National Park #21: Wrangell – St. Elias

Measuring in at 13.2 million acres, Wrangell – St. Elias is the largest U.S. national park which makes it slightly larger than the states of Maryland and New Jersey combined…so yeah, pretty darn big. Which also makes it tough to see it in its entirety. This is a very raw region that borders up against Canada and creates a larger world heritage site as one of the largest protected ecosystems. As they said at the visitor center, we have two seasons: winter and mosquito.

Because we were visiting the park by car versus cruise ship or boat hugging the coast, our options were limited to the two main roads for the park- Nebesna Road and McCarthy Road, which are both unpaved and consume a lot of drivetime as you can’t go that fast. After two days driving on the dirt road of Denali Highway, the drive on the 60 miles of dirt on McCarthy Road was a bumpy two hour drive. In fact, Mary bumped her head while helping the girls and had to use some frozen vegetables to ice her bruise.

We planned to camp at Kennecott Base Camp, which was at the end of the road and a fee based private campground. Envision Mad Max meets Sierra Club. It was a giant tailgating field with RVs, tents, ATVs, and dirt bikes for the 4th of July weekend. It seemed like many friend and family groups used the 4th of July weekend as their annual meetup at Kennecott base Camp based on the groups trickling in and joining larger camping groups. It also has wooden outhouses that prompted many questions from the girls – so you go the bathroom in the hole? And then what? HA!

We grabbed a nice spot , backed in the RV, and started exploring the campground. The towns of McCarthy and Kennecott are former mining towns that the NPS has slowly purchased. Some parts of the towns are still privately owned, but its got a real interesting vibe. There were a few restaurants, a nice lodge, outdoor guide shop, and a small museum.

The big activity planned for this park was to hike up to and on the Root Glacier. After a 10-minute bus ride to Kennecott, we walked through the main road and took in the sheer size of the 14-story tall mill that mined minerals and lumber at different points in its life. The town had it owns power plant, school, post office, bunkhouse for seasonal workers, and small cottages for senior leaders at the mill. It was really impressive to see the thoughtfulness put into the town.

The hike to Root Glacier was easy- about 1.5 miles on a clearly marked trail to the base of the glacier. From there, we put on some microspikes, which are rubber boot covers with metal traction spikes – like snow chains for cars, but for boots. We purchased them on Amazon and they worked great as we walked around the giant river of ice. Again, this is the one trip where we used every item that we packed. Once we got on the glacier, the temperature dropped 10-15 degrees and there were no mosquitos flying around you. We spent about 30-45 minutes walking and seeing the small streams of water carving channels through the ice. After hiking back off the glacier, we stopped in the lodge in Kennecott and rewarded ourselves with beers, sodas and chocolate chip cookies. Once back at the campground, the girls started roaming around the campground putting their imaginations to work. They found a family of kids from Germany that spoke English and they played for a bunch of hours before dinner and bed time.

Our final day in Wrangell consisted of breakfast and a polar plunge in a glacier-fed lake, which was the coldest water I’ve ever been in. It left my toes numb for a few hours. As we were driving out of McCarthy Road, so many cars and trucks were flying to get into camp so they could START their long weekend.

We grabbed lunch alongside the Copper River, which has some of the best tasting salmon in the world. The fish swim nearly 300 miles upstream and pack on lots of omega-3 fatty acids in their bodies which results in phenomenal taste.

It’s rare, but when we looked back on the time spent in Wrangell – St. Elias, it was unanimous that our hike on the Root Glacier was everyone’s favorite experience. An amazing park where we barely scratched the surface of it.