What you do at Wrangell-St. Elias depends partly on which side of the park you visit. The McCarthy side has the historic Kennicott mining district, drive-up access to Root Glacier, scenic flights over the high peaks, and the small-town McCarthy experience. Most visitors go here. The Nabesna Road side, on the north end, has fewer headline attractions but a real network of maintained hiking trails, better wildlife viewing from the road, and far fewer people. For travelers who want to spend their days walking on actual trails rather than touring historic sites and a single glacier toe, the Nabesna side is often the better choice.
Backcountry options exist for visitors with serious wilderness skills or a guide service, but most road-based travelers don’t go that direction and the park is plenty rewarding without it.
Activities below are organized by where they happen.
In and around McCarthy and Kennecott
This is where most of the park’s road-based activity happens. Most of these can be done independently or with local guide services based in McCarthy.
Walk Kennicott historic district
Park Service ranger-led tours run daily during the summer season through the Kennicott mill complex, the company store, the hospital, and the bunkhouses. The mill itself is a fourteen-story wooden structure that processed copper ore from 1911 to 1938. Ranger tours typically run a few hours and cover the operational history, the engineering, and the social context of company-town life. You can also walk the district independently, but the interpretive value of a ranger tour is real.
The ore Kennecott processed ran 13% copper by weight, among the richest ever mined, and the operation closed abruptly in 1938 with workers leaving mid-shift. The structures still stand largely because nobody got around to dismantling them.
Walk Kennecott historic district
Park Service ranger-led tours run daily during the summer season through the Kennecott mill complex, the company store, the hospital, and the bunkhouses. The mill itself is a fourteen-story wooden structure that processed copper ore from 1911 to 1938. Ranger tours typically run a few hours and cover the operational history, the engineering, and the soHike up the old tram route to Bonanza Mine
The trail starts at Kennecott and follows the route of the old aerial tram that hauled copper ore down from the high mines. About 4 miles one way with 3,800 feet of vertical gain. Half-day or full-day hike depending on pace. The reward is the high country above Kennecott, the mine workings, and views across the entire upper Kennicott Valley. Strong hikers do it; casual hikers find it tough. There’s also a shorter option to Jumbo Mine on a different trail.
Hike up the old tram route to Bonanza Mine
The trail starts at Kennicott and follows the route of the old aerial tram that hauled copper ore down from the high mines. About 4 miles one way with 3,800 feet of vertical gain. Half-day or full-day hike depending on pace. The reward is the high country above Kennicott, the mine workings, and views across Root Glacier to the face of Stairway Icefall. Strong hikers do it; casual hikers find it tough. There’s also another option to Jumbo Mine on a different trail, and a 3rd option for the adventurous folks to Erie Mine as well.
Hike on Root Glacier
Root Glacier is walkable from Kennicott. About a 2-mile flat walk gets you to the toe of the ice. With crampons you can get on the surface and explore. Local guide services in Kennicott run half-day and full-day glacier hikes including ice climbing for those interested. Independent travelers with their own gear can walk on the lower glacier without much technical difficulty. The ice surface near the terminus is moderate terrain and safe for a well-prepared day party.
Take a flightsee
Multiple air services operate in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. In McCarthy, the primary choice is Wrangell Mountain Air. Good folks, I’ve flown with them for 30 years (Kirk Ellis in Banesna and Copper Valley Air in Glennallen are excellent choices as well if you’re in those areas of the park).
Standard scenic routes out of McCarthy go over Mt. Blackburn (whose west face rises 14,000 vertical feet from the Kennicott Glacier in a single unbroken wall, one of the steepest mountain faces in North America), and down toward The University Range, or around the active volcanic peaks (Mt. Wrangell, Mt. Drum, Mt. Sanford). Extended flights reach the Bagley Icefield, a hundred-mile continuous ice sheet you’d otherwise need a mountaineering trip to see. All the way to Mt. St. Elias on a nice day and the St. Elias coastal range is impossible to beat. If you have good weather, do it.
An hour in the air covers country you can’t reach any other way. If your budget allows one splurge in this park, this is usually it. More on why below.
Packraft or paddle the Kennicott River
The river runs fast through a braided channel below the footbridge. Local outfitters rent packrafts and kayaks for half-day floats. Kennicott Lake also offers calmer paddling at the toe of the glacier. The river isn’t technical, but it asks for some cold whitewater awareness.
Eat in McCarthy
McCarthy has a small but real food scene for a town of its size. Restaurants come and go, but there’s typically a brewpub, a couple of cafes, and a fine-dining option in the summer season. Worth budgeting at least one meal there as part of the experience.
Explore McCarthy itself
The town has around 40 year-round residents, no cell service, one footbridge in, and a working pace that’s hard to find elsewhere. Walking the streets, watching the small daily routine of the place, and reading the historical interpretive signs is its own kind of activity. Respect private property and realize people still live here. Don’t trespass.
On the Nabesna Road side
The McCarthy side gets most of the visitor traffic because of Kennicott and the glacier. But the Nabesna side has something McCarthy doesn’t: a real network of (somewhat) maintained trails. For travelers who want to spend time outside walking on trails, hiking with kids, or doing easier backpacking without committing to off-trail wilderness, the Nabesna Road is really the better side of the park. Most of these trails are reasonably easy to follow, well within the skill range of a typical visitor, and range from a few hours to multi-day overnighters.
