Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska

What We Did

Anchorage --> McCarthy

Despite being one of the more accessible Alaskan parks by car, Wrangell-St. Elias was still a bit of a trek to get to. We left Anchorage in the morning and drove nearly 6 hours back up the way we had come, towards the Canada border. Instead of going all the way however, we broke south and headed towards the town of Chitina. After Chitina is where it really got interesting. The road past here winds along the Copper River, famous for it's world-class salmon. It was a gravel road built over an old railroad, and we had to dodge the occasional spike poking out of the ground. It wasn't too bumpy of a road, but it did force us to go around 30 mph the entire way, which meant that we were ultimately on the gravel for about 2 hours before finally reaching the end of the road: the Kennicott River. This was the spot of our night-0 campsite - we set up a tent on the north side of the river and crossed a narrow bridge by foot (no cars can drive to the other side) to meet our guides and do gear check. We took van up into the town of McCarthy, an old mining town, and went to the St. Elias Guide headquarters, a large barn full of outdoor equipment. Here, we got all our gear approved and raided the stocked food room for snacks for the trip. We left back for camp excited about the coming adventure.

Day 1

We woke up Sunday in a misty rain - low clouds had filled the entire valley. We met up with our guides and group members and drove the 5 miles up to Kennicott to fit our crampons and begin the journey. The first 2 miles or so of hiking were flat and easy, on a wide, well-maintained trail. It was pouring rain by this point. As we set off, with our packs full and ready, we started to get to know our trip companions. We had two guides, Roy and Amelia. Amelia was a relatively new outdoor guide from Tennessee, the youngest in the group, but having some of the most knowledge - she specialized in brush navigation and the flora and fauna of the area. Roy was a career-adventurer from Albania - his specialty was glacier navigation and exploration, deemed the Glacier King by his peers. We would end up needing both of their expertise throughout the trip. Other than the guides, we were joined by Lindsay (from Los Angeles) and Sam (from Ireland/New Zealand/Germany).

The group continued to the end of the trail, which was down the steep sides of the glacier valley to the glacier itself. This particular glacier was the Root Glacier - 7 miles long and over a mile wide, it was fed from the mountains by either the first or second largest icefall in the world. We couldn't see the icefall yet, as the rain continued to be heavy and thick. With some effort, we put on our crampons and set off over the ice. While an adjustment at first, we soon realized the crampons made it very natural and easy to walk on the ice. Before long, we were scrambling up and down steep icy hills with ease. We passed several glacial features on our way to our first campsite: blue pools, ice rivers, moulins, glacier mice, and more. Walking on the surface of the glacier is not linear - to get to our destination we needed to wind and weave around all of these obstacles.

After several hours of walking, we made it to our campsite on the medial morraine of the glacier - half the distance across the glacier. A morraine is basically a pile of rocks displaced by the glacier and resting on top of the ice. This was one of the most bizarre campsites we have ever set up. We pitched our tent right above the jagged rocks, with nothing but ice below them. Our tent poles dug in between the rocks and ice - no stakes would go in here. It was still pouring and rain and getting very chilly - the temps on the glacier are consistently 10-15 degrees lower than off of it. After a quick huddled meal of pesto pasta and smoked salmon, we all retreated to our tents earlier than normal, hugging hot water bottles in our sleeping bags to stay warm. It was not a pleasant night. As warm as our sleeping bags were, there was nothing but thousands of feet of ice below us. The rain continued to fall.

Day 2

We woke up on the second day of our trip in a considerably better condition - our tent was soaked with rain and melting ice beneath us, but the sun was slightly peaking out and the glacier seemed much friendlier in the good weather. We packed up camp and had breakfast: quinoa with dried fruit. Today, we crossed over to the other side of the medial morraine (away from where we had come) and set off for the hills beyond the glacier. We zig-zagged around more and more glacial hazzards, stopping for lunch under a waterfall in the ice. Glaciers change almost weekly, so each time crossing is a new navigation challenge for our guides. We stopped often to scout different potential routes and find the best way to get off the glacier. The lateral morraine where the glacier meets the land can be quite hazardous. Large caves and waterfalls hide beneath the edge of the ice, and the land is mushy and behaved almost like quicksand at times. We stepped off the glacier to explore one of these caves. Fed by waterfalls from the surrounding mountains, the cave opened up to a bright blue ice palace under a massive overhang from the glacier above. Inside was beautiful blue glass, with strange shapes and formations on all sides. The water raged well past where we could walk, plunging the thousands of feet below the ice and meeting up with the rest of the flowing water, allowing the glacier to continue it's slide down the valley. It was eerie knowing how much ice was above us, and how deep below the water continued to fall. The novelty of the experience was not lost on us while we were there.

