THE ALASKAN ADVENTURE Day 55 July 10, 2009 McCarthy to Tok, AK

We decided to leave McCarthy this morning as the smoke is really getting bad. The only scenery was watching the large ice chucks float down the Kennicott River.

We had to traverse the 60 miles of a gravel road back to Chitina and 40 miles out to the Richardson Highway. The trip back wasn’t as bad as there was no one in front of us for most of the way and I could make fairly good time. We took about an hour off of the trip compared to the trip in.

Occasionally we hit spots on the drive where the smoke seemed to ease up and we took a few pictures of the scenery we didn’t see on the way in. It was too bad there was so much haze as it looks like it would be a real picturesque drive

We reached Chitina with everything intact but decided to carry on down the road. The drive was nice and we took our time. It seemed that the smoke was not as thick and you could get close up pictures of the scenery.

We reached the Richardson Highway and headed north towards Tok. We did stop at the Wrangell – St.Elias National Park Visitors Centre and watched a film about the park. It was quite spectacular.

Our next detour was the Copper Centre Loop with a stop at Nummy’s for lunch. Somebody lied, but I guess if they called it Yucky’s they wouldn’t get much business. However it did fill our bellies. Prior to leaving the small town we took a couple of pictures of some of the old building still standing.

We arrived in TOK about 5:30 and the first order of business was to wash the truck and camper. After giving it a good cleaning we set up at the Sourdough Campground and called it an early night.