variety, we decided this year to switch distances and to not medal.  So that is what we did.  Turned out to be a blue-bird sunny day in the low 20s.  As with any race, we had to get psyched up, and nothing nurtures psych like early eighties pop sensation the Go-Gos.  Their infectious beat (which, as you may recall, they got) worked its way right under C's skin:

This was my third time skiing the tour.  As mentioned above, I did the 25k last year as a post-chemo victory lap.  In 2007, C and I both did the 40k.  That was my first year cross country skiing, and I can still feel my quads seizing on the final climb to Kincaid from the coastal trail.  This year, I was able to shave a half-hour off my time from 2007, perhaps due in equal parts to better technique and better (read, firmer) trail conditions.  Here I am coming into the stadium at race end, head snapping up as I heard C call my name from the crowd of people watching the finish:

The Tour also has a 50k distance, which takes 10 kilometers of severe hills on to the 40k course.  The additional 10k follows the Spencer Loop, an exercise in climbing (and descending -- what goes up most come down, after all).  I have yet to ski the Spencer Loop and think, "Hey!  Lets do another 40k!" and I may put off ever signing up for the 50k until I do.

Notwithstanding that the ski trails are still in great shape, the spring equinox does mean it is time to start thinking about running again too.  And to start the season off right, we took part in the Shamrock Scramble this morning, a 5k trail run to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society ("LLS").  I ran this last year too.  Apparently, the race has been taking place on this weekend for a number of years.  Unfortunately, this year one of the Scramble's prior sponsors (Skinny Raven, a local running store) decided to partner with a local pizza-pub (Bear Tooth) and host a competing race, the Shamrock Shuffle.  So the crowds were split, with some of the support and fund raising for LLS being siphoned off to benefit the local marketing of two popular retailers (to my knowledge the entry fee for the competing Shamrock Shuffle did not benefit anything).  While unfortunate for LLS, it worked out to my benefit.  All of the fast runners went to the Shuffle and I got to transition from solid middle-packer to race winner at the Scramble.  This may well be the first and last race I ever win. Observe as I relish in the thrill of victory:

Note also the leprechaun back behind me to the right.  No St. Patrick's day is complete without the appearance of a belligerent leprechaun to taunt you across the finish line.

Blower Powder

As a follow up to my post in December, I owe a belated "thank you" to my one purchaser of a copy of my e-book, "May it Please the Court."  I apologize for the continued delay in delivery, but I promise I'll get the rest of the book written soon.  In the meantime, I have appreciated the $11,000,001 payment.

Having made it to the top 0.01%, C and I quickly realized, "Hey!  All of this money isn't going to spend itself!"  So we went out to dinner.  It turns out, though, that you can't really order enough food to burn through $11 million at one meal.  Even adding in an expensive bottle of wine, we hardly made a dent.  So we started looking for other alternatives.

It seems if you want to spend a lot of money, the best place to start is by trying to develop private sector manned space flight.  But I really have no idea how to start the trip down that road.  What do you do?  Buy a bunch of old lawnmowers and strap the engines to an old railroad tie?  Start yanking the start cords one by one until you have enough thrust to lift off?  Strap on a snorkel so you can breathe in the dark cold void of space?  You see, space travel was really a non-starter.  So we picked the second most expensive things we could think off: alpine skiing.

Which is all to say that we took a weekend break and drove down the road to Alyeska.  The plan was to ski lift-served trails on Saturday, spend the night, then wake up and explore the nordic trails in Girdwood on Sunday.  Execution started off smoothly enough, but took a left turn on Sunday when we tossed back the drapes and found heavy snowfall.  A quick call to the ski hotline:  "Ski patrol reports blower powder.  Ten inches at the base, fifteen inches at the top."  Well, the nordic trails will be there next time.  By the time the lifts were operating, snow was knee deep on the upper mountain.   Downhill skiing is a once- or twice-a-year activity for me, so I'm mighty pleased to have lucked into deep powder, even if the views were better on the day before.

Pictures from the snow dump and skiing can be found at: http://www.tetongravity.com/blogs/Trams-Helis-And-Cats-T-G-R-Films-The-Dream-Factory-5735726.htm.  Not my pictures, mind you.  Pictures from the Teton Gravity Crew that has apparently been camped out in Girdwood filming for next years's stoke-inducing pre-season ski movie.  We shared elevator space with these guys right after checking into the hotel.  Anyone familiar with both the TGR films and my skiing can probably guess that the elevator is the only place we saw them.  Well, the elevator and the bar.  Anyone unfamiliar with TGR can probably gather all they need to know from the photos linked above (or look for trailers from other films on YouTube).  Suffice to say, we weren't sharing terrain.

