Wrangell - St Elias

A national park as big as Switzerland with higher mountains. A mind-bending mountain kingdom where four ranges converge, full of glaciers, old volcanoes, bears and copper mines. Only two spur roads actually enter Wrangell - St Elias, the Nabesna Road and the McCarthy Road, built atop an old railroad grade. After the richest copper strike in US history in the Kennecott Valley in 1900, an almost impossible railroad was built to transport the ore hundreds of miles to Cordova, the nearest port on Prince William Sound. After the copper ran out and the mines were closed in 1938, the towns of Kennecott and nearby McCarthy were all but abandoned and the tracks ripped up. The grade was donated to the state and the legendary McCarthy Road was born. Starting in Chitina on the Copper River, it's 60 miles of rough dirt to the end of the road at the Kennicott River (and the footbridge that takes you to McCarthy.)

I've seen plenty of moose, four or five black bears and a few coyotes on the road, having just driven it for the fourth time. Not as bad as it used to be (according to the locals) but with every grading old railroad spikes still emerge. The town of Kennecott has a museum feel since the NPS bought most of the old mine buildings and restored them. But tiny McCarthy (or 'the center of the universe' according to some of the ice guides) still comes to life every night when the bar opens. Every time I bring a group here, I tell them to count the beards and they usually give up around thirty. A lot of characters for a few old wooden buildings hunched along a muddy street.

Gilahina Trestle crumbles quietly along the McCarthy Road

The road ends at the footbridge and the world's most scenic parking lot. In the background is the 7,000 foot Stairway Icefall

Downtown McCarthy

Looking down into a moulin (a water-bored hole in the ice)

Climbing on Root Glacier

One of the world's biggest icefalls, the Stairway drops over a vertical mile into the Root Glacier