Wrangell-St. Elias

Our third and final park during my first trip to Alaska was the largest national park in the United States: Wrangell-St. Elias. We flew into this park in a small bush plane from Chitina, which was a really cool way to be introduced to this immense mountain and glacier-covered wilderness. Seeing the enormous glaciers from the air was especially inspiring! We landed in McCarthy and took a quick drive into the old abandoned mining town of Kennecott, where we got to stay overnight. Walking past the old red buildings here on our way into the wilderness on the Root Glacier Trail was pretty neat, especially since those red buildings are super photogenic! The Root Glacier Trail was really awesome, and we had a nice day to explore, getting to hike up and onto the humongous Root Glacier itself, where we got to wander around for an hour or so. Getting to see all the details in the ice and some of the places where it was melting in interesting ways was something really special to see. We only scratched the surface of this park, but I was really happy with all the amazing things we saw!