Glacier Hiking At Wrangell-St.Elias National Park

One of the things that Michael wanted to do most in Alaska was to walk on a glacier and I think that the Root Glacier in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park might be the only place to do that without a tour.

WSE is the largest National Park in the US, the size of 6 Yellowstones, and has 9 of the 16 highest peaks in North America. It’s the most remote place that we’ll be visiting in Alaska and getting there was part of the fun!

First, we drove to the town of Chitina, a few hours from anywhere you’ve ever heard of. Then we traveled one of the most infamous roads in Alaska, the McCarthy Road. The road was built on top of a railroad and you drive through a rail cut at the start.

There is a free campground one mile in, on the Copper River, where we stayed for the week. In a few weeks, there will be tons of people fishing for the renowned Copper River Reds and Kings (salmon). But at the end of May, we had the place to ourselves.

When it first opens in May, the McCarthy Road is in pretty good shape but it deteriorates throughout the summer with washboarding and potholes. That was one of the reasons we decided to travel around Alaska in a clockwise loop, visiting Wrangell-St. Elias first. It still took us over 2 hours to drive 60 miles.

Around 15 miles in is the Kuskulana Bridge with a catwalk.

Finally, we parked 1/2 mile away from the little town of McCarthy at a pedestrian bridge. Only residents are allowed to drive in.

In McCarthy, we bought shuttle tickets for a 4-mile ride to the Kennecott Copper Mines. Kennecott is a National Historic Landmark and some buildings are open for tours.

Finally, we hiked 2.5 miles (one-way) on the Root Glacier trail to where the glacier is white. You are walking beside the glacier the entire time, but covered by rocks and dirt.

The NPS does recommend going with a guide, but we felt pretty comfortable wearing microspikes and tagging along behind ~10 other hikers.

It was one of the most mesmerizing and amazing hikes we’ve ever done. It was hard to stop and turn around because we always wanted to see the view from the next ridge or find another blue pool.