A surprise trip to the nations largest National Park
As was mentioned in the Valdez Blog, we passed the Wrangell/St. Elias National Park and National Preserve on the way to Valdez from Glenallen. Well we stopped at the visitor’s center on the way down to Valdez. After watching a beautiful video on the Park and seeing other information we decided we would change plans and visit Wrangell/St. Elias the day after Valdez. So on Saturday, August 13th we pulled the RV from Glenallen to Kenny Lake, AK where we parked it in the Kenny Lake RV park and immediately took off to drive into the park.
Wrangell/St. Elias NP is the nation’s largest National Park. It was established in 1980. It is over six times the size of Yellowstone Park, the largest park in the lower 48 states. It contains peaks and peaks of mountains and glaciers after glaciers. It is also one of only three national parks in Alaska that is accessible by road: Denali being one of the two others. The park is a national park and a national preserve that includes 13.2 million square acres. There is also some private land within the overall park boundaries. It in includes one full mountain range and parts of two others and numerous glaciers as well as the Wrangell and Bagley Icefields that spawn more glaciers. It includes nine of the 16 highest peaks in the US. It adjoins Kulane National Park in Canada. We bought a video and several other items showing the park which we want to share with family and friends when we finally return from this trip. The Park is absolutely beautiful and is unfortunately not visited by many tourists. Anyone visiting Alaska should include it on their “must visit” list. See photos for some of what we saw on the way into and within the park.
The drive from Kenny Lake into the town of McCarthy located within Wrangell/St.Elias includes about 40 miles of paved roads and then an additional 60 mile drive on a dirt road ending at a parking area across the river from McCarthy. This is the worst road we have encountered in our entire trip, but worth every bump, rut and narrow bend. We drove our Saturn over this route and it is a 4 hour plus drive one way into McCarthy. We don’t recommend starting the drive after noon as we did unless you have arrangements to stay within the park! Our return trip to Kenny Lake, in the dark, after a delightful prime rib four-course dinner at the historic Kennecott Lodge within the park, was one adventure that we would prefer not to repeat. The road included lots of potholes, ruts, washboard sections and even fording one stream that flowed across the roadway. This is not meant for Saturns, and all the other vehicles we saw were 4 wheel drive or at least SUV’s or big pick-ups. But our Saturn held tough and we made it with no mishaps arriving back at the RV about 1 AM or so! We did see stars tonight for the first time since we’ve been in Alaska.
We’ll describe a few of the photos above. Right after entering the dirt road portion on the way into the park, we stopped and drove out on a gravel spot by the river bed to look at fish wheels actually in use catching salmon from the river. These wheels are operated by Alaskan native personnel and have been pretty much unchanged for hundreds if not thousands of years. We had hoped to see some of the wildlife that the park holds but did not see anything special until after we had parked the car and crossed the footbridge over the raging glacial Kennecott River to go on to McCarthy. Then, a few minutes later, while we were on a small bus taking us the 7 miles further to the Kennecott mining site, we saw a black bear cross the road in front of us (no photo). The mining site contains all of the old mining buildings that have now been acquired by the National Park Service and some are being restored. It also has the Kennecott Lodge which is in use as a fine hotel and dining room. Pat captured one photo of Dick wading in a very cold glacier stream in his Tevas too while walking around the mining site. The photos showing all the small dirty looking mound are actually of the foot of the Kennecott Glacier that passes right in front of the mining site. They are often confused by visitors as being mining tailings but are ice with dirt on top.
As was mentioned in the Valdez Blog, we passed the Wrangell/St. Elias National Park and National Preserve on the way to Valdez from Glenallen. Well we stopped at the visitor’s center on the way down to Valdez. After watching a beautiful video on the Park and seeing other information we decided we would change plans and visit Wrangell/St. Elias the day after Valdez. So on Saturday, August 13th we pulled the RV from Glenallen to Kenny Lake, AK where we parked it in the Kenny Lake RV park and immediately took off to drive into the park.
Wrangell/St. Elias NP is the nation’s largest National Park. It was established in 1980. It is over six times the size of Yellowstone Park, the largest park in the lower 48 states. It contains peaks and peaks of mountains and glaciers after glaciers. It is also one of only three national parks in Alaska that is accessible by road: Denali being one of the two others. The park is a national park and a national preserve that includes 13.2 million square acres. There is also some private land within the overall park boundaries. It in includes one full mountain range and parts of two others and numerous glaciers as well as the Wrangell and Bagley Icefields that spawn more glaciers. It includes nine of the 16 highest peaks in the US. It adjoins Kulane National Park in Canada. We bought a video and several other items showing the park which we want to share with family and friends when we finally return from this trip. The Park is absolutely beautiful and is unfortunately not visited by many tourists. Anyone visiting Alaska should include it on their “must visit” list. See photos for some of what we saw on the way into and within the park.
The drive from Kenny Lake into the town of McCarthy located within Wrangell/St.Elias includes about 40 miles of paved roads and then an additional 60 mile drive on a dirt road ending at a parking area across the river from McCarthy. This is the worst road we have encountered in our entire trip, but worth every bump, rut and narrow bend. We drove our Saturn over this route and it is a 4 hour plus drive one way into McCarthy. We don’t recommend starting the drive after noon as we did unless you have arrangements to stay within the park! Our return trip to Kenny Lake, in the dark, after a delightful prime rib four-course dinner at the historic Kennecott Lodge within the park, was one adventure that we would prefer not to repeat. The road included lots of potholes, ruts, washboard sections and even fording one stream that flowed across the roadway. This is not meant for Saturns, and all the other vehicles we saw were 4 wheel drive or at least SUV’s or big pick-ups. But our Saturn held tough and we made it with no mishaps arriving back at the RV about 1 AM or so! We did see stars tonight for the first time since we’ve been in Alaska.
We’ll describe a few of the photos above. Right after entering the dirt road portion on the way into the park, we stopped and drove out on a gravel spot by the river bed to look at fish wheels actually in use catching salmon from the river. These wheels are operated by Alaskan native personnel and have been pretty much unchanged for hundreds if not thousands of years. We had hoped to see some of the wildlife that the park holds but did not see anything special until after we had parked the car and crossed the footbridge over the raging glacial Kennecott River to go on to McCarthy. Then, a few minutes later, while we were on a small bus taking us the 7 miles further to the Kennecott mining site, we saw a black bear cross the road in front of us (no photo). The mining site contains all of the old mining buildings that have now been acquired by the National Park Service and some are being restored. It also has the Kennecott Lodge which is in use as a fine hotel and dining room. Pat captured one photo of Dick wading in a very cold glacier stream in his Tevas too while walking around the mining site. The photos showing all the small dirty looking mound are actually of the foot of the Kennecott Glacier that passes right in front of the mining site. They are often confused by visitors as being mining tailings but are ice with dirt on top.
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