Thompson Pass/ Chitina/ McCarthy/ Kennecott

1. Thompson Pass (Alpine- 2700 feet) and Worthington Glacier, Chitina, McCarthy, and Kennecott (Boreal Forest, Glacial- lateral moraine of the Kennecott Glacier, along the CRNW railroad) We stayed at the Kennecott River Lodge and Hostel.

2. Saturday, July 19th- Sunday, July 20th, 9am- 9pm the next day.

3. Mostly Cloudy, 40s- Heavy rains, 40s- Mostly sunny, 50-60.

4. Yellow paintbrush, willows (including arctic and dwarf), ferns, starflowers, mountain heather, caribou lichen, narcissus anemone, dwarf blueberry, mosses, alder, arctic or wooly lousewort, dwarf fireweed, roseroot, violets, saxafrage, crowberry, leafy lichen, licopodium, nagoon berry, wild geranium. Nagoon berry, Labrador tea, black spruce, bear berry, shrubby cinquefoil, mushrooms, mosses, fireweed, crowberry, cotton grass, northern bedstraw, puff balls, sedges, various fungi, dryas, rose hips, strawberry spinach, fox grass, and some plants that live off decaying matter and, thus, do not photosynthesize. Chives, horsetail, fireweed, lichens, alpine willow, lupine, aspen, a shrubby pine, white spruce, black spruce, saxifrage, bluebells, ferns, mosses, soap berry (I do not recommend tasting it, although it is not poisonous), pink pyrola, purple flowers from the pea family, bear berries, asters, juniper, dwarf dogwood, paintbrush, twin flower, leafy lichen, bolete mushroom, red infestation on willow, orange lichen, monkshood, crowberry, glaucus gentian, elegant goldenrod.

5. Bees, mosquitoes, gulls, arctic ground squirrels, canine domesticus. Bear scat and prints, grey jays, Thomas Ginn, hares, moose scat and tracks, white winged crossbill, ducks, ravens, crows, dragonflies, mosquitoes. Carpenter ants, a red fox!, moth with blue body, brownish orange wings, bumble bees, spider, many hares, squirrel chatter, grey jays.

We also saw many rocks and minerals such as: greenrock, copper, composite rocks that looked like concrete, azurite, malachite, iron rich rocks, granite, glacial till, sedimentary rock, sand, and quartz. Also, click on the images to see them larger.