copper river cruise tour

Has anyone taken the copper river cruise tour? We are taking this cruisetour through Princess. Spending 2 nights in the Copper River Princess Lodge. Any good suggestions for day excursions? Any info would be appreciated

Search for Kennicott 's post since he spends a great deal of time there and offers the best information. But my top pick is a fly out to McCarthy and Kennicott mine. See if a shuttle is available to get to the Copper Center, small museum and great meal at the Roadhouse. The best part of this driving area is from Copper Center to Valdez, the most spectacular scenery of the Richardson, does your trip include the ferry from Whittier to Valdez?? This is a very scenic tour option if you include Copper Center.

After disembarking from our cruise, we are taking a catamaran from whittier to valdez. One of the tour options from copper river is to take a coach back to valdez and then kayaking to shoup glacier. It says to plan 13 hours round trip for this. Sounds like an awfully long day but very beautiful scereny. Involves 2 hours each way on coach. Do you think this is worth it? Or sould we choose something closer to Copper river area?

Hi

Since you are going to see Valdez Arm and Valdez anyway, you aren't going to get a lot extra sightseeing by taking the Shoup Glacier sea kyak tour. Shoup Bay is a little bay about 7 miles west of Valdez which includes a state marine park. It will be off to your left just before you arrive in Valdez on the catamaran. Here is a previous post I did for the Copper River Princess and Wrangell mts:

Regarding the tour to McCarthy/Kennecott. You can either go by air, Wrangell Mt. Air, or use the almost daily Cross Country Connection van shuttle. Both are listed in the Princess tour packages. The air tour is much more, I believe it is something over $300. per now. Cross Country Connection is the road route doesn't provide much more than 3-4 hours in the Kennecott/McCarthy area, it can be a long drive though. Wrangell Mt. Air provides a one day round trip more extensive and inclusive excursion with more time in the old mining area plus you get an excellent scenic flightsee both ways.

Wrangell St. Elias is the nations largest park. It butts up against Kluane National Park in the Yukon. The entire area is one of the most spectacular mountain wilderness areas in the world. However, it is so immense it is very difficult to see it all; actually, you need days and have to fly much of it. For instance, the Chitina River is the big tributary to the Copper. It flows out of the Chitina Glacier that runs west off of Mt. Lucania and Mt. Logan. These peaks are in the St. Elias range and on the Canadian side. Logan is the largest mountain mass on the face of the earth and only a tad shorter than Mt. McKinley. The Kennecott mines are where the Kennecott Copper Corporation got its start. They closed in 1938, richest copper ore the world has ever seen, and the Park Service is doing an excellent job of preserving some of the buildings. The Kennicott Glacier runs up Mt. Blackburn, (highest in the Wrangells). One enjoys world-class glacier and mountain viewing from the Kennecott mine looking up this huge geologic amphitheater. Almost every day you see the peak, (or that’s my Chamber of Commerce exaggerated viewpoint, I do spend 5 months a year out there).

The road from the Lodge to Chitina is paved, but from Chitina to McCarthy it is 60 miles on an old railroad bed (about 50 + miles from the Lodge to Chitina). From Chitina it is a tough road and contrary to popular opinion it isn’t going to be upgraded anytime soon (Darn). But it is worth it. If you have your own wheels you can drive to Chitina then fly from there, Wrangell Mountain Air has scheduled flights to McCarthy from Chitina, twice a day. Only a 25-minute flight and you see lots of country and mountains on the way.

If you are a hiker try and spend a couple of days (world class hiking and mountain/glacier viewing) and stay at the Kennicott Glacier Lodge that is located right in the heart of the mill complex. Or five miles south in the old sin town of McCarthy, at the McCarthy Lodge. We call McCarthy the sin town, as a joke, because that is where the old miners and mill workers went to let off steam in the good old days (some days, around one or two in the morning, in the summers, some try and relive those days, even do a pretty good job at it).

PS: I’m not misspelling Kennicott by using Kennecott. Back at the turn of the century Kennecott Copper Corporation was supposed to be spelled “Kennicott” because that is how the glacier and river are spelled which they took the name from. However, somebody screwed up and by the time they found out in New York, J.P. Morgan didn’t want to foot the bill for reprinting all the stationary, etc.

finally looked back and found this post...Amazing info Kennicott...thank you. I guess if you have the $$$, the best tour to do is fly in to Kennicott. We are doing this trip with friends and having a "planning dinner" tonite. We may all throw our Mastercards to the wind and say heck with it....Let's do it all!

Here's the link for the Kennicott day trips: http://www.wrangellmountainair.com/alaska_day_tours.htm

My wife and I travel the world. A lot of the time on cruise ships. But this part of the earth is where our roots are. And I really love it. If you would like to know more about the area or suggestions on pertinent historical reading material in preparation for your journey let me know. For the last 11 years I have been spending 5 continuous months out there in the summer. However, this summer season I might be more in Anchorage with the grandkids. So, I’ll still be out there much of the time and would like to greet you if circumstances allow. But who knows.

