Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve is a United States national park and preserve located in south central Alaska. It is the largest national park in the United States and covers the Wrangell Mountains and a large part of the Saint Elias Mountains. These mountains include most of the highest peaks in the United States and Canada, and they are within 10 miles (16 km) of the ocean, making them one of the highest elevations in the world. The highest point in the park is Mount Saint Elias, which stands at 18,008 feet (5,489 m), and it is the second tallest mountain in both the United States and Canada. The park was shaped by volcanic activity and glaciers, with its mountains rising due to movements of Earth's tectonic plates. Major volcanoes in the area include Mount Wrangell and Mount Churchill. The park's glaciers include Malaspina Glacier, the largest piedmont glacier in North America; Hubbard Glacier, the longest tidewater glacier in Alaska; and Nabesna Glacier, the world's longest valley glacier. The Bagley Icefield covers much of the park's interior and includes 60% of Alaska's permanently ice-covered land. The town of Kennecott, located in the center of the park, was a mining area that operated from 1903 to 1938, extracting copper from one of the richest deposits in the world. The old mine buildings and mills are now a National Historic Landmark.

The park and preserve were created in 1980 by the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. Before this, it was designated as Wrangell–St. Elias National Monument on December 1, 1978, by President Jimmy Carter using the Antiquities Act, pending final laws to address land use in Alaska. The protected areas are part of an International Biosphere Reserve and are included in the Kluane/Wrangell–St. Elias/Glacier Bay/Tatshenshini-Alsek UNESCO World Heritage Site, which also includes Canada's Kluane National Park and Reserve to the east and Glacier Bay National Park to the south.

The park and preserve cover a total area of 13,175,799.07 acres (20,587.19 sq mi; 53,320.57 km²), which is larger than nine U.S. states and about the same size as Croatia. Of this area, 8,323,147.59 acres (13,004.92 sq mi; 33,682.58 km²) are designated as the national park, and the remaining 4,852,652.14 acres (7,582.27 sq mi; 19,637.99 km²) are part of the preserve. The main difference between the park and preserve is that sport hunting is not allowed in the park but is permitted in the preserve. The area designated as the national park alone is larger than the combined area of the 47 smallest U.S. national parks (out of 63 total) and is over 43 million times larger than Gateway Arch National Park, the smallest U.S. national park. Additionally, 9,078,675 acres (14,185.43 sq mi; 36,740.09 km²), or about two-thirds of the park and preserve, are designated as the Wrangell–St. Elias Wilderness, which is the largest single wilderness area in the United States.

Geography

Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve includes the entire Wrangell Range, the western part of the Saint Elias Mountains, and the eastern part of the Chugach Mountains. Other smaller mountain ranges in the park or preserve include the Nutzotin Mountains, which extend from the Alaska Range, the Granite Range, and the Robinson Mountains. Large rivers flow through valleys shaped by glaciers, such as the Chitina River, Chisana River, and Nabesna River. All except the Chisana and Nabesna rivers flow into the Copper River, which runs along the western edge of the park and begins within the park at the Copper Glacier. The park contains many glaciers and icefields. The Bagley Icefield covers parts of the St. Elias and Chugach ranges, and the Malaspina Glacier covers most of the southeastern area of the park. Hubbard Glacier, the largest tidewater glacier in North America, is located at the park’s easternmost point. The park’s eastern boundary is Alaska’s border with Canada, where it is next to Kluane National Park and Reserve.

On the southeast, the park is bordered by Yakutat Bay, Tongass National Forest, and the Gulf of Alaska. The southern boundary follows the top of the Chugach Mountains, next to Chugach National Forest. The western boundary is the Copper River, and the northern boundary follows the Mentasta Mountains, bordering Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge.

Mount St. Elias is located on the border between Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Kluane National Park and Reserve. At 18,008 feet (5,489 meters), it is the second-highest mountain in both Canada and the United States. Nine of the 16 highest peaks in the United States are in the park. The park also includes North America’s largest subpolar icefield, glaciers, rivers, an active volcano, and the historic Kennecott copper mines. Volcanic activity has occurred in both the St. Elias and Wrangell ranges. The St. Elias volcanoes are extinct, but some volcanoes in the Wrangell Range have been active in the Holocene period. Ten separate volcanoes have been identified in the western Wrangell Range, with Mount Blackburn being the highest and Mount Wrangell the most recently active.