A common approach is to base out of Twin Lakes Campground partway up the road and day-hike from there, which gives access to several good trailheads without needing to relocate camp.
Skookum Volcano Trail
Starting at mile 36, this is the classic Nabesna day hike. About 2.5 miles one way with 2,500 feet of gain, ending at the rim of an extinct volcanic vent. Half-day hike. The country opens up dramatically as you climb. One of the best short hikes in the park.
Trail Creek and Lost Creek trails
Trail Creek (mile 29.8) and Lost Creek (mile 31.2) have separate trailheads but share a multi-day loop option. Either makes a good full-day out-and-back. With a couple of days and an overnight pack, they connect into a 3-4 day backcountry loop on maintained trail. One of the best multi-day routes in the park for hikers who want a real backcountry trip without the off-trail navigation skills the more remote backcountry asks for.
Caribou Creek Trail
At mile 19.5. Climbs into open alpine. Day hike or overnight depending on how far you want to go. I love this walk.
Rambler Mine
A short walk to another piece of the park’s mining history, easier than the Bonanza Mine route from Kennicott.
Wildlife from the road
The Nabesna Road has consistently better wildlife viewing from a vehicle than the McCarthy Road. Caribou, moose, sometimes Dall sheep on visible ridges, occasional grizzlies. The open country gives you longer sight lines.
Camping
The Nabesna corridor has some of the best campgrounds in the area, including Twin Lakes Campground and the Jack Creek campground around mile 36. Both work well as bases for multi-day trail hiking.
Backcountry Expeditions in Wrangell-St. Elias
This is where the park earns its reputation.
Backcountry trips here ask for serious wilderness skills or a guide service. They aren’t casual day-trip options. The roadless interior is reached by bush plane, by foot, by packraft, or by sea kayak along the coast.
Three days to a week (fly-in or short traverse)
A fly-in basecamp trip lets you live in one remote valley for three to five days and explore outward. Skolai Pass is the most-used basecamp setup in the Wrangells because it’s accessible from McCarthy by bush plane and gives you access to multiple ridgelines from a single camp.
Shorter packraft floats work from a variety of put-ins on the Chitina, Nizina, or Copper drainages. Weather-dependent, but when conditions work, about as good as Alaska river travel gets.
For a first real Wrangell-St. Elias backpacking trip, the Goat Trail backpack runs nine to ten days through Chitistone Canyon between 7,000-foot limestone walls. It’s the classic route and the one that put the park on most hikers’ maps.
A week plus (expeditions)
Multi-week traverses cross the park from Nabesna to McCarthy on foot, 15 to 20 days depending on route. Sea kayaking Icy Bay on the coast runs a weeks through tidewater country where brown bears mosey along the beaches. Mountaineering options include Mt. Sanford (the highest volcano in North America, with a non-technical ski-mountaineering route), Mt. Wrangell (still active, still steaming from the summit crater), and technical routes on Mt. Blackburn for experienced teams. A Bagley Icefield crossing is a committing glacier trip that has been done in both summer and winter.
Special-interest activities
Photography
Both landscape and wildlife. Fall color in late August, alpine peaks in clear weather, aurora during the shoulder seasons. Mt. Sanford from the Glenn Highway is one of the iconic mountain views in Alaska. The Dall sheep population (one of the largest concentrations in North America at around 13,000 animals) gives you reasonable wildlife photography chances; I’ve even bison, sheep AND mountains goats from the road. But don’t count on that. Early and late is best to creep along the road quietly and see what you see. Or park by one of the small lakes, such as just west of the Gilahina Bridge and watch what happens. Be patient, quiet and calm.
Birding
93 species documented in the park, 24 of them overwintering. Spring and early summer bring migratory species through the Copper River flyway. Raptors, ptarmigan, waterfowl, and boreal forest passerines all represented.
Fishing
Arctic grayling, Dolly Varden, lake trout, and king, coho, and sockeye salmon depending on the drainage and season. State fishing regulations apply.
Rockhounding
Hand collection of rocks and minerals for personal use is legal in the preserve sections of the park under ANILCA, an Alaska-specific exception you won’t find in most national parks. Check current regulations before collecting.
Hunting and trapping
The preserve sections allow these under state regulations.
Winter
Snowshoeing, ski touring, and snow machining in the preserve. Spring ski touring around the Wrangell volcanic field is some of the best in Alaska, with long corn snow days and almost no competition for terrain.
The experience first-timers underestimate the most
Flightseeing. Most visitors plan it as a nice-to-have and come off the plane shaken by what they just saw. Wrangell-St. Elias is arguably the most rugged, raw, jagged, and at the same time most spectacular mountain landscape in North America, and most people have never flown through terrain like this. An hour in the air over the Wrangells rearranges how you think about the scale of the place. Budget the flight. Splurge on the longer route if you can. You won’t regret it.
The short advice
Most visitors pick one or two things per trip. That’s the right scale for a park this size. Come for what pulls you hardest, do that thing properly, and save the rest for a return visit.
See our Wrangell-St. Elias trips page to view our specific itineraries.
Follow Along
Stay up to date with all the latest goings on as well as information and notes from the field with Expeditions Alaska. The magnificent newsletter "Ramblings" ~ It's like having Alaska land in your inbox.
"*" indicates required fields
