In Focus: Grand Teton National Park

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In Focus: Grand Teton National Park

Grand Teton National Park is one of my favorite parks in the west. It’s often overshadowed by its more famous and more popular brother just to the north, Yellowstone, but it is definitely deserving of more than just a photo stop on the way to or from. I often tell my tour passengers that when I drew mountains as a child, I was drawing the Tetons whether I knew it at the time or not (in reality, we had a large painting of the Tetons in our house, so maybe that had some influence). The Tetons are one of the youngest mountain ranges in the country, giving them their jagged contours. If you get there early in the morning, you may be able to catch a breathtaking reflection in one of the many lakes that lie at their base. There are, of course, dozens of trails throughout the park, ranging from simple 20 minute jaunts to multi-day treks into the wilderness. I’ve definitely seen more moose in the Tetons than I’ve ever seen in Yellowstone and I’ve also seen bear, bison and elk along with a multitude of birds and small mammals as well. The historic buildings along Mormon Row and in a few other spots in the park are favorites of photographers. It’s also the only National Park with its own airport, although flying into it isn’t cheap. If you ever get the opportunity to visit, Grand Teton will definitely dazzle your senses. I hope you enjoy these photos from another of our magical National Parks.

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D.C. Chronicles Volume 48

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D.C. Chronicles Volume 48

Hi Everyone! It’s 70 degrees and sunny out and my window is open here and that alone has really picked up my spirits. It’s been a long and dreary winter and I’m very happy that it’s finally coming to an end (although somehow snow is in the forecast for next week). I’ve gotten myself on the vaccination wait-list here in Washington, so now I’m just waiting to hear back from them which will hopefully be sooner rather than later. I’ve been doubling my walks this week, trying to start losing some of this weight and bring my blood sugar back down to a reasonable level and the improved weather has really helped motivate me for that. My mom’s hip is improving every day since last week’s surgery and Mason and I are both happy to have our feet back in the water. It hasn’t been the most productive week in the world, but it’s been pretty good.

Mason and I have been spending longer and longer outside every day and it’s much easier on both of us to not have to get geared up in the morning. Yesterday I brought a pair of shorts and his water shoes for him to change into, and even though the water was still pretty chilly we both got out into it – me up to my ankles and Mason to his knees. Standing in the creek, pulling rocks out and throwing them – he looked like the happiest kid on the planet. We’re watching signs of spring emerge all around us as the buds are coming out, the geese are flying north and the robins are everywhere. Mason’s cousins taught him that the early flowers blooming now are crocuses, and he happily points them out in all of their beautiful colors. We’ve seen deer in the park on two separate occasions this week, which is a real treat for a city kid, and we keep our ears tilted skyward to listen for woodpeckers. Mason is pretty awesome at identifying birds for a two year-old. We also saw a mounted park police officer this week which was pretty sweet as horses are also not a part of our daily experience here. The list of things Mason has randomly told me he loves has grown to include: blueberries, napkins, pandas, the moon, crocuses, raccoons, jellyfish and airplanes. His vocabulary continues to grow and his sentences are more complete every day. Tomorrow I am off to meet him at his new house for the first time which I think we’re both looking forward to. I went and scouted out the woods nearby over the weekend and have found plenty of places for us to get our feet wet, touch mushrooms and explore.

Last Friday, my folks and I had to move our weekly celebration up to the second floor because my mom was still in a lot of pain from her hip surgery on Tuesday. I was hoping she could come down to the first floor and we could enjoy some Swiss culture in front of the fireplace, but she wasn’t up to it so we came to her instead. I made us some delicious traditional fondue and we listened to some Swiss folk and alpenhorn music. I have spent a fair bit of time in Switzerland in my life, and it was nice to think of some of the beautiful places I’ve been there. I hope to see more of it sooner rather than later.

Saturday was a really wonderful day outside and I spent a lot of time in my van. A lot of the things I’ve been working on are small things, but it was nice to get a bunch of them accomplished and cross them off my to-do list. I’m going to spend some time showing y’all the inside of my van soon and will try and explain what everything is and how it all works when I’m on the road. It really is an interesting process and lifestyle and I’m eager to invite you all over for a virtual look in the months to come.

