In the Heavens..

We awoke to another sunny morning, with a little lie in, it was 7 a.m. !and next door to the golden saloon for breakfast. I wondered what the day beheld, as the chair I was sitting on collapsed beneath me, and I only just avoided serious injury ! –still I did get a free breakfast !

There were several trips on offer today, but David and I had decided to go for a good walk, and selected a trail up to Jumbo mine, http://www.17silkstockingrow.com/history.htm  an old abandoned copper mine, on the hill tops overlooking the Root glacier…well we wanted a stiff walk, and got one ! The track was unrelenting from the minute we got off the shuttle bus in Kennecott, and we were wondering if it would ever ease…it didn’t ! through the thick woods, ever conscious of bears, there being no one else on the trail..several hours later we were up to the old mine workings and looking down on the valley below. We stopped for lunch where some buildings had once stood, and wondered whether we had enough time to actually get up to the mine entrance, still up above us – we didn’t although we did get up the spoil heaps, before realising we would have to curtail our expedition, as we had an evening flight arranged ,and so turned around in the hot sunshine, having climbed over 3,000 ft and re-traced our steps, visiting several old buildings on our way down, including the Old ‘Silk Stocking Row’ . After a quick visit in the visitors centre, we were back on the shuttle to McArthy, for a quick shower and change,ready for an evening flight over the entire area with Wrangell mountain air http://www.wrangellmountainair.com/..we were taken to the local ‘dirt strip’ airfield, by mini bus, there only being 3 of us taking the flight, specially selected to gather in the evening views, after a nice sunny day, and were introduced to our Pilot ‘Bill’, who flew in from another trip !

I was ‘selected’ to be co-pilot (as i didn’t have a camera,although I did have my Muvi camera) and took off, flying over the Kennecott river, and towards Mount Blackburn the highest in the area , it was a great evening, and the 90 minute flight we’d booked soon ‘flew’ by ! We were taken all around, viewing the hills,mountains and glaciers from above, with some great information from Pilot Bill, adding to Scott’s information from the day before .

At one stage he even flew,we thought, directly into a cliff face, mile high buttress, which appeared to be almost touching distance away, in reality 2 kms away ! and eventually over the top of a snowy Mount Blackburn before, all too quickly our time was up

and we flew back into McArthy, and dinner …Oh and a sighting of a black bear as we drove from the airfield into town !

A wonderful Goodnight to everyone !