This morning we awoke this morning to clear skies. The dinner the night before meant that we only really felt like coffee this morning, unfortunately the only espresso machine in McCarthy was still broken and it is five (5) miles walk up the road and I am not sure they have a machine either. After our morning coffee we went back to the room to organise our baggage and get ourselves ready for the day. We had no plans for the day as we did the mine tour yesterday and so we asked about how far the bridge was away etc.

Leaving our bags at reception we headed off on our walk. The weather was slightly warmer and sunny so the walk down to the river was more than pleasant. No wind meant crossing the bridges was also not unpleasant. There are two bridges as the river has split in two from the glaciers and follows separate paths. The rivers had washed the bridges away last year and it was decided not to build a full road bridge and rather replace them with modified footbridges thus stopping vehicular traffic from outside having easy access to McCarthy or Kennecott.

On the other side of the bridge there were a few building and the St. Elias Alpine Guides have an office out here, which is pretty amazing given that there is not a lot of traffic at the end of the road. We wandered around taking photos, then progressed back up the hill to the hotel. Here we pulled out the laptops and started work on the blog and photos.

Hunger set in so we went down to Potatoheads and grabbed some lunch, the food was pretty good. Shoeleh had a burger and I had a wrap with a side of curly fries. Fully sated we went back grabbed our bags and headed up to the airline office for the ride to the tarmac. I don't think it really qualifies as an airport as it had less to speak of than the airport we were heading to, it had a gravel airstrip, no terminal, no tower and no baggage checks!

As we were all there waiting they decided to leave early, so into the bus up to the plane and on we get. The pilot was great, she flew us over the glacier and pointed out things of interest on the way. She had us down at the airstrip near Chitina in next to no time at all.

Clancy was ready and waiting for us. We had arrived early so the journey to Tok was definitely possible so with that in mind we jumped in and headed off. The drive up to the Richardson Hwy and on to Glennallen was uneventful and seemed to happen in no time. We did not the differences in the views with the change in weather from when we went to Valdez five days before. Much of the scenic mountain views were covered in clouds, and the trees seemed to be acquiring some of their autumn coats.

Animal life on this part of the journey consisted solely of ravens!

At Glennallen we stopped in for a tourist item and a 25c coffee! It was hot, wet and even drinkable!!!

We then went onto the Tok Cut-off Hwy, not far along we encountered some road works where we got to chat to the lollipop lady about Australia. I am sad to say her knowledge of the country was almost non-existent, hopefully I left her with some knowledge and cleared some misconceptions about the country.

The road itself was in good conditions, the views were generally not that great due to the clouds, although there was a fantastic rainbow. The colours where possibly the clearest that I have seen in a long time. We arrived at the section of the road where moose should have been dancing through the swamps - to no avail not a single moose was spotted.

Finally we made it to the Sourdough Campground & RV Park http://www.sourdoughcampground.com/ this park is supposed to serve one of the best breakfasts along the Alcan Hwy so I was salivating. We arrived after 8:00pm. To find the office closed so we filled in the afterhours form paid our money and parked Clancy and ourselves in a site quite close to all the amenities.

After accessing their internet (yes free WiFi again) we went to see about booking in for breakfast. Here we learned to our horror that the owners had taken off for a long weekend and would not be back till the Monday. Now we had paid to stay and we were not going to be able to have the sourdough pancakes that people rave about.

So we went back to Clancy prepared our evening meal and got ready for the night. As it was still light we adjourned to the washing room where there was lights, electricity and tables to type away on. We were not long in the room when we were interrupted by other guests where I got to chatting with them all - not surprised I hear you all saying.

We met a man from Casper Wyoming that had just driven the "top of the world" Hwy and given it the thumbs up. More interesting was that he worked for the federal government dealing with coal mines which gave me time to think of and miss work just a little bit.

Finally with darkness arriving and a long drive ahead we retired to Clancy for the evening.

Animals Spotted: ravens, eagle and not much else