Wrangell-St Elias NP

Okay folks, we really went out of our way for you on this one. We went 125 miles one way, including 60 miles of rough gravel road (often max speed was 15 MPH), a short but very bumpy shuttle ride, and a 5+ mile round trip hike to reach the terminus of Root Glacier in Wrangell-St Elias National Park. Total travel time exceeded 13 hours.

This national park if the largest in the 50 states, more than six times bigger than Yellowstone. Four major mountain ranges meet in this park and it holds 9 of the 16 highest peaks in the US. It's twin is in Canada and is called Kluane and when considered as a whole they cover a monumental area and hold possibly thousands of glaciers.

Our hiking path to the glacier took us by this old copper mine at Kennitcott. Closed for 50 or more years, it is still in quite good condition.



We also had to get by this gatekeeper. Her troll husband was not on duty, so we had little trouble. I believe this is a Ptarmigan, kind of a snow chicken. They are white in the winter, to hide in the snow from those that would make a meal of them. She was out walking her chicks, and did put up a bit of a fuss as we barged through her intended path.

We did make it out onto the almost white part of the glacier, but it gets slick there so we did stop in the gray. The gray is called glacial moraine, it is a covering of fine to coarse gravel and occasionally rocks up to the size of small houses that is found on the terminus of most glaciers.