Wrangell-St. Elias National Park

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve is the largest national park in the United States, covering 13.2 million acres — an area larger than Switzerland — in Alaska's eastern interior. It contains nine of the sixteen highest peaks in the United States, including Mount St. Elias at 18,008 feet, and hosts some of the most massive non-polar glaciers on earth, including the Bagley Icefield and Malaspina Glacier. Despite this scale, the park has only two access roads and no services beyond the gateway communities of Copper Center and McCarthy/Kennecott. The park visitor center sits at Mile 106.8 on the Richardson Highway near Copper Center, where rangers provide orientation and road condition updates. The McCarthy Road, a 61-mile gravel track from Chitina, leads to a footbridge over the Kennicott River — the only crossing into McCarthy, as private vehicles cannot enter the town itself. Beyond the bridge, a short road connects to Kennecott Mines, a National Historic Landmark where the former Kennecott copper mining operation is partially preserved and guided mill building tours are offered by a park concessionaire. The Root Glacier trail from Kennecott is a 4.5-mile round trip that leads to the active glacier surface and is the most accessible glacier walk in the park. The Nabesna Road (42 miles of gravel in the park's northern sector) is quieter and requires a high-clearance vehicle. Wrangell-St. Elias rewards travelers who invest the time and logistics to reach McCarthy — the scale and solitude are unlike any other national park in the United States.