Of course, as you can imagine, two days of skiing ate through the entirety of the $11 million.  How do people afford this sport?  If we're going to go again, I really need to sell another e-book.

Last Minute Gift Ideas

A lack of blog posting means I've missed my opportunity to comment on the whole occupy Wall Street movement while it was still relevant, leaving me to make my observations now that everyone has moved on to the European financial crisis and looming collapse of the Euro, the Golden Globe nominations, and Christmas shopping.  While I may have missed the boat here entirely, I still found the following graphic pretty interesting:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/10/30/nyregion/where-the-one-percent-fit-in-the-hierarchy-of-income.html?ref=incomeinequality

To those who have no interest in clicking through link, it breaks down the average annual income (and ranges of income) earned within the break down of American families.  While presented with way more flourish and extra information, the gist is as follows:

Top 0.01%: average annual income of $31 million; range from $11 million to some presumably staggering amount
99.90 - 99.99%: average income of $3.9 million; range from $2 million to $11 million
99.0 - 99.9 %:  average income of $717,000; range from $386,000 to $2 million
90 - 99%: average income of $167,000; range from $108,000 to $386,000
0 - 90%; average income of $36,000; range from $0 to $108,000

An interesting spread of wealth that begs a number of questions.  Like, how the hell do I claw my way into the top 0.01%?  Forget the one-percenters that got so much attention from the press and the protesters.  The one-hundredth-of-one-percenters looks like where the action is.  And wasn't that the whole point of the occupy movement?  To give us a target to aim for?

I'm certainly glad that one enterprising individual has found his path to the one-hundredth-of-one-percenters club, and that appears to be selling small jars of trash for incredible sums of money:



How much would you pay for a jar of grocery bag clips?  How about $125?  Don't believe me?  See http://store.partnersandspade.com/2011/10/13/bag-clip-collection/.  The guy just needs to sell 96,000 of these this year to make it the coveted top step of the money mega-mid.

I'm taking a different path.  Really, ask yourself, where is the real money earned in this world?  The answer is obvious: romance novels self-published under an assumed name.  Just in time for the gift giving Christmas season, I'm pleased to announce the pending completion of my first bodice ripper: May it Please the Court.  It is the story of Lascivious Jones, a judge in Omaha Nebraska, and her complicated trysts will Ripples McGee and Thadeous DuPont, respectively the local prosecutor and defense attorney handling a high-profile murder case in Judge Jones' court room.  Here is an excerpt:

Ripples took a moment for himself, walked back to the People's table, and sipped slowly from the plastic cup of water supplied by the good tax payers of Omaha.  He scanned the packed court room, caught Lola's eye, and winked.  He then undid another button in his bespoke tailored shirt, exposing a sculpted pectoral and the margins of a Virgin Mary tattooed across his abdomen.  Having composed himself and now nearly topless, Ripples turned to begin the dance.


"Ms. Waters, do you know who killed Little Tim?" he asked the witness, tossing his golden hair into the waning rays of daylight filtering through the court house windows.


"Sure.  Jimmy Westing did it."


"And what makes you say that, Ms. Waters?"


"Why my neighbor saw him do it.  He told me so."


Thadeous launched from his seat, crying "Objection your honor!  That is rank hearsay!  Ms. Water's has no personal knowledge about this case at all.  Mr. McGee is just wasting our time."


Judge Jones paused for a moment.  ''Would counsel approach the bench."  Both men ambled slowly to the front of the room and leaned in hear what the Judge had to say.  "Gentlemen, this appears to be a complicated objection, and I'm going to request briefing on the question.  I want you both to provide your arguments and support, in my chambers, at 10:00 tonight.  I want the briefs delivered in person.  Mr. McGee, I want you to bring some wine.  Mr. DuPont, bring massage oils.  I think the three of us will consider the arguments for and against late into the night..."

