Kennecott Copper mess? Nope.
KENNICOTT (Alaska) -- Sometimes the comparatively few tourists who make their way to the end of the road here in America's largest national park get confused.
hey stare across the nearly 5-mile-wide, rubbled expanse of the Kennicott River valley, say National Park Service officials, and lament the mess left in the wilderness by the Kennecott Copper Corp. some 70 years ago.
The Kennicott valley is, indeed, a barren expanse of rock, gravel and sand that looks like the mother of all mine-tailing piles.
Park Service officials have to explain that, in reality, the fine, crushed rock on which visitors walk between the old mine buildings is pretty much it for tailings. The rest of what fills the valley is natural -- the moraine of the fast-retreating Kennicott and Root glaciers.
The raw wound left by glacial retreat makes what man did here look insignificant.
Read entire article at Anchorage Daily News
hey stare across the nearly 5-mile-wide, rubbled expanse of the Kennicott River valley, say National Park Service officials, and lament the mess left in the wilderness by the Kennecott Copper Corp. some 70 years ago.
The Kennicott valley is, indeed, a barren expanse of rock, gravel and sand that looks like the mother of all mine-tailing piles.
Park Service officials have to explain that, in reality, the fine, crushed rock on which visitors walk between the old mine buildings is pretty much it for tailings. The rest of what fills the valley is natural -- the moraine of the fast-retreating Kennicott and Root glaciers.
The raw wound left by glacial retreat makes what man did here look insignificant.