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D.C. Chronicles Volume 47

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D.C. Chronicles Volume 47

Hello Everyone! March has arrived and winter is quickly turning to spring here in Washington. We’ve had a couple of cold days this week, but some really nice ones as well. It got up to almost 60 today and I really enjoyed being able to spend some time outside just sitting and soaking it in. My mom got a new hip yesterday, which is definitely the biggest news of the week, but it’s been a busy week for me as well.

News on the virus front continues to be hopeful as this week President Biden announced that with the addition of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, and with Merck stepping up to help with production, every American should be able to get a vaccine by the end of May. That is simply wonderful news and I really hope I can get mine going even sooner. Sadly, some states are rushing to open everything back up and “get back to normal” and while I know we are all ready for that to happen, rushing it now when we’re so close to the finish line seems absurd to me. While the news is good, we are still losing around 2,000 people a day to the virus in America. That means that we lose the equivalent of the total number of Americans lost during the Vietnam War every month. Please remain vigilant out there and know that the light at the end of the tunnel is close, but we’re not there yet.

In the political realm, something I haven’t delved into on this blog in a while, I’ve been pretty disappointed with what I’ve seen in the last few weeks. One of the things which upsets me most is voter suppression and disenfranchisement, and these are issues this country has struggled with from jump. It is my personal belief that every single American adult should have the right to vote and should have that vote counted fairly and equally. For a number of reasons, none of which have ever been good ones, this is something which has constantly been challenged from this country’s founding. If you cannot win elections when everyone has the opportunity to vote, you need to change your messaging, not try and disenfranchise thousands of people so that you can win. Every time there is an election in this country, election commissions will find a few hundred fraudulent votes, never the thousands or tens or even hundreds of thousands that people claim. For me, a few hundred fraudulent votes in a country with over 350 million people is a very small price to pay for extending the vote to as many people as possible through as many means as we can. In my opinion, voting should stretch over several days and include a weekend with long hours and many polling stations. When I see lines stretching for hours, and attempts to limit voting to business hours, it makes me sick. It’s just like the disgusting gerrymandering we see – it’s trying to game the system instead of trying to win people over with your ideas. This year has certainly shined a pretty bright light on so many things that are wrong with this country, and I sincerely hope we can find some people who are willing to try and fix them. Any attempt at voter suppression should be met with serious questions and a hard push back.

In other news, I had my annual physical this week which I’ve been trying to avoid but finally had to go and make it happen. It was hard to see in black and white the weight I’ve put on over the last year and that my blood sugar is as high as it’s ever been. It was actually a real kick in the stomach to get that information. I feel like the last couple of weeks I’ve been crawling out of a pool of winter depression, my hands getting a hold on the bottom rungs of the ladder I want to climb and slowly pulling me up. Right when I was about to swing one leg up and get a foothold, someone comes and starts stepping on my hands from above. It sucked, and I slipped down a rung or two real fast, but I kept hold of the ladder and I’m proud of myself for that. It’s been a really hard year for me (and for us all), and while I watch everything I eat and have since I was 12 and have been trying to keep my drinking in check, I have had moments of weakness in what I’ve put into my body. The fact that I haven’t been able to go to the gym in over a year hasn’t helped one bit. I try and walk 3-5 miles every day I can, but it’s just not the same and the ice and snow recently has kept me from even doing that. It really sucks sometimes when you want to be doing better, but outside forces are keeping you from doing so. On the other hand, sometimes I need the wake-up call these results have given me to get motivated and get moving again. With the spring weather and longer days I need to be getting more exercise and I plan to.

Mason and I continue to enjoy our days together, going on adventures and learning from each other. We’ve been on a quest for woodpeckers lately as they’ve been pretty active in the park these last few weeks.