The way I see it, a story like that pretty well sells itself.  If you need a last minute Christmas gift, I can not recommend my book highly enough.  I considered pricing it at $125, figuring I would only need to sell 96,000 copies to finally make the top 0.01% of earners, but after finding out you could sell bag clips for $125 decided I was selling myself short.  Frankly, I'm also not so sure I can sell 96,000 copies before Christmas.  So instead I have priced the book at $11,000,001.  That way I only need to sell one copy to reach the upper echelons (albeit the very bottom of the upper echelons).  If you want to buy a copy, let me know.  Call day or night.

And in Cancer news, I had a CT scan earlier this month and was given the all clear by the man with the stethoscope.  No changes, lymph nodes acting like lymph nodes.  Next scan will be in a year or year and a half.  So there is that.

Merry Christmas.

Catching Up

I remember my days as a wide-eyed recreational blogger, new to the genre and perhaps a bit naive in thinking I would, at a bare minimum, manage a single post a month.  Well, a mere glance below indicates a solid three plus months since I last bothered to log in, put finger tips to laptop, and bore the lot of you with my incessant yammering.  Clearly, this drought must end.  And so it has.  And so much to catch up on.

London:  Unexpectedly, my job took me to London last October.  With one ticket and a hotel paid for, C tagged along for the ride.  The work was for a client that pays for business class travel on any trip over three hours, and the flight to London easily qualified.  C's personal travel was, of course, not subject to reimbursement, meaning she was stuck in coach.  We parted ways boarding our trans-Atlantic flight, settled into our respective seats, pulled out our phones, and sent the following messages to one another:

C: "All settled in, and such luck!  The guy next to me moved into an empty seat and I have a whole row to myself!"

Me: "I was just given my first glass of champagne and my chair is massaging me!"

Anyway, the trip pretty much ruined coach flying for me, which is really too bad for two reasons: 1) we can't afford to fly business class; and 2) we live in Alaska and have to fly if we want to get anywhere outside the state in less than a week.

The work part of the trip was interesting, but stressful.  The tourist part of the trip was great.  London had never crossed either of our minds as an actual travel destination, and I don't know that we would have ever opted to go there, but we really enjoyed it and would go back on our own dime (in coach).  We saw some sights and did a lot of walking, but for purposes of this blog post I will focus on a single morning.  We left our hotel intending to meander through Mayfair and angle towards the London Museum to partake of some of England's cultural riches.  Our route required crossing Oxford Street, which I have since learned is London's (and perhaps Europe's) consumer heart.  Department stores and retailers lined the road, and the crowds flocked to spend hard earned pounds.

Crowds on Oxford.

C caught scent of opportunities to spend, and dove head long into the chaos.  I valiantly tried to keep pace, and found myself outside of multiple changing rooms trying to regain my strength.  However, I wasn't alone:

These two gentleman look like they lost battle.  Regrettably, their napping occupied the only two seats available.

The crowds and sales having sapped our strength, it was time for lunch.  Having suffered the inequities of sheepishly following C around stores with an increasing load of tailored goods draped about my shoulders, I at least got to pick the location.  This being England, then, we headed for the pub:

Appropriately fortified, the afternoon's shopping was almost pleasing in comparison.  We never made it to the London Museum.

Fairbanks:  My in-laws, long residents of Fairbanks, had the idea of changing scenery.  And what better way to force the issue than selling your home in one state and buying a new home in Nevada?  Fair warning, though; such a decision has consequences, chiefly that selling a house requires you to move.  C's folks have been rooted for approximately 40 years, so this was no task to take lightly.  C took several trips to Fairbanks to help out as she could, and the both of us went north for the final weekend.  Anytime you start to dig through 40 years of accumulation, you are bound to discover forgotten treasures.  Imagine all of our surprise when we unearthed the Servicemaster First Aid Kit.

Note how the dutiful house wife sits upon the lush shag like a mountain-lamb, prepared to do what is necessary such that her husband will never, ever, have to lay his eyes upon a shameful carpet stain.  In case you are wondering, the First Aid Kit included a helpful dial.  Tune in the type of stain, and you got specific instructions on how to address it.

I'm frankly not sure what to make of the fact that the dial was set at "Urine (fresh)" when it was last stored.

The back of the box was equally interesting:

At first I assumed this was the formerly unseen husband, returned from a hard day at the office and inspecting his old lady's accomplishments.  But the clip board suggests this may actually be a Servicemaster representative, sent to critique his customer's work and presumably offer helpful tips for better stain management.  In either case, something about the photo makes me think the woman is about one minute away from offering to mix a pitcher of martinis.

