Wrangell - St. Elias: America's Largest National Park

Last June Heather and I ventured to a non-touristy area of Alaska to go camping. We made the 9-hour drive from Anchorage to McCarthy, which is the center most town in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve.

The view upon entering the park

After receiving a tip from a person I met through work, we planned a four day trip to go explore this little-explored part of our state. But first, we had to get there. The entrance to the park is through a little town called Chitina ("chit-nuh"), which is about a 6 hour drive if you're eating up some good road. And Chitina is only 60 miles from McCarthy, our destination. HOWEVER, those last 60 miles took us tttthhhhhrrrrreeeeeee  llllooooooooonnnnnngg hhhoooooouuuuuuurrrrrrsssssss..........

McCarthy Road and mountains all around!

The McCarthy Road. Definition: worst road in the United States! It runs from Chitina, into the park to McCarthy. A dirt path filled with potholes that never end. Maybe it should be described as a path of potholes with a few flat spots between them. We began driving the McCarthy Road at 9pm. We arrived a little after midnight. It became clear to me why this is not a tourist hot spot.

This view was just there, minding its own business, so we decided to take it with us

But, despite being a most frustrating and painfully slow road to travel, the scenery was sure beautiful. For me, it was more beautiful than Denali National Park (the popular one with that big mountain). Although, this park does contain Mount St. Elias, which is the 2nd tallest mountain in N. America!

We hit our campsite about 12:30am. We set up camp (without needing a lantern) and slept. The next morning we headed into McCarthy. You can't drive in McCarthy. You must walk. From our campground, it was about 1/2 mile into town, and you had to cross this foot bridge you see below. We brought our bikes to expedite our time and reduce the amount of walking.

 A little cool and drizzly that day on the foot bridge

Behold the great city of McCarthy! We toured the town on our bikes and ventured to the general store to have some ice cream. As you can see, McCarthy is a little place. There's a few shops, and no gas station for the few cars that are over there.

Main street

One of the main reasons to visit this area is to go to the next "town," Kennicott. About 5 miles past McCarthy is this old historic mining town. It's up on the side of a mountain with some killer views of several glaciers and mountain ranges. There's a shuttle you can pay that will drive you up the road to Kennicott, but we had our bikes - no shuttle! A local recommended we bike the Old Wagon Trail instead of the road. It parallels the road but is in the woods and has come good scenery.

This....was a mistake. The first mile of the wagon "trail" was pleasant with a slight incline, dirt path and nice foliage. But after that, after we'd gone so far that turning back was out of the question, it became treacherous. The incline became a hill. The hill never ended. The dirt path became gravel. That gravel became bigger rocks that were loose and very difficult to bike over. Several times we were forced to dismount and walk the bikes over crops of small boulders. Did I mention it was uphill the whole way?! The foliage remained nice though.

It took us somewhere around an hour to do 5 miles. We sweated. And then, we sweat some more. Finally, finally, we reached our destination. The ground leveled out and the trees opened up to an incredible view.

Cue incredible view behind us

 Kennicott overlooks a valley, several miles wide, into which at least two glaciers let out. Notice what appears to be mounds of dirt behind us. That's actually the Root Glacier and the Kennicott Glacier, which have come together, and the ice is covered with a layer of dirt called a moraine. The valley is crawling with crawling glacial ice.

After looking around the old mining town, having lunch and regaining some strength, we biked through and out of Kennicott to follow a trail to the Root Glacier. The path soon became un-bikeable, so we abandoned our bikes on the side of the path and continued on. The view remained "view-y" and we walked.

Taking in the sights, just after leaving bikes

Jumbo Falls, on the way to glacier access 

W eventually came to a place where the moraine was not covering the glacier, and followed the trail like Frodo and Sam through Mordor to our destination.