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D.C. Chronicles Volume 46

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D.C. Chronicles Volume 46

Hello Everyone. February sure has blown by, and I’m not upset about that one bit. The end of last week was miserable and cold, and the rain that was coming down was freezing on contact. More than one morning this week I scraped a solid quarter-inch of ice off of my windshield. By mid-afternoon today, though, the temperature was up to 60, and the sun shining down was simply wonderful. The first day of real spring-like weather is always one of the best days of the year for me. As Mason and I were walking around today, I caught a whiff of a barbecue in use and it made me smile from ear to ear. I am really looking forward to the fast-approaching spring.

There has definitely been lots of good news recently on the virus front. The numbers are still way higher than they should be and than they are in most other countries, but at least they are coming down. It was heartbreaking to cross the half-million death mark, all in just a single year, and realize that we’ve lost the equivalent of a mid-sized city like Miami or Raleigh. Sadly, I think we could have saved many of those lives by acting faster and smarter, but I am trying to focus on the positive. We are now vaccinating at a rate of almost 2 million people a day with the potential for even more in the near future. Every day on my social media feeds I’m seeing more of my friends getting vaccinated, and I know that my turn is coming soon too. While I know that this won’t mean we are out of the woods, all indicators are pointing to a great summer ahead. My plan is to be on my own and on the road, exploring the upper Midwest and Great Lakes region of the country all summer long. I can’t wait.

Meanwhile, Mason and I have continued our explorations this week, even in the cold and ice. I took him sledding for the first time at the end of last week (maybe not his first time, but our first time together), and he loved it. He was laughing and squealing with delight as he skidded over the ice in his Flexible Flyer. Oh, to be two year old again! He has been having a blast smashing ice this week as well which I have also been finding quite satisfying. I’m happy to take my frustrations at the ice out on the ice itself! Because of the sub-freezing temperatures though, we’ve been spending more time inside than either of us would like. I’ve started working on teaching him to read this week, which is interesting. He has known most of his letters for a couple of months now, but he’s only 2 and I didn’t want to push him. Recently he has seemed more curious, so I’m slowly edging in that direction. We started with A but vowels are complicated, so we moved on to B. He sleeps in his bed, under a blanket with bunny and big bear after all, so the B sound is something he is both familiar with and able to pronounce. We then went on to read a book, and I pointed out every time we heard that B sound. It was pretty cool when he pointed out the boat in the corner. Hopefully tomorrow we can work on some Ds. Today he started using the phrase “I love…”, and the official list of things he told me he loved today was: mud, pine cones, trash trucks and blueberries. He really cracks me up sometimes. We also had a long and heated conversation this week about whether the cat in one of his books is a cheetah or a leopard. When we started reading it, I thought it was a cheetah, but the book said it was a leopard and I thought we should take them at their word. I admitted I had made a mistake, and we looked at the differences in their spot patterns and body shapes, but he was still convinced it was a cheetah. I think it’s hilarious having these “arguments”, but I also think it’s good for him to have his own opinions.

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D.C. Chronicles Volume 45

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D.C. Chronicles Volume 45

Hello Everyone! It’s been a busy week of celebrating Mardi Gras here in Washington with plenty of eating, drinking, music and good times. It was a great weekend to stay in and let the good times roll since it was so cold and windy and icy out. Mardi Gras has definitely been the name of our game this week, but I’ve still been hanging out with Mason and we continue to spend time outside despite the cold weather. His parents have bought a house, which everyone is very excited about, and while that would definitely qualify as the best news of the week, my folks also got their second vaccine shot this week which comes in a very close second.

The weather has been the big topic of conversation this week, as snowstorms have dumped their loads across the country. We haven’t seen our share yet, but it’s supposed to hit overnight tonight and leave us with 6 inches covered by a layer of ice. We’ll see what comes, but we’re ready for it whatever does. We got a shipment of firewood in today, we’re stocked up on salt for the sidewalks, our shovels are at the ready and Mason has a brand new sled to enjoy it with. In contrast to what’s supposedly coming, today has been an absolutely brilliant day out, despite the cold, so at least we got a little sunshine to lift our spirits.