Florida:  We just got back from a few days in southern Florida, including Thanksgiving in Miami, a short jaunt to the Everglades, and a trip out to Key West.  Much like London, I had never previously considered Florida as a travel destination.  But here it is winter in Anchorage, and it just sounded so... warm.  We rented and borrowed cruiser bikes to explore in both Miami and Key West.  The day we piled back into the rental car to head back to the airport, we learned that Key West had the dubious honor of having the highest number of serious accidents involving bicyclists and pedestrians of any town in Florida.  Not a surprising revelation, really, but it all worked out OK for us.  If we ever live somewhere warm and relaxing, we'll probably need to get a couple of cruiser bikes in the stable.  But I'm adding hand breaks and a free wheel to mine.

The Daily Grind:  All of the above leaves us plum center back in the daily grind.  As of today, the annual December warm up has turned the snow to slush, fated to be ice as the temperatures drop back below freezing.  Previously beautiful ski conditions have faded like our Florida tans.  So nothing to do now but sit back and wait for more cold and more snow... and if you really have patience to wait for the next blog post.

Elvis has re-entered the building

Your life is marked by firsts.  Some of these milestones occur while young, and you may know about them solely because you've heard the stories from those who were there and old enough to remember: your first steps, your first words, the first time you made it through a dinner party without taking off your pants and running around naked.  Some happen much later in life and are lodged safely in your own memories, albeit perhaps with details fading on the margins: your first time driving a car alone, a first kiss, the first time you made it through a dinner party without taking off your pants and running around naked (for some people, that particular milestone comes a little later).  But for all of us, there is one moment greater than all the rest.  An event we each expect and anticipate with quickened pulse, but can never predict.  For me, that day came last Sunday.  Of course, I'm talking about my first Elvis impersonator.

And where else, but the Alaska State Fair?  The faux-King appeared before us, karaoke machine in tow, with the glory of the Chugach range rising behind and a sixty (?) year old woman in a poodle skirt just losing her head as she twisted, turned, and flat rocked to the three or so songs we managed to sit through.  Then it was time to go home.

(Not the Elvis impersonator)

Who knew there would be an Elvis impersonator?  In comparison, Garrison Keillor was predictable.  After all, we had tickets in advance for that.  He and his cast of many made an appearance at our fair Fair and we dutifully went to see the action.  However, thanks largely to the failings of general admission seating at the Alaska State Fair Grounds Borealis Theater, we weren't actually able to see any action at all.  The show was entertaining, but as an event it was kind of disappointing.  It was no different than hearing him on the radio, except we were uncomfortably sitting on the ground, cheek to jowl with neighbors, and there was no way to turn up the sound like you would on a home radio.  Ah well.  Interestingly enough, the parts we could hear were quite a bit more racy than the radio show.  (This was part of the "Summer of Love" tour and is not scheduled for broadcast.)

Comfort and sight-lines notwithstanding, it turned into the kind of day I thought was gone for the year.  Sunny and hot.  Real t-shirt weather.  Farmer tans.  Just like you read about in books.  Good books about happy people.  And I was happiest looking at the baby pigs.  All fairs have them, I am sure.  But Alaska's are probably cuter.

Touchy Throttle

Clearly, August has arrived.  Gray, rainy, and wet.  The rain was preceded by a large red salmon run in the Kenai River.  As part of my office's annual summer fishing trip, we went down to try and catch some with fly rods from a position thigh deep in the current, shoulder to shoulder with other wanna-bes trying to push in to the good spot.  Four of us (two co-workers, C, and myself) loaded into a boat to reach our spot with a caricature of an Alaska  fishing guide.  He looked like hard living: hooked nose, stringy hair pouring from beneath a hat that was more seam-grip than hat, long beard, and plenty of arrest stories.

Of course, any commercial guiding operation takes safety very seriously.  Caricature Guide ("CG") was no exception.  A quarter mile up river, he looked up.  "You guys know how to work this motor, don't you?"

"Uh, not really..."

"Alright.  We'll the throttle is pretty touchy.  If I go over board, just be careful."

So briefed, we all settled in for the ride.  Once at the fishing hole, we went about casting and hooking fish.  We hauled in much fewer than we hooked.  This led to lots of subtle coaching by CG.

"You've got to let the fish run!  Let it run!"

"What are you doing?  Why'd you let the fish run?  Reel it in, man, reel it in!"

