Wrangell-St. Elias: the largest national park in the United States

Wrangell-St. Elias is the largest national park in the United States: 53,000 km², more than Switzerland. Four mountain ranges meet here. It holds nine of the sixteen highest peaks in the country, volcanoes, and glaciers bigger than some states. Two gravel roads lead into it. That’s all.

History and origins

The Ahtna have lived in the Copper River valley for centuries. They knew its copper, which they cold-hammered into tools.

In 1900, two prospectors spotted a green cliff: a copper deposit of unheard-of richness. New York financiers built a mine, a mill and 300 km of railway across the glaciers. Kennecott ran from 1911 to 1938, then closed overnight. The inhabitants left everything where it was. The park was created in 1980, and it’s a World Heritage Site together with its Canadian neighbours.

What to do there

• Kennecott: a ghost town of red-painted wood, dominated by a fourteen-storey mill clinging to the slope. You visit the buildings with a guide, up to the top of the mill.
• Root Glacier: a trail leaves the town and leads to the edge of the glacier. With crampons and a guide, you walk on the ice, among blue streams and crevasses.
• McCarthy: the neighbouring village, where the miners once came to let off steam. About a hundred inhabitants, a few guesthouses and a bar.
• The McCarthy Road: nearly 100 km along the old railway bed, through the forest, with bridges over the gorges. It stops at the edge of a river: you cross on foot, by a footbridge.
• Flightseeing: it’s from the air that you take the measure of the park. Glaciers 100 km long, icefields, 5,000-metre summits.
• The Nabesna Road: in the north, another gravel road, shorter and even less travelled, for solitude and wildlife.

Stories and good to know

• The park is six times bigger than Yellowstone, and gets fifty times fewer visitors.
• The Malaspina Glacier, on the coast, is larger than Luxembourg.
• Kennecott’s ore contained up to 70% copper. It was loaded into the wagons almost without processing.

Practical information for your trip

• Getting there: allow 5 hrs’ drive from Anchorage to Chitina, where the gravel road begins. The park’s visitor center comes before that, on the main highway, near Copper Center.
• On site: in McCarthy and Kennecott, few shops and no cash machine. Bring cash and something to eat.
• Clothing: a waterproof, a fleece and good shoes. For the glacier, the guides supply the crampons.
• Where to stay: in the guesthouses of McCarthy or at the Kennecott lodge, to be booked ahead.
• Combine it with: Valdez and Prince William Sound, or Denali.