About 66% of the park and preserve land is designated as wilderness. At 9,078,675 acres (3,674,009 hectares), the Wrangell–St. Elias Wilderness is the largest protected wilderness area in the United States.

The park area is divided into national park lands, where only local rural residents may hunt for subsistence, and preserve lands, where the general public may hunt for sport. Preserve lands include the Chitina valley north of the river, parts of the Copper River valley east of the river, most of the Chisana and Nabesna valleys, and areas along Yakutat Bay.

The park can be reached by highway from Anchorage. Two rough gravel roads, the McCarthy Road and the Nabesna Road, wind through the park, providing access to the interior for backcountry camping and hiking. Chartered aircraft also fly into the park. Wrangell–St. Elias received 79,450 visitors in 2018. The park includes a few small settlements. Nabesna and Chisana are located in the northern part of the park. Kennicott and McCarthy are near each other in the park’s center, with smaller settlements nearby and along the 60-mile (97 km) McCarthy Road. Chitina serves as a gateway community where the McCarthy Road meets the Edgerton Highway along the Copper River. The McCarthy Road and the Nabesna Road are the only major roads in the park.

Activities

Access to the park is open all year. Most park facilities are open from May to September, though some areas open as late as the end of May and close in mid-August. The main visitor center is open on weekdays during the winter.

The Edgerton Highway runs along the Copper River valley on the western edge of the park. The headquarters and visitor center are located at mile 106.8 near Copper Center. Road access to the park’s interior is available along the Nabesna Road and the McCarthy Road. The abandoned mining town of Kennecott can be reached by footbridge from a section of the McCarthy Road. Access to remote areas is available by air taxi services.

The Kendesnii campground on the Nabesna Road is the only campground managed by the Park Service. Private campgrounds and lodgings are available along the McCarthy and Nabesna roads. There are fourteen public-use cabins in the park. Most of these cabins can only be reached by air. A few are accessible by road near the Slana Ranger Station, and most are near airstrips. Backcountry camping is allowed without a permit. Few trails are established and maintained in the park.

Mountain biking is mostly limited to roads because the ground is often wet and muddy in the summer. Floating on rivers is a popular way to explore the park, with trips available on the Copper, Nizina, Kennicott, and Chitina rivers. The park and preserve include some of the highest peaks in North America, making them a popular spot for mountain climbing. Of the 70 tallest mountains in Alaska, 35 are in the park, including seven of the top ten peaks. Climbing these peaks is challenging and requires expeditions to reach remote and dangerous areas.

In addition to the Copper Center visitor center, the park has a visitor center at Kennecott and an information station at Mile 59 on the McCarthy Road. Ranger stations are located at Slana on the Nabesna Road, in Chitina at the end of the Edgerton Highway, and in Yakutat. The Yakutat ranger station is shared with Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. The park has three improved airstrips at McCarthy, May Creek, and Chisana, with many unimproved airstrips throughout the area. Air taxis provide sightseeing and transportation services within the park, operating from Glennallen, Chitina, Nabesna, and McCarthy. Air taxis also offer access to sea kayak tours near Icy Bay. Cruise ships frequently visit Hubbard Glacier in Yakutat Bay.

Sport hunting and trapping are allowed only in the preserve. Subsistence hunting by local residents is permitted in both the park and preserve. Hunting is managed jointly by the National Park Service and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, which issues hunting licenses. Use of off-road vehicles (ORVs) is limited to specific routes, and permits are required to use ORVs in the preserve.