We went on like this for the whole day.  If I let the fish run, I was supposed to reel.  If I reeled, I was supposed to let the fish run.  I suppose you find the art of fishing somewhere in the middle.

Coaching aside, it was a hot day on the river and we had a good time.  Heading back to Copper Landing, though, the day took a turn.  Two fatal crashes on the Sterling Highway shut the road down.  Four of us and CG are sitting in CG's van when a state trooper walks up to pass on the news: the highway is closed until tomorrow morning.  We're trapped on the wrong side of Copper Landing, feet in hip waders, no wallet, no food, and no particular idea of how or when we're getting home.  Long story short, and some seven hours later, we did make it as far as Copper Landing and the cars (and shoes).  Tragic accidents and long day.  As CG pulled into the guide's lot he was on the phone to a friend who was sitting in the only bar in Copper Landing, yelling, "You tell him he better stay open at least until I get a beer, or I'm going to tear the fucking door off the place."  I guess he had earned it by that time.

Follow up to the McCarthy post, a few pictures:

McCarthy

The Fourth of July.  The day each year when Americans, by which I do not mean residents of the Americas but residents of the United States, celebrate our freedom to not go to work on a summer day.  As a product of American public schools, by which I mean the public schools of the United States and not the public schools of Chile, Canada, or El Salvador, I of course have no idea what the Fourth of July is supposed to be celebrating.  I imagine it is a holiday invented by someone who was jealous of school teachers and students who were spending the warm summer months free from responsibility, traipsing about the world like lazy afternoons caught on a breeze.  What ever the basis, C and I took advantage of a three day weekend to point the car east and drive to (or rather very near) McCarthy.

The McCarthy Road
We had been intending this trip for many years, and had gone so far to make tentative plans as far back as 2005.  Yet we were always deterred by stories of the road.  The road is a former rail bed, narrow and reportedly rough.  The road devours tires, using rail spikes like teeth.  The road destroys oil pans, using large and sharp rocks like hammer drills.  The road will crumble beneath your wheels and send you and your car tumbling to certain doom at the bottom of a lovely, but deadly, canyon.  We took it all to heart and time and time again shook our heads and said, "No, not this time.  Not until we buy a truck."  Well, we didn't buy a truck, but apparently got tired of waiting, because this time we said, "How bad could it be?"  The answer?  Not bad at all.  The road did not live up to its reputation.  A little research indicates that the State has done a lot of maintenance over the last five years.  The road was in great shape, and an absolutely gorgeous drive.

McCarthy
The town of McCarthy sits in the heart of Wrangell - St. Elias National Park, just across the Kennicott River from road's end.  After following the Chitina River up stream for 60 miles, the road gives its last gasp in a collection of parking spots crudely marked out with chalk in a gravel bar.  There, a nice gentleman will gladly charge you $5 a day to leave your car.  As we quickly learned, if they can sell it in McCarthy, they will.  This may be the middle of nowhere Alaska, but don't expect to park for free.

After settling your account with the parking attendant, a foot bridge leads across the silt laden and churning flow of a glacially sourced river.  The foot bridge is actually a relatively recent addition to the town, circa 1997.  Prior to that time, you had to wait until winter and freeze up to walk across or pull yourself across in an incredibly exposed hand tram.  C, who visited McCarthy in the hand tram era some 20 years ago on a family trip with her grandmother, recalls the family tale of the river crossing.  Her grandma, a fine and proper lady familiar with the urban jungle but a stranger to mountain wilderness, set foot on the far side and declared, "Just wait until I tell the ladies back home."

"No kidding, Grandma," C replied.  "Pretty impressive to pull yourself across this raging froth."

"The river?  Goodness no.  Wait until I tell them I used an outhouse!"

I guess you can never tell what will make an impression.

Once across, whether now by foot or then by tram, it is a half mile walk up to the town proper.  And these days it really does appear proper.  You can stay in a hotel (we did), eat at one of three dining establishments (we hit two), or go to a museum (we did that too).  You can also drink at the bar, although I have a distinct feeling that that particular amenity has been available for some time.