I am torn by too many places to visit in too short a time after our northbound cruise next summer! What would you advise a first time visitor to see in 5-7 days after arriving in Whittier? We will have a rental car.

Hi Nancy,

Good question. My first advice is don’t try and cram to much in during the time you have, program some high points, then take your time and enjoy them. Plan on coming back later. Unless of course you are like my cousin's daughter last summer, she and her friend must have a different body chemistry though, almost unbelievable all the stuff they did in two weeks, even towed me up to the top of two mountains in the Wrangells. She did what I call the masochistic tour.

Strange, how one doesn’t really see his own environment clearly until answering visitor questions or showing them around. Budget Queen puts me to shame with her knowledge of Alaska’s visitor attractions; she could probably give you better advice than I. And I am no novice at it either, born here, worked for years in the visitor industry, commercial pilot flying many visitors over a period of about 12 years, and have traveled most of the state. For instance, I was even manager of the Anchorage International Airport complex in the early seventies, when we broke ground for the north terminal, even live very close to the airport today, but I didn’t know Delta was having trouble getting cab service over to that terminal, forcing the airport to install a rotating light to attract taxi attention, until Chenega mentioned it on another thread.

Assuming this is your first trip to Alaska, I would definitely try for seven days not five. Get a copy of the Milepost, most important since you will have wheels. It is the travel Bible for Alaska. http://www.themilepost.com. Budget Queen suggests trying the local library; you really don’t need a current edition. Or try Amazon.com.

I would spend at least a day in Anchorage. Do the down town museum for certain. Lot of other things to see but you can refer to the Milepost for choices. You can also try the Anchorage visitor website. Stay in a good hotel/motel but the vehicle allows you more flexibility by staying in a midtown hotel away from the higher priced high rises downtown. Do Denali National Park. I recommend the McKinley Princess on the south side of the Alaska Range to stay in, but it is a couple of hour drive up to the Federal Park from there. Budget Queen prefers the B&Bs near Healy just north of the Park headquarters and only a relatively short drive to the shuttle departure point. You can stay in the “Glitter Gulch” too which is just outside the park with multiple nice hotels. Actually, they have been improving the quality of that area in recent years so now it isn’t quite the tourist boom community it once was and maybe not fair that we still label it “Glitter Gulch”.

Spend a day and night in Fairbanks. As you can determine from my posts the Copper River Country is my favorite part of Alaska but I don’t necessarily suggest you do that this trip. However, from Fairbanks I would either try for Dawson City in the Yukon Territory or go down to the Copper River Princess and take a day fly in or drive in tour into McCarthy/Kennicott. Then you could drive from the Copper River Princess down to Valdez and catch the state ferry to Whittier or drive to Anchorage from the Copper Princess, about 5 hours.

I’m still in Anchorage, but plan on heading for McCarthy about the 13th. First time in 21 years I missed a Memorial Day in McCarthy.

So those are my very rough suggestions, and here I started out with the statement “don’t cram too much in” and then I turn and recommend you do exactly that.

Be great having you visit us.

Thanks so much, Kennicott! I'm afraid our trip is more likely to be 4 nights and a long 5th day before an 11:40 p.m. flight out of Anchorage. What's your opinion on staying in Talkeetna and taking a chance on a Denali day trip via Talkeetna Aero? If we stayed in the Denali area, it would most likely be at the Denali Lakeview Inn in Healy. I'd love to visit the Copper River area and Kennicott/McCarthy. Just wish those day trips via Wrangell Air weren't so darn expensive!

Kennicott Offers excellent suggestions. I too am a big advocate of TIME in Alaska. It is needed. The usual high points are Denali Park, and Seward, definately two worthwhile areas and if cruising I strongly suggest a visit to Seward, make the most of your close proximity.

There are many many more areas to consider, again with time. Fairbanks, Valdez, Homer. Add them on if of interest. :)

As for the fly in Denali Park option. If this is with Talkeetna Aero, it's a great tour, you get a flightseeing and Fish Creek Shuttle. A long day, but doable.

Sounds like a good plan. Hope you have a good day for the McKinley flight.

You may want to run down to Seward from Whittier. Take in the Sea Life Center there. After all you paid for it. Think the US taxpayer has got 55 million in it so far.

Kennicott. . . we would love to do the Kennecott tour with Wrangell Mountain Air (my father was an engineer with Kennecott) but one of our party has limited mobility and I think the walking would be just too much for her. So what we are thinking of is doing one of their flightseeing trips as we wouldn't want to miss seeing some of this wonderful area. They provide three options for their 90 minute flight and was wondering if you might be able to tell me which one would be better. They are:

Bagley Icefields/Mt. St. Elias

Peaks of the Wrangell's

The University Range

Any help would be appreciated.

