McCarthy Road

The McCarthy Road is a gravel-surfaced road that runs from the end of the Edgerton Highway in Chitina, Alaska, to about 1 mi outside of McCarthy, Alaska.

Route description
McCarthy Road starts at the end of the Edgerton Highway in Chitina. The road is gravel-surfaced, and often very rough with many washboards and sharp turns. The route follows the railbed of the defunct Copper River and Northwestern Railway, and utilizes the spectacular Kuskulana Bridge, built in 1910, spanning 238 ft high above the Kuskulana River at mile 17. It is one of two roads leading to Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, though it is not part of the park, and gives access to the abandoned copper mines at Kennecott.

The road does not actually lead all the way to Kennecott; visitors must cross the Kennecott River by a footbridge built in the 1990s. The road is not maintained during winter.

The road was the inspiration for the 2004 book The Road to McCarthy: Around the World in Search of Ireland by Pete McCarthy.