The Fourth of July is the biggest weekend of the year in McCarthy.  People come funneling in from near and far.  We missed the parade and litany of events on Monday in favor of beating traffic home, but were there for the Saturday night "block" party.  The town shut down main street to traffic, which is easy to do in a town with no road access, trucked in a band (at least as far as the pay lot), and invited representatives of the Alaskan Brewing Company to come and, in true McCarthy spirit, charge an arm and a leg for a couple of their rough draft beers that are not available in bottles or taps elsewhere.  The band was good and the party went on much later than we did.  Of course, as the distance of our hotel room from the party could be measured in feet, we still got to listen to the crowd and the band from beneath the comfort of a comforter until the wee hours.

As you might imagine, in any rough and tumble wilderness out post, some folks are going to spend more time in the beer line than attentively listening to the music.  We talked the next day to another guy from Anchorage who told the story of spotting an acquaintance talking to one such character.  The girl acquaintance motioned Anchorage over, "Come join us!"  Anchorage, wearing a hat with a big "TC" for the Twin Cities, turns that way.  The drunk guy bellows, "No one from Texas is welcomed over here."

"Texas?" puzzled Anchorage.  "What makes you think I'm from Texas?"

"Your Texas Christian hat, that's what."

"Texas Christian?  No, man, that's the Twin Cities.  I'm a Twins fan."

"I know my hats!"

The drunk guy started to huff and puff, let out a "Oh, we're going to do this," and was ready to wield the ancient might-makes-right rule of law to establish that he did, in fact, know his hats.  His wife calmed him down, but I don't think Anchorage joined their social circle.

Kennicott
Just up the hill from McCarthy, the former mining town of Kennicott sits in ruined glory.  It turns out that the mountains in these parts contained very high grade copper-ore that brought in a large scale mining operation in the early 1900s, financed by the likes of the Guggenheims.  Ore was drug out of the earth from the 70+ miles of tunnels veining the upper ridges above McCarthy and shuttled down in tram buckets to an immense copper mill in the town of Kennicott at the margins of the Root and Kennicott glaciers.  Bringing the ore to market required putting in a rail line from the coastal town of Cordova to the mine, across some incredibly rugged terrain.  One day the accountants back east ran the numbers and decided that after a number of years of wealth generation, the mine was no longer going to turn a profit.  The owners sent word to the mine workers: "The last train leaves in two days.  Unless you want to stay, you ought to be on it."  The whole operation was basically abandoned.  Despite a few attempts over the years to rework some of the mine tailings, the buildings are still largely in tact.

A few years ago, the Park Service bought some of the old mining buildings.  Others are still in private hands.  Some of the buildings have been completely renovated and house modern businesses: a lodge, guiding services, the Park Service offices.  Some have more or less fallen into rubble.  Some were filled with gravel during a couple of different flood events along National Creek.  And some, including the massive 14-story mill building, are standing in a state of suspended animation.  We took a tour of the site, and while we balked initially at the cost ("$25 to walk around?"), it turned out to be well worth it.  The history was interesting, and the tour granted us access the the mill, which was otherwise locked and could not be visited.

We brought bikes and were able to bike between McCarthy and Kennicott, a distance of about 5 up hill miles.  Our first night in town was sunny, so we took advantage of the clear weather to take a quick look at the old mining town, and biked up what is called the Old Wagon Trail, a rocky path off of the main road littered with bear scat.  The lighting was great, but building thunder storms chased us back to McCarthy.  We returned the next day under heavy low clouds and rain.  The downhill return saturated bike, bodies, and bone with creamy mud.  It was that moment that we were most glad we had spent the money on lodging, with showers.  If you didn't want to walk or bike the 5-miles to and from Kennicott, a shuttle service would be glad to charge you $5 each way.  Bringing bikes saved us $40 in shuttle fees.

Food
Surprisingly, the McCarthy lodge brought in a chef with palmares, having worked for stints with Thomas Keller in California (Bouchon, not the French Laundry) and at WD-50 in Manhattan.  He was making a go at a high concept dining room in a dusty frontier town.  The food was good, but not great.  The service was top notch.  The wines were very good.  All in all, recommended.  We also ate pizza from a bus up at Kennicott, and agreed that pizza in an unexpected location -- in this case sitting at the margins of the Kennicott glacier as the crowds filtered away for the day -- always tastes good.

I'm working through the photos and will post a few up once the cull is complete.

In the meantime, a public "hang tough, whether in the Mid-West or in Houston" to K-Dawg, a frequent contributor to the comments to this blog.  I don't know if you'll have web access or be wasting time with my long winded diatribe above, but if you do we are thinking of you here in Alaska!