Wrangell-St. Elias National Park

Day 1 - July 6, 2025

The last time I was at this park was over 30 years ago. The most dramatic change was Mantanuska glacier visible on the drive to the park. The glacier has not only receded up the valley a significant distance, but it has also shrunken in width. At the park, it was my job today to scare birds. The first was a huge bald eagle at the edge of the viewpoint of Copper River near the visitor center. Next up was an entire family of spruce grouse along the Tonsina river trail. I ended up with very wet feet due to the boggy conditions of the trail. Even if it looked dry, it was not. The mosquitos were terrible and bit me through my clothes! The view of the river from a cliff was wonderful and lots of wildflowers were blooming including lupine, fireweed, balsam groundsel, wild rose, queen anne’s lace and eskimo potato. It started raining so I skipped my last short hike and went to where I was staying. It is a rented room in a farmhouse. My welcoming committee was 2 huge turkeys and about 30 chickens that surrounded my car and followed me to the front steps.

Day 2 - July 7, 2025

I booked a flight and hike package deal for the day. I flew out of the Chitina airport (the tiniest airport I have ever been to), followed the Chitina river and scary looking road to McCarthy. I met up with 6 wonderful people and our guide to hike to Root glacier and have lunch on the glacier. I have never worn crampons before, but they were easy to get used to for walking on ice. The ice is amazing up close with small streams of melt water and the lines of rock debris that is carried down as the glacier creeps. Back in Kennicott, I had time to view the old mine buildings before heading back to the airport. This plane was just the pilot and myself, so he took a detour to fly me over the Root and Kennicott glaciers before going through a different pass called 4th of July.

Day 3 - July 8, 2025

Today was a leisurely drive back to Anchorage with a short hike in the morning. It was the steepest hike I have ever done that was an actual trail. Exhausting going up and treacherous coming back down with a bonus of bouldering in several spots. The Liberty Falls trail does not take you to the falls or even a view of the falls, it is just located near the falls. It leads to a rock outcropping, really a spine of rock that has a great view of a lake and surrounding mountains. I was grateful an earthquake did not occur while I was up there. The aspen trees were pretty on the hike. Technically, this trail is not in the park, but I included it as it’s just on the other side of the highway on BLM land. The only animals I saw today were squirrels and a single bald eagle in a tree on the drive back. You never forget driving these highways with permafrost that causes massive dips in the road.