We set back out of the cave and briefly went back up on the glacier to scout a way up the hill to our campsite. The side of the glacier was mud mixed with large rocks, and very wet. It was a tough climb, steep and sinking with every step. We powered up and reached the start of the brush on top. Several clearings made good campsites, and we passed one group of campers to reach our destination. This was a beautiful clearing right on the edge of the plateau, with the entire Root Glacier stretched out beneath us. The sky was clear now, and we could see the massive icefall at the end of the valley, as well as the mine and lodge of Kennicott where we had started, way off in the distance. It was a great perspective of the land.

Day 3 Day three started with a BIRTHDAY! Katon's first present was the gorgeous view we woke up to; a beautiful sunny day illuminated the glacier below and ice fall to our left. We packed up camp and headed off for our first non-glacier day of trekking through the Alaska wilderness. We continued up the hill, with the glacier behind us and the looming Mount Donoho to our right. We were now in full bushwhacking mode: the trail was no so much a trail as a path used by small animals to navigate the thick brush. It consisted of low-lying trees, scraggly bushes with branches about head-height, and thick roots, logs, and vines reaching for our knees. Every step here was met with resistance from the wild. We powered through, using our arms and poles to push the brush to the side. It was hard to keep track of how far we were traveling because we couldn't see more than a few feet ahead or behind. Eventually, we stumbled out of the brush to a beautiful lake, the first of several in a chain of lakes that led to the end of the valley. The sun was high in the clear sky now, and families of waterbirds glided around us as we dipped our feet in and stopped for a snack. We continued along the edge of the lake, still battling thick brush but adding deep mud and marsh to the list of challenges. We had to double back once or twice as even Amelia couldn't always immediately find the best way forward. We utimately made it to the second lake and stopped for lunch near a flat and open path of land used as an emergency runway by the bushplanes (by this point several bushplanes had passed overhead of us heading off to their various mountain adventures). After a quick birthday brownie with lunch, we continued over a small hill to our campsite in a clearing just before the third lake. We set up camp and dropped our packs off before heading further toward the towering mountains at the end. We climbed up a small exposed ridge in the middle of a large circular valley at the convergence of two glaciers, the Gates and the Kennicott. This was probably the most spectacular view of the trip: the towering Mt Blackburn in the distance, the two massive glaciers converging, and the chain of lakes we had passed looking increasingly miniature in the distance behind us. We headed back to our tents in awe.

Day 4 Our final day was essentially a quick summary of all the rest. We headed back around the lakes, through the brush, down the morraine, across the glacier, up the opposite morraine, and finally along the flat path back to Kennicott. That night we stayed in the Kennicott Glacier Lodge, a historic red-painted stately building dating back to the town's mining days. It felt good but strange to have a bed again, and a roof over our heads. We caught a ride back down to McCarthy and had a celebratory dinner in town with the group. It was the perfect end to an amazing adventure.

Thoughts

• Multiday backpacking isn't as intimidating as it seems. The solitude and immersion in nature that it brings is well worth any physical challenges or discomfort.

• We could not have done this without guides. Navigating the glacier and brush was difficult even for them, and would be impossible for someone who has never been.

• We had some amazing backcountry cooking on this trip, inspiring us to step up our own backpacking meals.

• It was cool to meet another nomad and other wandering-type people on the trip. It's reassuring to know that we're not alone in our lifestyle. Far from it actually, and many people live much more extreme versions of it than we do.

• For both of us, it was our first time on a glacier. The new landscape came with new challenges and intrigue, and a whole new set of geographical features and terms that we were unaware of.

• Bushwhacking was also not as intimidating as expected - you kind of just duck your head and go through. Once you get hit in the face a few times you get used to it like anything else.

• Mountaineering is very impressive. Lindsay had done an Intro to Mountaineering course just before this, and Amelia and Roy both had extensive experience and stories to tell from the peaks. The Kennicott area has a long history of mountaineers, and we don't envy them.

• We're glad we did this trip when we did. The Root Glacier is melting 10-15 feet per year, meaning it won't exist in about 100 years time (or less).