Mason and I have been on a woodpecker kick this week as there have been a few flying around Whitehaven Park near his house. We will wait and listen for them and then try and follow the sound and spot them. We’ve only managed to see one this week, but I think it’s an interesting experience for him. He has wonderfully perceptive hearing and will often hear ambulances and helicopters at quite a distance, and that has helped in our woodpecker quest. We have also found some wonderful groves of mushrooms this week due to all of the moisture which we’ve both really gotten a kick out of. The buds are starting to blossom on some of the trees and we spotted some cherry blossoms pushing their way out today which was really special. We’ve started talking about his new house, which he’s excited about. I’m thrilled there are some good parks nearby for us to explore and am looking forward to a change of scenery myself. His sentences are getting longer and more complete and he’s a really neat little kid to spend time with. It has its challenges sometimes, but he’s a wonderful little companion and I enjoy our adventures together as much as he does.

This past Friday, we kicked off our Mardi Gras weekend with Happy Hour in the basement. There was music, a variety of Abita beer, and a fun game of dominoes. Then we moved our celebration back to the living room so we could enjoy the fireplace and shifted our theme to the Lunar New Year. I cooked up some longevity noodles and some spring rolls and then we played a few rounds of the board game Lattice Hawaii. It was a nice evening as usual, and a great end to the week…

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Snapshots: Japan

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Snapshots: Japan

From 2010-2012, I lived and worked in a tiny fishing village in Southern Japan. My town, Usuki, had a beautiful historic core, a lovely industrial waterfront, an old castle ruin and some wonderful restaurants. In the two years I was there, we even got a 7-11 and a McDonalds. I lived in a beautiful, old, to-big-for-me apartment a few blocks from the water. During the week, I taught English in rural Japanese public schools. I worked in three different Junior High Schools and seven Elementary Schools. It was tough to move around so much, but I did enjoy the variety of it. Sadly, many of my days I spent very few hours in the classroom and was absolutely bored to tears most of the time. On the weekends I would spend time with friends or traveling the countryside. Our little corner of Japan was very rural, but also beautiful - especially when the rice was being planted. I found small communities to join, like a dance class in my town and a scuba diving shop in the next town up. I went to the beach and climbed mountains and visited the major cities. I also bought my first DSLR camera - at a pawn shop about an hour from my apartment. I didn’t learn to use it very well when I was there, but I took my first steps into the world of digital photography. It was also in Japan that I conceived the idea for this project and began to work to build this website. I made some wonderful friends while I was there, one of whom recently asked me if I had any photos of Japan that she could use to build a website for her business. That had me do a deep dive into my photo archives and dig up these old pictures. Some of them are actually pretty good, so I thought I would share them, and this story, with you here. Sadly, after a decade, I don’t remember where many of them were taken so not many of them are captioned. But I hope they can give you a feel for the time I spent there and some of the beauty of the country. Enjoy!

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D.C. Chronicles Volume 44

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D.C. Chronicles Volume 44

Hello everyone! It’s been a pretty cold week here in Washington and it’s been tough to get out and do very much, so this will probably be another short post. We have begun our Mardi Gras celebration in earnest and are looking forward to a long weekend of food and music to come. Mason and I have continued our adventures in the woods, mostly smashing anything and everything made of ice. And I sorted through a bunch of pictures this week from my two years in Japan which was an interesting trip down memory lane. Other than that, I’ve been sticking pretty close to home this week.

Mardi Gras is early this year falling next Tuesday, February 16th. Mardi Gras is one of my absolute favorite times of year, and I always try to celebrate it with as much vigor as I can. My first Mardi Gras was in 2008 when I was living in New Orleans and it was such a wonderful experience that the following year I encouraged my folks to come down and celebrate with me although not actually on Fat Tuesday which is a bit hectic and very expensive to get a room. For me, the weeks leading up to Mardi Gras are a bit quieter and more enjoyable anyway in New Orleans, with parades mostly for the locals. When I left New Orleans and moved to Japan, I had a big Mardi Gras party at my apartment for all of my friends, many of whom had no idea what Mardi Gras was, and when I lived on St. Thomas I celebrated with my friend, Will, who was from Louisiana. I’ve been lucky to have been back to New Orleans for it several times since. Since starting this blog, I celebrated Mardi Gras in tiny Marshall, North Carolina (which they called “Marshall Gras”), and then spent the last two in New Orleans, one of which my folks once again joined me for. This year I’ll obviously be home for it, but we’re going all-in to celebrate. Our house is decorated with all the beads, lights and masks that we have and we’re going to have a great Mardi Gras weekend which we’re all looking forward to.

