Glaciers and Fossils and Bears, Oh My!

I arrived to Anchorage on a Thursday night, and by Friday Kim, Bernadette and I were headed to McCarthy, an old mining town right in the throes of one of the most spectacular places in Alaska, Wrangell St. Elias National Park.

Kim has a friend who lives year round in McCarthy. Conveniently, John is a pilot. He also owns a B&B and the town's tire repair shop. After making the 6 hour drive to Chitina, John saved us a long 90 miles of dirt road to McCarthy by meeting us with his plane.

In the following two days, we flew above the spectacular glaciers and jagged peaks surrounding McCarthy, landing on both a glacier and high mountain bluff. From the high mountain bluff we hiked a little ways to a place filled with petrified wood, snails, leaves, etc. The fossils were everywhere, and AMAZING!

On our last morning, before we flew, then drove out, I woke up at 6 a.m. to go for a 17-mile run along the edges of a glacier. The photo above was taken at my turnaround spot. What a spectacular way to end a spectacular weekend!

(Note: I didn't actually see any bears - although I saw plenty of signs of them - but I did see a really cute porcupine lumbering down the trail, while out for my early morning run. I followed him for a bit, and then when I realized we were going nowhere fast, I politely asked him to move, which sent him into a fluster - he scurried up the narrowest, most rubbery tree around).

(Second note: Any of the photos can be looked at larger by double clicking on them)

Bernadette and Kim

The Matanuska Glacier, which we passed on our drive out to McCarthy

On the road toward Chitina

John coming in for a landing to pick us up and take us to McCarthy

Bernadette and Kim in front of John's plane

Taking off over the Copper River

View on our way into McCarthy

Flying over a glacier as we near McCarthy

John piloting the plane

Coming in for a landing

John's house in McCarthy

A piece of ice just hanging out in the river

Bernadette checking out a wicked cool rock

Bernadette and a cute horse

John helps Kim out of the plane after we land on a bluff - 5,000 feet above the river valley - huge cliffs dropped down on all sides

Look for the parked plane in the lower left corner

Bernadette checks out a fossil of a giant snail

Petrified wood

Lots of little snail fossils

One amazing discovery after another

And so well preserved too

John applies duct tape to the wing of the plane before takeoff - I didn't dare ask why

Kim is all grins

One last view out from the plane before we take off to fly around glaciers

Just spectacular

As I was photographing the glaciers from the plane John asked me if I wanted to open the door to get better images. "Umm ... yeah!" I stammered. He reached over, undid a latch, and pop - the plane door swung open up toward the wing, leaving nothing but air between me and the glaciers oozing, crushing, squeezing and spilling below. What a rush!

So many mountains just begging to be explored

Stairway Icefall

More of Stairway Icefall

Circling back toward McCarthy

Me near where we landed on a the glacier

One of many cool views as we hiked around on the glacier

At 11 p.m. the sky almost had the feel of nighttime

Arriving back at the plane after walking around on the glacier

BUT before takeoff John needed to check a couple of wires that appeared to come loose

The glacier's great texture as seen from the air