faq

Unlike any hotel you’ll ever stay in. I give Ma Johnson Hotel five stars.

- mcdonagh05

Flying in with 3 flights a day, taking a shuttle or driving a rental car; there are several ways to get to McCarthy. The McCarthy Road is an easy safe drive, currently 1/3 of the road is hard surface and the remainder is a gravel road. There are plenty of Alaskan owned car rental companies that allow their vehicles on the McCarthy Road when you stay with us. Remember to keep your speed below 35mph to avoid flat tires.

REGARDING DRIVING ONCE YOU ARRIVE TO THE AREA, Please note that cars are unnecessary once in the area, please use the Copper Town Shuttle, providing free transportation throughout the area.

Ma Johnson's guests enjoy a complimentary shuttle from the footbridge to McCarthy, 1 mile away from the parking lots at the end of the McCarthy Road. You can call the hotel or just hop on a waiting shuttle for your ride from the Parking Lot Footbridge...

Copper Town Shuttle provides free transportation loop between the parking area footbridge and the Downtown Historic District of McCarthy (Sponsored by Ma Johnson's Hotel and Lancaster's Backpacker Hotel, & The Kate Kennedy House).

Copper Town Shuttle provides free transportation on a frequent schedule between the towns of McCarthy & Kennicott inside Wrangell St-Elias National Park (Sponsored by the McCarthy Center Stores).

Copper Town Shuttle provides free transportation at night for late night entertainment in McCarthy (Sponsored by the Golden Saloon).

After 20 years of development, we are proud to offer this new, complimentary shuttle service to every park visitor

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In addition to the Free Vans and buses, Copper Town Shuttle also offers Charters from our collection of Antique Autos from Alaska.

Ma Johnson's Historic Hotel is a Living Museum, filled with artifacts from McCarthy & Kennicott. Unlike a typical shared bath hotel with limited bathrooms "down the hall", Ma Johnson's has a ratio of 1 bathroom per 2 bedrooms. You are always next door or across the hall from a bathroom. Most rooms have sinks with hot & cold running water. There are bathrobes, slippers and handmade soaps and other amenities making the experience like a stay at a good friends' house.

As a living museum, we are keeping the property to it's authentic time in history. Back in the day, McCarthy was electrified before most of North America. McCarthy was high-tech, but plug in appliances where not common. There are plenty of charging stations for your devices in the lobby and secure locations in the hotel. We do have a method of providing power to rooms that require CPAP machines. We can store refrigerated medicines for guests as well.

Most of our guests will be driving 8 to 10 hours to see us. The most common mistake first time visitors to Alaska make is to pick great destinations and then attempt to break up a full day drive into two half day drives. If you break up the drive to McCarthy into two shorter stretches your only stopping options are unlikely to be a destination worthy of visiting for more than a fuel-up or snack. Please take the time to research those half-way points to see for yourself what they have to contribute to your valuable and limited vacation time.

Secondly, we are confident that you will not regret making that long distance drive in one day, permitting you to enjoy our wonderfully unique town and its many attractions such as hiking, rafting, ice climbing, flight seeing, historic tours, fine dining, and a strong remote Alaskan community more fully. We are also the only place in Alaska where you can experience a present day, frontier-style town in the center of the largest concentration of mountains, glaciers, and wildlife in America - the largest US national park, Wrangell St. Elias.

Finally, if night-driving is of concern, you will never drive in the dark during the summer in Alaska. More so, the roads to McCarthy bring you through the most majestic of mountain ranges and water habitat, where multiple wildlife sightings are possible! We are confident you will not regret the ride.