Heather, on the path to the glacier

This trench shows the edge of the glacier against the mountain side

We spent a few minutes walking around on a little piece of the glacier. The few times so far I've had the chance to walk on or up to a glacier I've always gotten a brooding or ominous sense. There's something about being next to an enormous glacier that dwarfs my sense of being. I get that slightly nervous or edgy feeling in my gut. The air is instantly cold. And nature becomes quiet. The feeling that I'm stepping on something that stretches for miles, is bigger than I can comprehend and is physically moving beneath my feet, makes me feel uneasy. There's a fearful respect of the glacier's power and force that alights in me. That's the best I know how to describe it.

After heading back, we picked up our bikes and made it back into Kennicott. By this time, it was late in the day, and were were getting very hungry and were short on snacks and water. We decide to take the road back to McCarthy, not the wagon trail. It's five miles of downhill coasting on our bikes. Though not exactly a pleasure cruise because we're constantly zig-zagging and weaving between potholes. Some you just had to go over because there's not other option. But we make it back to our campsite and  start on dinner.

The pups of course, had a great time at our campsite, because we were next to an open field where we played lots of fetch!

(I should stop here, parenthetically(!) and say that it was on this trip that I've seen the most mosquitos. Most of the time, they were swarming. We were constantly swatting at them with hats and spraying repellant. They swarmed Dakota and Lola if they were outside the tent or Jayne. Sadly, their little bellies got eaten up by mosquito bites. There were dozens of little red bumps on their bellies, so we had to start leaving them in the tent even while we were just mulling about the campsite.)

You can kind of get a sense of the view from our campsite

On our second full day in the park we went on a flight-seeing tour. My friend had advised me that you can't truly see the Wrangell-St. Elias park without seeing it by air. And he was right. We were advised to hook up with Gary Green of Wrangell-Mountain Air, who's been flying these mountains for something like 40 years and is his own airplane mechanic.

Me and Gary next to his Cessna 182 (I think)

We flew for about 75 minutes and were amazed for 75 minutes. He flew straight toward the glaciers and ice formations. From the ground and from a distance, you can easily get a sense that the glaciers and mountains are huge and majestic and all that. But from the air, the effect is compounded.

Kennicott form the air

Root Glacier on right, Kennicott Glacier on left, coming down and joining

The stripes of dirt in between the white glacial ice is more of the moraine - dirt that is coving ice. When two glaciers come together, they each push dirt and rock and sand along their sides. So when they push together it forms these long strips of moraine. You can tell how many glaciers are joining by counting the stripes of dirt. Each stripe represents two glaciers that have joined. And again, the dirt is just a top layer, underneath is more ice!

Looking up the plain with a couple of the glaciers in sight

Looking back down the plain. Here you can see how glaciers flow like rivers 

At one point, we were about 5,000 feet up and we were just flying directly at the side of an ice covered mountain. It had the effect of being a wall, because we couldn't see the top of the mountain for the clouds. Gary said they go up to about 13,000 feet around here. The effect was more menacing than standing on a glacier. My sense of being became smaller as my sense of the world became larger, if that makes sense.

You know how sometimes pictures just don't do justice to what you saw? This is one of those times. The ice formations, snowy mountains, glaciers everywhere were some of the most incredible scenes I've ever laid eyes upon.

This is the best picture I have that gives the sense of brooding

Finally, here's a video of some flying and snow and ice!

And wouldn't you know, after about 20 minutes....our camera battery died! We had no replacement. So we were forced to put away the tiny digital screen and simply take in the beauty with our eyes and with our hearts. What I can't show you is the packs of mountain goats, the mile high cliffs or the enormous rock glacier that looks like a giant lava flow. Those will just have to live in my memory (until we go back!)

With the time we had left that day, we took the shuttle back in to Kennicott, took in the sights, toured the old town a bit more, and got some pizza from the Pizza Bus.

The next morning, before leaving, we ate lunch at the campground restaurant (if you can call it that) and both got the famous "Glacier Burger." It was basically, just a hamburger, but pretty good. We swatted a few more mosquitos and got on the road for the long trip back to Anchorage.

On last picture from the foot bridge to McCarthy

The mountains behind us is part of the area we flew around.

Hope you enjoyed the pics!