McCarthy was founded as a homestead in 1906. It served as the supply and recreation stop for the entire Kennicott mining district. Now it caters to tourists who show up at the National Park. Some of you may have heard about the crazy ass Pilgrim family in the news in the last year or two. McCarthy is where they caused some of their trouble, even setting up camp in the middle of town. When reading about that, I couldn't imagine what a mess that actually must have been until I visited and could see for myself just how small the town was.
I hate saying it but I guess you have to say McCarthy is one of those towns that is like stepping back in time, sort of. I just felt like I was in the present around a bunch of old buildings for the most part. Ma Johnsons Hotel was very cool though; it fit the saying much better. Everything in the hotel was supposed to be from the original buildings. The bedframes, mirrors, all the decor, the single sheet of pressed tin that made up part of the ceiling, the wavy glass around the check-in counter, the books and toys, and black lacquered wood floor. I think it would definitely be cool to stay there for a night.
McCarthy is really just one block of dirt road next to a river. When we were there it was practically deserted except for the dogs all over the place. The saloon was pretty cool too, again because of all the relics. They actually had good food and beer and music at prices that were not astronomical, considering their remoteness.
A local neighorhood
This is Diesels house, obviously
This was a very narrow footbridge that crossed the river to the local party spot.
Also of note was the cemetery. Maree had been to McCarthy years ago, and I would never have noticed the faded board nailed to a tree indicating the direction through the woods to get there. Inside were many unmarked and faded graves, but the air was chock full of living dead zombie mosquitoes that had an unbelievable thirst for human blood, so we were never able to stop moving and had to run away.
We were lucky to get there on a sunny evening. We had enough time to look at everything, grab some food, then head back to our campground before it got too dark (by dark I mean the sun was slightly below the horizon for few hours). I was looking forward to the next day, which was supposed to be great weather. Unfortunately, and typical for this summer, it started raining at 2 am and continued to rain for the next 14 hours. It was also that night that we realized that Maree's tent was no longer waterproof. I woke up at 4 in the morning staring at my reflection in a pool of water right next to my face. We had brought a tarp to put over the tent, but the mosquitoes were so bad that we decided to skip it and just jump in and escape. It was the first time I've had to use one of those mosquito head nets. Those things suck. You can't see anything and you can't eat either unless you take it halfway off, which means you'll get bitten. But waking up in the water was one of those things where I was too tired to do much about it, so by morning our bags were pretty wet and we realized we were definitely not camping again on that vacation. There was no point in staying another night anyway, since I wasn't going to be doing any of my planned hiking. So we let our breakfast cook in the rain while we sat in the car to escape the still relentless waves of mosquitoes, and then we geared up and headed back across the bridge to catch a shuttle to Kennicott.
All the spots that appear to be dirt on the lense were actually mosiquitoes in front of Maree's face that were caught in the light from the flash.
Next time: Kennecott