Geology

The southern part of Alaska is made up of several landmasses called terranes that have been pushed against the North American landmass by plate tectonics. The Pacific Plate moves northwest relative to the North American Plate at about 2 inches (5.1 cm) to 2.5 inches (6.4 cm) per year, meeting the continental landmass in the Gulf of Alaska. The Pacific Plate moves under the Alaskan landmass, pressing the continental rocks and forming mountain ranges. Terranes or island arcs on the Pacific Plate are pushed against the Alaskan landmass, becoming compressed and folded but not fully sinking into Earth’s interior. As a result, a group of terranes called the Wrangellia composite terrane has been pushed against the south coast of Alaska, followed by the Southern Margin composite terrane to the south of the Border Ranges fault system. A result of the subduction process is the formation of volcanoes inland from the subduction zone. Today, the Yakutat Terrane is being pushed under material of similar density, causing uplift and a mix of accretion and subduction. Nearly all of Alaska is made up of terranes that have been pushed against North America. The coastal region experiences frequent large earthquakes. Major quakes occurred in 1899 (four between magnitudes 7 and 8) and 1958 (7.7), followed by the 1964 Alaska earthquake (9.2). The 1979 St. Elias earthquake reached magnitude 7.9.

Six terranes and one sedimentary belt have been identified in Wrangell–St. Elias. From north to south, and oldest to youngest, they are the Windy or Yukon-Tanana (180 million years ago), Gravina-Nutzotin Belt (120 million years ago), Wrangellia, Alexander, Chugach (previously assembled elsewhere, then added as the Wrangellia composite terrane 110–67 million years ago), Prince William (50 million years ago), and Yakutat terranes (beginning 26 million years ago). The Wrangellian rocks include sedimentary rocks with fossils mixed with volcanic rocks.

The Alaskan coast reached its modern shape about 50 million years ago, after the now-vanished Kula Plate fully subducted under North America. The current subduction of the Pacific Plate in southern Alaska has occurred for about 26 million years. The oldest volcanoes in Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve are about 26 million years old, near the Alaska–Yukon Territory border in the St. Elias Range. Volcanic activity has moved north and west from that area.

Most volcanoes in the Wrangell volcanic field are located at the western end of the Wrangell Mountains. These volcanoes are unusual because they are generally not explosive. Most are large shield volcanoes that grew quickly from flows of andesite lava from multiple sources. Their growth is linked to the arrival of the Yakutat terrane, with activity until about 200,000 years ago, when movement along the Denali-Totchunda and Fairweather faults began to handle some of the Pacific Plate’s motion. For that reason, large magmatic flows are unlikely today. Most Wrangell volcanoes are shield volcanoes with large calderas at their peaks. All but Mount Wrangell have been shaped by glaciers into steeper forms than young shield volcanoes. Shield volcanoes are surrounded by cinder cones that formed after the main volcano.

The ten highest peaks in the Wrangell Mountains are volcanic. Several are among the largest volcanoes in the world. Mount Wrangell is the only active Wrangell volcano. It is 14,163 feet (4,317 m) tall and formed by lava flows from 600,000 to 200,000 years ago. Three small eruptions were reported in 1784, 1884–85, and 1900. Its gently sloping dome has an ice-filled summit caldera measuring 3.6 miles (5.8 km) by 2.5 miles (4.0 km). Three craters with fumaroles produce steam visible on calm, clear days. The summit occasionally erupts, coating ice with ash. In the 1980s, heat from the summit melted 100 million cubic meters (3.5 × 10^9 cubic feet) of ice, forming a small crater lake. That activity has stopped since 1986, and ice has accumulated since. The last large magma eruption from Wrangell is estimated to have been 50,000 to 100,000 years ago. The summit caldera is estimated to have collapsed between 200,000 and 50,000 years ago. Mount Zanetti, 13,009 feet (3,965 m) tall, is a large cinder cone on Wrangell’s northwest side, less than 25,000 years old.

Mount Drum is the westernmost Wrangell volcano. At 12,010 feet (3,660 m), it dominates the local landscape more than taller mountains. Mount Drum is either a shield volcano or a stratovolcano that has been heavily eroded by glaciers. It had explosive eruptions about 250,000–150,000 years ago, destroying a summit that may have once been 14,000 to 16,000 feet (4,300 to 4,900 m). These eruptions caused large mudflows and mark the last activity at Mount Drum. At least eleven glaciers flow from its summit icefield.

