The Visitation Saga Part 2: The Adventures

Since Buttons and Lemington took time off work and chose to spend it schlepping themselves all the way out here, we had to do something fun. No wood chopping, stick hauling, snow shoveling or dirt raking for them. So we decided at some point that we would fill the hot tub and heat it up, a task we never quite managed to finish (although Buttons did decide he would take a dip anyway at 85 degrees. It didn't last very long). Even though our dreams of hot tubbing never came to fruition, we managed to get some solid adventuring done.

The first day we went up the Crystalline Hills trail, the same one Stump and I explored when she was out here. Here is Lemington enjoying her time next to the frozen waterfall.

We started a little late and the day was a bit gray, but Buttons got some pictures from the top anyways. Here is the view of the valley.

If it seems to you that I am rushing the description of our activities on the first day, then you are right. The second day was way cooler. We decided that Kennicott would be our goal, and that we would take it by storm with style and flair. Kennicott, for those of you out of the loop, is an abandoned copper mine. Finished around 1910, it operated until about 1940 before being shut down. It was then abandoned and left to rot, which it has in some places, but most of the buildings are still standing. It is 4 1/2 miles from McCarthy, maybe about 5 miles from the footbridge. By the time we got going in the morning, it was too late to ski that far, so we loaded up the snowmachine and a sled onto a trailer and drove on out.

I have been to Kennicott many times, but never in the winter. It is in the national park, so in the summertime there are all sorts of people saying silly things like "Hey, man, this is an abandoned mine. You can't run around in here" or "The floors are rotten. If you stand on them they will fall apart, and you will get eaten by goblins". But the park is pretty much a nonfunctioning entity in the winter, and a completely nonfunctioning one in Kennicott. It was open season for exploration. First up was the power building. It took some supreme ninja skillz to get in, but it had concrete floors, and concrete doesn't rot, so I felt pretty good. Buttons once again steps to the front of the class for show and tell.

The outside:

The inside:

The ground floor:

After conquering the power building we moved outside and had tea and scones. I'm not kidding either. Lemington is from Australia (she has been living in a world of eternal summer for years!), and even though she had never been on a snowmachine before this day, she intuitively grasped what the expedition needed to maximize both style and flair: it was afternoon tea, and she was oh so right. After our tea break we moved to the hospital, which is situated right next to National Creek, a cantankerous little water source that chooses to flood sometimes. This means that the hospital is almost completely full of river rocks, and walking down the hallway is like being inside that hallway in Willy Wonka's candy factory that gets smaller and smaller the further you go. There is a photo of this phenomenon that's a little out of focus, but whatever. Take us away, Buttons...

The hospital does not have concrete floors. In this photo you see a plank angled downwards. It is serving as the replacement for the top half of the staircase, which has completely fallen down. I took this to mean, "Whoa, maybe the second floor is sketchy. I'm going outside." Buttons, on the other hand, thought "Hey, wow! Some swell guy put a plank here for me to walk up!" He said the second floor was scary.

The way back was a little eventful, as Maggie the Tormentress got tired and had to be held in the sled by Buttons. Sancho made it the whole way by himself, but I thought he looked pretty exhausted. My dad has since informed me that he took Sancho on a 30 mile ATV chase last summer, so maybe Sancho was just faking it.

Tomorrow I will return with the final segment of The Visitation Saga, starring Lemington and Buttons. I close with a picture of the mill building.