You’ll probably see Wrangell NP before you get there. I first saw its giant snow covered mountains just after crossing the Alaska-Canada border from Beaver Creek to Tok (rhymes with smoke) looking across the million acre Tetlin Wildlife Refuge. Then I drove along the north border near the wild & scenic Gulkana River, awed by the Wrangell Mountains. As the mesmerizing views change along the route and the clouds struggle to pass, some say the Wrangell Range dances.
The Wrangell Range and many peaks were named by US Army Lt Henry Allen, who led a tough expedition here in 1885. Baron Wrangel was a legendary explorer of the north coast of Siberia and the Arctic, who later became Russia’s governor of Alaska (and who hated that the US bought their colony in 1867). Lt Allen’s grueling expedition covered a lot of ground, and on St Elias (Elijah) Day they saw the 18,008 foot mountain they named St Elias, which is now the second tallest mountain in both the US and in Canada, after Denali and Logan respectively.
Despite being America’s largest national park, the Mountain Kingdom has few park visitor services, with ranger stations mostly outside the park, except for the Kennecott seasonal visitor center. You may need to hire a guide to get you into the backcountry wilderness, with few roads or even maintained trails. About 1/3 of the area is a preserve, where regulated hunting of Dall sheep and more is allowed, as it is in the Wildlife Reguge and throughout Alaska. Unlike across the border in the Yukon or British Columbia—where I saw a wolverine—, in Wrangell I didn’t see anything larger than rabbits. Since 1/3 the park is impassable ice fields, there’s less wildlife than you might expect for a park that’s bigger than Switzerland with higher mountains.
The ice field filling the park is the defining feature of a UNESCO World Heritage Site that includes neighboring Glacier Bay, Kluane and Tatshenshini-Alsek parks in Alaska, Yukon and British Columbia respectively. It is the world’s largest protected area on land and the world’s largest non-polar ice field. Most of the tallest peaks in the US and Canada are found here, including St Elias which is shared by both countries. Dozens of glaciers and rivers flow out of the same ice field, including the Kuskulana River which runs from the eponymous glacier to the Chitina and Copper Rivers and then the Pacific.
Although it can be challenging, it is possible to drive an electric car into the park. The Kuskulana Bridge above was built for the Copper River & Northwestern RR (aka Can’t Run & Never Will) to bring back copper from the Kennecott mine about a 100 years ago. It had to be built high over the narrow canyon below, since the previous bridges washed away in the spring melt. After the mine closed in 1938 the rails were salvaged from the 240’ high bridge, but in 1970 the old rail line was converted to a gravel road that still runs over the bridge into the middle of the park. The road runs almost all the way to the quirky town of McCarthy and a couple miles away from the historic copper mine, where there are summer tours.
When I first saw Mt Sanford, the 16,237 foot peak popped out of the top of the clouds, towering over the other mountains. Ultimately, it is these massive mountains, ice field and many glaciers that make this park unique. Contrary to the park film, humans do impact this environment, by burning carbon and warming our atmosphere more rapidly than any natural process. Despite the land being protected internationally, the whole ice field is melting rapidly, tens of billions of tons of ice per year, threatening the various ecosystems here and sea level rise globally.