Mount Sanford is the tallest western Wrangell volcano at 16,237 feet (4,949 m), the 13th highest peak in North America. It is a complex shield volcano that formed about 900,000 years ago. Its last eruption was between 320,000 and 100,000 years ago. Like Drum, Sanford has a large icefield above 8,000 feet (2,400 m) that feeds several glaciers. Capital Mountain, near Sanford, is smaller at 7,731 feet (2,356 m). It is a shield volcano, about 10 miles (16 km) in diameter, with a caldera about 2.5 miles (4.0 km) in diameter. Its last activity was about a million years ago, and it has been deeply eroded by glaciers. Tanada Peak, an older and larger neighbor of Capital Mountain, is 9,309 feet (2,837 m) tall and has a caldera about 2.5 miles (4.0 km) in diameter. Its last activity was about 200,000 years ago. Mounts Bona and C are the chief volcanoes

History

Archaeological evidence shows that people arrived in the Wrangell Mountains around the year 1000 AD. The Ahtna people settled in small groups along the Copper River. A few Upper Tanana speakers lived along the Nabesna and Chisana Rivers. The Eyak people settled near the mouth of the Copper River on the Gulf of Alaska. Along the coast, the Tlingit people spread out, with some settling at Yakutat Bay. The first Europeans in the area were Russian explorers and traders. Vitus Bering arrived in 1741. Fur traders followed. A permanent Russian trading post was built in 1793 by the Lebedev-Lastochkin Company at Port Etches on Hinchinbrook Island near the mouth of the Copper River. A competing post was established in 1796 at Yakutat Bay by the Shelikov Company. The Shelikov Company sent Dmitri Tarkhanov to explore the lower Copper River and search for copper deposits, inspired by reports that native peoples used tools made of pure copper. Another exploration group in 1797 was killed by natives. Semyen Potochkin reached the mouth of the Chitina River in 1798 and spent the winter with the Ahtna. In 1799, Konstantin Galaktionov reached the Tazlina River but was wounded in an attack by the Ahtna. He was killed on a return trip in 1803. The Tlingit and Eyak attacked and destroyed the Russian post at Yakutat in 1805. It was not until 1819 that a group led by Afanasii Klimovskii explored the Copper River again, reaching the upper part of the river and building the Copper Fort trading post near Taral. A group that started from Taral in 1848 to reach the Yukon River was killed by the Ahtna, ending Russian exploration.

American interest in the area after Alaska became part of the United States in 1867 was limited until gold was found in the Yukon Territory in the 1880s. George Holt was the first American known to explore the lower Copper River in 1882. In 1884, John Bremner looked for gold along the lower river. That same year, a U.S. Army group led by Lieutenant William Abercrombie tried to explore the lower river and found a path to the interior over a glacier at Valdez Arm. In 1885, Lieutenant Henry Tureman Allen fully explored the Copper and Chitina rivers, crossed the Alaska Range, and entered the Yukon River system, eventually reaching the Bering Sea. Allen’s team also noted that native peoples used copper along the Copper River. Other expeditions explored coastal areas in the late 1880s, and some tried to climb the mountains. In 1891, an expedition led by Yukon explorer Frederick Schwatka traveled down the Nizina, Chitina, and Copper Rivers from the north.

The discovery of gold in the Canadian Klondike brought prospectors to the region, who found some gold along the Copper River. Reports of copper tools and copper nuggets led the U.S. Geological Survey to send geologist Oscar Rohn to find the source. Rohn found copper ore in Kennicott Glacier but did not locate the source. Shortly after, prospectors Jack Smith and Clarence Warner noticed a green spot on a hillside at what is now Kennecott, which turned out to be a rich copper deposit. Engineer Stephen Birch obtained rights to the deposit and created the Alaska Copper and Coal Company in 1903 to mine it. Birch got money from investors like J.P. Morgan and the Guggenheim family, who became known as the "Alaska Syndicate." His venture became Kennecott Mines in 1906, later renamed Kennecott Copper Corporation. The town was named after the glacier but misspelled, becoming "Kennecott." Other copper deposits were found on the south side of the Wrangells at Bremner and Nizina. Smaller deposits of gold and copper were found in the Nabesna area.

