Images of Wrangell-St Elias National Park – Southeastern Alaska, taken in July 2015.

Wrangell-St Elias National Park is the largest National Park in the park system and boasts 9 of the top 16 tallest peaks in the US.

As with most of Alaska this park has many glaciers which for some reason I always imagined were smooth; when I hiked on Root Glacier I learned the truth, they are not. We trekked out to the glacier and once there we donned crampons, a set of metal spikes that are attached to your boots to give you more traction on the snow and ice. We then took off across the ice and I learned very early on that glaciers are not only “not smooth” but indeed were not very good for my knees and ankles. In fact glaciers are covered with small mounds of hard ice which you have to navigate over and around…constantly! It was a difficult hike but one that was incredibly interesting and unlike anything I had ever seen before. It was a mix of streams, waterfalls, ponds and ice formations; a landscape like no other!

The history of this park also includes the discovery of one of the world’s richest copper ore bodies and in 1900 the establishment of the Kennecott mill camp. By 1938 the camp was closed because of dropping ore prices and the limited supply of copper but the history of the camp has been preserved by the park system.

One of the great things about road trips like this is meeting people along the way; people from all over the world. A good example of this is a group I met on the Whittier to Valdez ferry. They were also on their way to Wrangell-St. Elias and I ran into them again at the Worthington Glacier on the Richardson Highway; in Chitina and now we were all staying in McCarthy in the middle of the park. I was staying at Ma Johnson’s in the “upscale” part of town while they were in a bunkhouse on the “other” side of town! In fact, I accused them of following me since one or more of them seemed to always be around! The group was from all over; besides people from the US there was Jane and several other women from Great Britain, one from Australia and Anna from South Africa. It’s an added treat to talk with fellow travelers and even nicer that I’m still in touch with some of them today!