Backpacking Trips in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park

Most people have never heard of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. I get it. Everyone knows Denali. Everyone's heard of Gates of the Arctic because it sounds cool. But Wrangell-St. Elias is the biggest national park in the country, bigger than Yellowstone and Yosemite combined, and somehow it just doesn't register with people.

I've spent a lot of time up there over the years and it still gets me every time. Biggest mountains, most glaciers, some of the gnarliest terrain I've ever walked across. And hardly anyone's out there.

What makes it different

The scale is the first thing that hits you. You fly in on a bush plane and the mountains just keep going. The St. Elias Range is the tallest coastal mountain range in the world. Peaks over 16,000 feet rising straight from sea level. It took me a few days on my first trip before my eyes started to calibrate to it.

The other thing is there are no trails. None. And I don't mean "off-trail" like stepping off the path for a bit and walking on some nice alpine tundra. I mean there is no trail anywhere. I've walked across 5-mile-wide glacial moraines out there. Boulders the size of cars piled on boulders. Pushed through alder thickets that went on for a mile or two. Picked my way up scree slopes and down the other side. All day. Then the next day. And the next.

It ended up being harder than I expected the first time. I'm not trying to gatekeep or anything, just sharing what I found. I showed up expecting "off-trail" to mean what it means in the Lower 48 and it doesn't. I might cover 5 to 8 miles in a day with a 50-pound pack, and that takes 8 to 10 hours. The mileage looks small on paper but my knees and ankles always tell me a different story by the end.

Getting there

Three main access points. McCarthy is the most common, a tiny town at the end of a rough road with a few lodges and bush plane operators who fly you into the backcountry. Nabesna is on the north side, 42 miles of gravel with no services at the end, but cheaper because you can walk in without flying. And Yakutat down south which gets you to some of the most remote country in the whole park. I've hardly seen anyone else out there on my Yakutat trips.

The bush pilots are worth getting to know. They know weather patterns, landing strip conditions, which routes are feasible. Wrangell Mountain Air has been operating out of McCarthy for over 40 years. That kind of local knowledge has helped me out more than once.

When to go

Short window. July through early September.

July is early season with high water in the glacial rivers, mosquitoes thick at lower elevations, and nearly 20 hours of daylight. August is peak season when rivers drop, bugs decline, and blueberries come in. September is late season when days shorten fast, nights get cold, fall colors show up in the tundra, and bears are everywhere loading up before they den.

Weather is always a wildcard though. Mornings tend to clear, clouds build through the day. Big wet systems roll in off the Pacific and just stick around. I've learned to plan for wet and be pleasantly surprised if I get sun.

Few things I've learned

I started bringing a cook tarp after my first couple trips. This is grizzly country so I don't eat in my tent anyway, and having somewhere dry to cook and eat makes a massive difference when it's been raining for three days straight. Most Lower 48 backpackers skip this but I won't go without one now.

Trekking poles have been worth their weight for me, especially for river crossings. Glacial rivers are cold, fast, and opaque so you can't see the bottom. Poles help me probe and keep my balance.

I also won't go without a satellite communicator anymore. Cell phones are useless out there. InReach, Zoleo, SPOT, whatever works for you. I just want to know I can reach someone if things go sideways.

I love it

This probably isn't the best place to learn backpacking. The remoteness, the lack of trails, the weather variability, the navigation demands. It all kind of assumes you already know what you're doing. I'd suggest building those skills somewhere else first if you're newer to it.

But if you've got some experience and you're honest about your limits, it offers something that's genuinely hard to find anymore. Solitude. Landscapes that made me rethink what I thought mountains could look like.

The park doesn't care if you're ready. It doesn't adjust to your abilities. You meet it on its terms or you don't go.

For people who are ready though, nothing else comes close for me.

Happy to answer questions if anyone's thinking about it