Developing the remote site required building a railway 195 miles long and costing $23.5 million at the time. The Copper River and Northwestern Railway (CR&NW) took five years to build, reaching Cordova on the coast. The towns of Chitina and McCarthy grew along the railway line. The Kennecott mine used surface mining, underground tunnels, and mining in glacial ice to recover ore that had been moved by the Kennicott Glacier and trapped in ice.

By the 1920s, the richest copper ore was gone, and mining declined through the 1930s. The Kennecott operation shut down in 1938 after extracting over 4.5 million tons of ore, which produced 600,000 tons of copper and 562,500 pounds of silver, earning investors $100 million.

Reports of oil and gas seeps near Cape Yakutaga and Controller Bay led to petroleum exploration along the Gulf of Alaska. A small oilfield at Katalla produced oil from 1903 to 1933 until its refinery burned down. These deposits influenced the decision to exclude the coast from Icy Bay to the Copper River delta from future parks. Coal seams were also found near Kushtaka Lake. A short-lived boom happened from 1974 to 1977 with the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System near the western edge of the future park. Local residents returned to trapping, fishing, and guiding hunters after the boom ended. Thirteen test wells were drilled offshore in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The first ideas for protected lands in the region came from the U.S. Forest Service in 1908, but were not followed up. Early studies about creating new Park Service areas in Alaska happened in the 1930s and 1940s. A study called Alaska — Its Resources and Development focused on tourism in parks like Denali (then Mount McKinley National Park), even though co-author Bob Marshall wanted strict preservation. In 1939, Ernest Gruening, then Director of the Division of Territories and Island Possessions, proposed a park in the Chitina Valley called Panorama National Park or Alaska Regional National Park, along with Kennicott National Monument, a 900-square-mile area including Kennicott Glacier and the Kennecott mine. Gruening was supported by Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes, but President Franklin D. Roosevelt did not act, saying there was no urgency and that non-defense measures should wait for World War II preparations.

A lukewarm report by Mount McKinley superintendent Frank Been in 1941 reduced interest. However, Canada proposed a St. Elias Mountains International Park in 1942 and created the Kluane Game Sanctuary in 1943, which later became Kluane National Park. These actions inspired the U.S. Interior Department to discuss a park system on the Alaska side, including Glacier Bay National Monument, parts of the Wrangell and Chugach Mountains, and Malaspina and Bering Glaciers.

In 1964, George B. Hartzog Jr., director of the National Park Service, started a study called *Operation

Climate

The climate inside the park is shaped by very long and cold winters, where temperatures can stay below freezing for five months. Nighttime temperatures may drop as low as −50 °F (−46 °C), and daytime temperatures usually range from 5 °F (−15 °C) to 7 °F (−14 °C). Summer lasts for two months, June and July, during which flowers bloom and insects are active. The highest temperatures during summer reach 80 °F (27 °C). Light rain may occur in late summer. Temperatures begin to drop in August, and the first snows fall in September. Along the coast, the climate is milder, and the highest mountains have snow throughout the year.

According to the Köppen climate classification system, Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve includes three climate types:

1) Continental Subarctic – Cold Dry Summer (Dsc): These climates have a coldest month with an average temperature below 0 °C (32 °F), 1–3 months with an average temperature above 10 °C (50 °F), at least three times more rainfall in the wettest winter month compared to the driest summer month, and the driest summer month receives less than 30 mm (1.2 in) of rain.

2) Subarctic With Cool Summers And Dry Winters (Dwc): These climates have a coldest month with an average temperature below 0 °C (32 °F), 1–3 months with an average temperature above 10 °C (50 °F), and at least 70% of the annual rainfall occurs during the warmest six months.

