The largest of the National Parks by land mass not by visitors. You can drive into an area of the old Kennecott Mine and also the town of McCarthy. The road into the park is through a town Chitna. The sign at the start of the road to McCarthy talks about it being 62 miles of rough road with some spots being a single lane. The single lane starts right there though a mountain. This road is similar to that of the Dalton Highway in some of it is paved but most of it is crushed stone and gravel. The paved parts are not too flat so go slow. The parking for your vehicle is $5.00 for 4 hours or $10.00 all day and if you have a camper it could be double that for taking up two spots. After paying for parking you get to walk across a river and catch a shuttle into the town of McCarthy, if you choose not to walk. The shuttle into McCarthy is free but tips are appreciated for the driver. The shuttle into town drops you off at the McCarthy general store. The drive is about 5 minutes and the shuttle leaves at 15 and 45 after the hour from the bride and the top and bottom of the hours at the general store. McCarthy is a little town that has an old hotel, old cars, a bar, restaurant and bakery on one side of town. The other side of town has an additional restaurant and the museum. You can walk the 5 miles to Kennecott or take a shuttle. There are two shuttles one for $5.00 and one for $15.00 and I got into the $15.00 shuttle but next time I think the $5.00 will be fine. These shuttles to Kennecott leave at the hour and half hour. The drive to Kennecott goes through an area that is residential and has a 10 mile per hour speed limit. They have speed bumps in the form of big chains across the road, guess you have to have some ingenious ideas when dealing with dirt road and Alaska drivers. Kennecott was an old mining town that was a copper mine in the day. There are signs everywhere talking about how toxic the ground and area is due to the extraction of copper from the ground at the mine. Also in town there are houses which are private homes in the park and these are marked as private, please give me the space and courteousness you would like to have at your home. If you wanted to camp you can go to Jumbo Creek Campground and it is about 2 miles from Kennecott near the Root Glacier, something I did not do on this trip. One of the cool things is the NPS has restored some of the buildings of the old mine but also have some that are as they were in the “day.”