Cactusrose---No question, Bagley Ice Field and Mt. St. Elias. If the weather is okay enough to do these then you will no doubt see all the peaks of the Wrangells as well as the University Range on your way to and from. The University Range is in the St. Elias Mountains about where the Wrangells end and the St. Elias begin. You can see The Twaharpies in the University Range from my place in McCarthy.

If it is good weather you will see both the Bering Glacier running out of the Bagley Ice Field and possibly Malaspina Glacier running south off of Mt. St. Elias and the eastern end of the Bagley Ice Field. Just north of Mt. St. Elias, on the Canadian side, is Mt. Logan, the largest mountain mass on earth. When you are over the Bagley Ice Field it seems like the entire world is ice and snow. Both Bering and Malaspina Glaciers are two of the largest glaciers on earth, of their type. Not many visitors ever see this part of the world. Mt. Bona and Mt. Churchill are by the University Range. This is where two huge volcanic eruptions occurred (around 400 AD and 1200 AD). The ash went due east into what is now the Yukon and had to have been extremely disruptive to all life it impacted. The ash stratum is still evident from these and many feet thick in some places. A theory is that one or both of these eruptions pushed the native people far south resulting in the Apache and Navaho nations.

Interesting your father worked for Kennecott. The corporation got its start near what is now McCarthy in the Wrangells close to the turn of the century. The name was taken from the nearby Kennicott Glacier and River. The Kennecott Copper Corporation was supposed to be spelled Kennicott. But the story behind the name and all will have to wait for another time.

I sure would like to be on that trip with you.

Kennicott. . .thank you so much for your prompt reply and the additional information. I have copied it into a word document to take with me. I have quit a connection with Kennecott Copper and Alaska. My father was one of three people who graduated from the University of Fairbanks in 1935. After graduating from their mining college, he went to work for Kennecott. Worked for them until he was killed in 1952 on a business trip. Years later, Kennecott become one of my customers. My husband lived in Fairbanks in 1947, 1948 & 1949. It was quit a wild and woolly town back then. We've been to Alaska several times but never to the Copper River area. We're really looking forward to it. Thanks again for all the information I just wish we had more time to spend in the area. Maybe next time.

Cactusrose----All I can say is, Wow!. I bet your father had actually been to the mine in the Wrangells when it was still operating, as it didn't close until November 1938. Probably was underground too. Did he leave any notes or stories? My folks lived in McCarthy in 1938 and Mom was in the depot when the last trained pulled out for Cordova.

I graduated from the U of A in 1964. It was in Fairbanks but called UofA in those days, today it is UAF. Anchorage got a state campus in the late 1960s so they called one school UAF and the other UAA. Before that the school in Anchorage was a Community College branch of the UofA in Fairbanks. I believe the original college in Fairbanks was called the Alaska School of Mines, or something close to that, before it became U of A. But they had an agriculture college up there then too, so I forget how that name worked in.

The lodge at Kennecott, Kennicott Glacier Lodge, periodically has a get together in the early spring with the old timers. They call it the "Kids of Kennecott Reunion" but those folk are getting so far and few between that almost any connection qualifies. You might.

There is a book out called "Born in Kennecott". (Sissy Lommel Kluh wrote a book entitled: "Born in Kennecott: Memories of a Kennecott Kid". Sissy lived in Kennecott from 1920-1927 with her father, ...http://www.alsap.org/Kennecott/Kennecott.htm - 22k - Cached - Similar pages)

My copy is up in McCarthy. Anyway you might enjoy that book it is pretty popular among those with close ties to Kennecott Copper. She lives in Oregon today.

Just got back into Anchorage from my place in the McCarthy area last night. Supply run, I’m returning in 48 hours. Road was in excellent shape. Including a lunch stop I made it in 6.5 hours but won’t mention what I had the cruise control set on. I went up two weeks ago.

Budget Queen just posted on another thread that the Kennicott/McCarthy area in the Wrangell Mountains is the primary reason most would want to stay at the Copper River Princess. I agree, unless one wants to stay there instead of in Valdez. Valdez is only a couple hours down the Richardson from the lodge.

I noticed that Wrangell Mountain Air is transporting quite a few more visitors this year than they have in the past; that is, visitors originating out of the Copper River Princess. Part of the reason might be because they acquired a deHavilland Beaver this season. The Beaver is able to operate out of the airstrip at Copper Center with a full load. Seven passengers. This eliminates having to bus up to the Gulkana airport from the Princess lodge.

kennicott,

This is not really relevant to this post but I've been reading your replies and I had to jump in. I've spent my summer vacations the last 2 years in the McCarthy area and just love it! We have driven in from ANC (after flying from Boston) and then booked bush flights into the Park to spend some time backpacking. It is an incredible place! As we flew in to Skolai Valley from McCarthy one of my cohorts said "Wow, just this flight is worth the trip!". It was so good in 2004 that we returned in 2005 and got to spend several days in McCarthy before flying up into the backcountry. I would recommend to anyone that is in the area to somehow book a flightseeing trip in the park.