3) Subarctic With Cool Summers And Year-Round Rainfall (Dfc): These climates have a coldest month with an average temperature below 0 °C (32 °F), 1–3 months with an average temperature above 10 °C (50 °F), and no major difference in rainfall between seasons.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the Plant Hardiness zone at the Kennecott Visitor Center (1985 ft / 605 m) is 3a, with an average annual extreme minimum temperature of -37.8 °F (-38.8 °C).

Ecology

The Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve covers an area larger than Switzerland, stretching from the Gulf of Alaska to the interior of Alaska. Altitudes range from sea level to 19,000 feet (5,800 meters), creating many different types of habitats. Much of the park includes high mountain peaks covered with permanent ice, glaciers, and icefields. Rivers flow through wide, flat valleys formed by glaciers and have constantly changing riverbeds. The environment can be divided into five main categories, aside from the areas covered by glaciers and riverbeds: lowlands, wetlands, uplands, sub-alpine, and alpine. Some of these environments are influenced by permafrost, which is permanently frozen ground beneath the surface.

Lowland areas of the park are near the Gulf of Alaska and along the lower parts of river valleys. Black spruce trees grow in areas with permafrost, with smaller plants like alder, Labrador tea, willows, and blueberry nearby. Mosses also cover the ground in these regions.

Wetlands are found along the coast and in interior river basins. In permafrost regions, wetlands often form marshy areas called muskeg. These wetlands are mostly covered with grasses, sedges, and small shrubs. Plants like Equisetum palustre (a type of horsetail) and spikerush are also common in these areas.

The drier upland areas of the park are mostly boreal forest, also known as taiga. The types of trees depend on how often fires occur. The most common trees are black spruce and white spruce, with white spruce growing more often in areas without permafrost. Black spruce is better adapted to survive fires. After fires, quaking aspen and paper birch are the first trees to grow, followed by balsam poplar and eventually white spruce.

Sub-alpine environments are found above the tree line, which in Wrangell–St. Elias ranges from 1,100 meters (3,600 feet) to 1,700 meters (5,600 feet). Plants here are small, slow-growing shrubs, mostly grass-like plants and flowering plants called forbs.

The alpine environment varies based on water availability. It begins at different altitudes: around 1,100 meters (3,600 feet) in dry areas and 1,400 to 1,800 meters (4,600 to 5,900 feet) in wetter areas. Common plants include heaths, low-growing willows, and forbs.

Large land animals in the park include timber wolves, grizzly bears, black bears, and caribou herds named Mentasta and Chisana. Cougars (mountain lions) may live in the park, but none have been officially seen. Mountain goats and about 13,000 Dall sheep, one of the densest populations on the continent, live in remote mountain areas. Moose are rare but may be seen near willow thickets. A few Canadian wood bison live in two herds in the Copper and Chitina River valleys.

Smaller mammals include wolverines, beavers, lynx, porcupines, martens, otters, foxes, coyotes, ground and flying squirrels, marmots, weasels, ermine, snowshoe hares, voles, mice, and pikas. Coastal waters are home to migrating whales like orcas, humpback, and gray whales, as well as resident Dall’s porpoises, harbor porpoises, harbor seals, and California sea lions. The endangered Steller sea lion and the rare Alaskan sea otter may also be seen in coastal waters.

Twenty-one fish species live in the park’s freshwater areas. Fish distribution depends on the river system: northern pike are not found in the Copper River, and no salmon species live in the Yukon River. Large freshwater fish include Chinook, chum, coho, pink, and sockeye salmon, along with lake trout, cutthroat trout, Dolly Varden, Arctic grayling, and rainbow trout. Other fish include eulachon, burbot, whitefish, pike, lamprey, lake chub, and various sculpins.

About 93 bird species live in the park, though only 24 remain during winter. Common birds include bald eagles, willow and rock ptarmigans, Canada jays, ravens, hermit thrushes, American robins, lesser yellowlegs, wandering tattlers, hairy woodpeckers, and northern flickers. Owls found here include great horned, great gray, northern hawk, and boreal owls. Waterfowl include trumpeter swans, common loons, northern pintails, mallards, and green-winged teal.