As I mentioned, the week has been a cold one but that hasn’t stopped Mason and I from getting out into it and seeing what we can get into. We’ve found a lot of puddles iced over and he takes great delight in smashing through the top layer of ice and watching the splash. We’ve found some really cool places in the woods where something iced over and then the water underneath either ran out or absorbed into the ground leaving wonderful ice bubbles which are incredibly satisfying to smash through with our walking sticks. He’s having a great time and getting a good dose of winter, although we’re both starting to notice the buds on the trees and are looking forward to the return of our friends: the bumblebees, caterpillars and ladybugs.

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In Focus: Grand Canyon National Park

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In Focus: Grand Canyon National Park

Grand Canyon is one of the most spectacular places on the face of the earth. It is one of the three “Crown Jewels” of the U.S. National Park system, the lowest step in the geologic Grand Staircase of Time, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the Seven Wonders of the Natural World. The rock layers most recently exposed by the Colorado River, which runs through the Canyon’s heart, are roughly 1.8 billion years old. Therefore, when you are sitting on the rim gazing out over the Canyon, you are looing at roughly 40% of the geologic history of the planet. Grand Canyon is remarkable at all times of the year and in all different kinds of weather. There are amazing hiking opportunities at Grand Canyon, but be sure you set aside some time to just sit on the rim and ponder. I’ve been fortunate in my life to visit Grand Canyon well over a hundred times and these are some of my favorite photos I’ve taken through the years. I hope you enjoy them!

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D.C. Chronicles Volume 43

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D.C. Chronicles Volume 43

Hello Everyone and Happy February! This is going to be a short post this week because there really hasn’t been too much going on. We had a pretty decent snowstorm this week here in Washington which has kept things pretty quiet and close to home. I’ve enjoyed the visual change of pace the snow has brought and also enjoying it with my little buddy, Mason. I’ve been struggling with depression this week though, which I’ve managed to keep at bay for much of the last few months and I can’t say I’m thrilled by its reappearance. All in all, though, it’s been a pretty quiet week.

Towards the end of last week, Mason and I went on some really long walks around his neighborhood which we both really enjoyed. On Friday we zigged where we normally zag in one spot and 20 minutes later found ourselves on the shore of a massive (by D.C. standards) pond. It had been pretty cold, so the surface was frozen solid and we stood there and talked about ice and water for a long time. Then we threw some sticks which skittered across the surface to our collective delight. Big rocks managed to crash through the surface, but only to make a divot. While I was holding both of his hands above his head with my feet planted firmly on the boardwalk just in case, Mason took a few slippery steps across the ice. For a kid who loves the water, I think this was a really cool experience.

Our week ended with our usual end-of-week basement celebration. Last Friday we celebrated Up-Helly-Aa, the Scottish Viking Fire Festival. We started with drinks and sea shanties in the basement and then played a nice game of Muggins (dominoes). Then we came upstairs and had a nice fire in the fireplace. I had made a delicious Scottish potato-leek soup and some bannock (skillet bread), and both were perfect for a cold winter night. It was another successful celebration! These next two weekends we’ll be bringing it home to Louisiana to celebrate Mardi Gras before seeing where our virtual journey takes us next.

Saturday was a beautiful sunny day here, but really just bitterly cold and windy. It was a shame to not be able to go and enjoy it somewhere, but it really was unpleasant to be out in. Late Saturday night it began to snow and continued through much of Sunday and on into Monday. It was a very nice, dry, light snow which was easy to shovel but made for a pretty scene outside. We were all a little surprised at the amount of snow we got, but as I mentioned it is nice to see something a little different looking out the windows.

