Some might wonder why the hike was called Journey to Oz. To be honest, I am not sure either. This was the name given to the trip by the tour company I had booked with and I failed to ask them. I remember that I had been looking at guided hikes in Alaska and this one sounded interesting and comparatively reasonable. I booked the trip in April and then didn’t read the description again. I was then pleasantly surprised when Jason told me the day before that we were flown out by a bush plane. It’s all about expectation management!

I have included here a photo of the high level map. We went from Lakina at the top left towards the Hidden Creek and Lake, the across the Kennecott Glacier and the Root Glacier to Kennecott.

The trip was organised by St. Elias Alpine Guides (http://www.steliasguides.com). Gaia, company owner, has been very helpful and responsive with the booking and organisation. The transport to and from Anchorage plus three nights in McCarthy were all set up when I got there. I was also invited to a birthday party of one of the office girls the night before my hike. About 35 young adults work the summer for St. Elias and live together in the historic powerhouse of McCarthy. They seemed to have a good community and enjoy their work as rafting, hiking, ice-climbing, historic tour guides etc.

The trip itself was also well organised and I didn’t feel unsafe at any point unsafe. Jason has a very calm manner, so that even if he was worried at times, he would not show it. He was also a good cook. He served lovely warm bagels with crispy bacon and cream cheese for breakfast and miso soup as starter in the evening with al dente spaghetti as mains in the evening.

What else did I want to mention as general points?

Mosquitos – I had expected a real plague, but in fact there was nothing. It was much worse in the South of France two weeks earlier.

Daylight – not quite midnight sun, but it never really got dark at night. You would have always found your way around in the night without torch (though luckily I never had to go to toilet in the night – TMI?).

Silence – I had wondered if it would be silent without manmade noises. Of course it is not. Most times, you can here a creek roar and they can be loud! Other times you hear bees and flies around you, or the glacier breaking up.

I included some photos here from McCarthy and Kennecott, which had their golden times when the copper mine was exploited between 1907 and 1938. Here is more info for the interested.

http://www.largestnationalpark.com/history.html

I find this period of the gold rush in Alaskan history very fascinating. Maybe on another trip I will come back to explore this further!