It's an incredible place where you can drive 60 miles of dirt road and not even get to the middle of the park. It's the largest Nat Park and before 2003 I hadn't even heard of it!.

I will be returning to Alaska in about a week but will be on a tamer cruise ship this time. (I could never go to Alaska without my wife a third time!). I'm hoping that once she sees Alaska I might be able to convince her to spend some time at the Kennicott Glacier Lodge next summer!

Where in the McCarthy area are you? We spent several days last summer at the Kennicott River Lodge and Hostel. We had a pretty big group so the Glacier Lodge was a bit out of our budget. Brad was a great host and we all had a wonderful time.

There was something special in 2004 about having a wonderful dinner of cedar plank baked salmon, washed down with a cold Alaskan Amber, in the McCarthy Lodge after a full week of freeze dried meals in the backcountry. It was truly special and I envy you being able to spend all that time there.

Maybe we'll see you there soon!

Bob

Hi Bob,

I'm on a ridge about two miles, as the crow flies, southwest of McCarthy. I look right down at the town. My driveway starts at milepost 56. Give me a call, 554-4403. I usually have coffee in the morning at McCarthy's brand new Mercantile Market.

Ken

I posted this a few weeks ago: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=363739

We could stay in Copper Center and do a daytrip to Kennicott/McCarthy. Or - drive to Copper River, Kenny Lake, or Chitina - then fly to McCarthy for a night or two. What do you think?

Ken,

Where's the new Mercantile Market? In town somewhere?

I just love the McCarthy phone numbers...they're all almost the same.

Will you be back in McCarthy for the 4th of July? We were there from the 3rd to the 6th last year. We were there for most of the rainy party on Sunday the 3rd. We just missed the parade. I hear it's the highlight of the summer.

Bob

Hi Nancy,

I’m sorry I missed that earlier post.

Those establishments in Kenny Lake and Chitina you mentioned may be great but I’m not familiar with them. I really don’t want to give a negative impression either because they could be great. I’m constantly running into great places of business along the road that really surprise me. After all, I normally don’t have to find lodging in my drive between Anchorage and McCarthy.

The Princess Lodge at Copper Center and the Copper Center Roadhouse are the ones I’m familiar with. Princess lodge, because we cruise with Princess and when they located near us it was a novelty. And the Roadhouse at Copper Center brings back nostalgic memories from many years ago. It’s history hearkens back almost a century. At Chitina: I would do the Hotel Chitina. It used to be the Chitina Hotel and has a history that we don’t have time to tell here. In fact my Dad even owned it once, much to my mother’s chagrin.

My answer to your question: Drive to Chitina, stay at the Hotel Chitina, then fly to McCarthy/Kennicott and spend a night at either the Kennicott Glacier Lodge or the McCarthy Lodge.

It is getting late and I’m off to the Wrangell’s in about 6 hours, so better get some shuteye, will try to connect at 4800 BOD from up there but don’t count on it.

Blessings to you all. Ken

Bob,

Remember, near the center of town that half finished building? Well, it was supposed to be the McCarthy Lodge’s new bar. But two years ago they ran short of funds and also discovered they might have a difficult time relocating the liquor license because the old hardware store, right across the street, has been the site of summer college courses for a couple of decades, therefore, the hardware store is now officially a school, and it is not legal to have a bar that close to a school in Alaska.

So, McCarthy Lodge leased the structure for five years to a local couple who finished it off. It is now a general store with all kinds of things including a huge deck out front with picnic tables, where you can sit and they provide a picnic lunch, etc. Most importantly they have 13 flavors of ice cream, which make my granddaughters very happy.

True, the 4th of July is now the biggest time of year in the area. Used to be a toss up between Labor Day and the 4th. In the real old days, Kennecott only had two holidays which the miners got off, the 4th and Christmas.

Yep I’ll be there for the celebration and this year the parade is actually on the 4th.

PS, they call me Kenny out there.

Thanks for your help, Kennicott!

Kenny,

I hope you are back in McCarthy safe and sound.

Thanks for the McCarthy update. I know exactly the building you mean. I think someone told me that's where the pizza place used to be? That right?

I attached a picture from the first foot bridge that I took last summer. If I figured right, your place ought to be out there under the rainbow somewhere...

The second one was from last years 4th of July party (on the 3rd). Maybe you're in the picture?

We're off to Vancouver and then Alaska next week!

Enjoy your summer,

Bob