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In Focus: Glacier National Park

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In Focus: Glacier National Park

Glacier National Park, in far northern Montana, is my very favorite place in the world. Jagged mountains, quiet turquoise lakes, abundant wildlife, cascading waterfalls, amazing trails, awe-inspiring vistas and beautiful historic park lodges come together to form an alpine paradise straight out of a dream world. Glacier’s remote location keeps it from becoming as severely overcrowded as many other National Parks have become in peak summer months, although every summer visitation seems to grow. Glacier forms one half of the extensive Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park in association with neighboring Alberta, Canada. I’ve been very fortunate to visit Glacier National Park many times over the last 20 years and always look forward to my visits. Here, I’ve assembled some of my favorite shots I’ve taken of this beautiful park over the years. I hope you enjoy these photos from stunning Glacier National Park.

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D.C. Chronicles Volume 42

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D.C. Chronicles Volume 42

Hello Everyone! This is the last post for January, which is hard for me to believe. The time really is going quickly here. I’m sure you’ll be happy to know that my political opinions won’t be making an appearance today. It’s been a rough couple of months, and being in Washington it’s hard to escape it, but I’m sure going to try. I have enough things to focus on without getting mired down in something I have very little control over.

The most exciting thing that happened this week is that my folks got their first vaccine shot. This is wonderful news and we’re very grateful to the folks at Howard University for making it happen. I’m really hoping the federal government will ramp up the vaccination as promised and that we can all have ours before the summer.

Young Mason continues to make me smile with his good humor and big smile. Last week we were sitting at breakfast and we were discussing each other’s shirts, which is a common occurrence over his morning meal. I had on a shirt from the amazing total solar eclipse I got to lead a trip to see in Wyoming a few years ago. He pointed out what looked like the moon to him, but was actually the sun so I explained what the eclipse was and how it worked and what it was like to see it. Once I was done explaining it, he hopped up and went and got one of his books about space and we looked at the sun and the moon together. It was pretty cool.

On one of our walks this week we were out in one of the parks in his neighborhood which has a grove of bamboo in it. He always points out the bamboo, and I ask if he sees any pandas around which he never does (but growing up in Washington, I know he will see them often at the National Zoo). A few minutes later he picked up a huge log and told me it was a panda and carried it all the way home. The next day we took his panda to “the lake”, which is really just a small pool along one of the creeks we visit, and he hurled it in. He really loves throwing things in the water, even things he seems to really like. I definitely don’t understand everything he does or says, and he would probably tell you the same about me, but we sure do have interesting adventures together.

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In Focus: Wrangell-St. Elias National Park

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In Focus: Wrangell-St. Elias National Park

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been, and that’s saying something. Second only to Montana’s Glacier National Park in my heart, Wrangell-St. Elias is America’s biggest National Park, encompassing an area of over 13 million acres. Wrangell-St. Elias was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979 and a National Park in 1980. Plate tectonics, volcanic activity and glaciation all worked together over time to form this magnificent landscape, but it was copper that brought people into these mountains in the early 20th Century. The Kennecott copper mines produced over $200 million worth of copper between 1911 and 1938 ($3.6 billion in today’s dollars)

Today you can drive on the old rail line until you get to the “end of the road” where you will have to cross the river bridge on foot. From there you can catch a shuttle to Kennecott and explore the park from there. Glacier Walks, Mill Tours and Ice Climbing are all on offer, or you can simply go for a hike. The hikes to the old mines high on the mountains aren’t long, but they’re pretty strenuous. After a long day in the park you can find good meals at the Kennecott Lodge or in the old town of McCarthy down the road. Alternatively, the north end of the park is accessible along the beautiful Nabesna Road. The season in Alaska is short, and there isn’t much happening once the businesses close so summer is definitely the right season to visit the Wrangells. I hope you enjoy these photos I took in the park during the last summer I spent guiding there (2017).

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