-: The largest national park in the U.S. — bigger than Switzerland — with massive glaciers, volcanic peaks, and the historic Kennecott copper mine ghost town.

Park Pass

Join the National Parks Club

Why Visit?:

Wrangell-St. Elias is the largest national park in the United States — bigger than Switzerland — protecting massive glaciers, volcanic peaks, and the genuinely fascinating historic Kennecott copper mine ghost town. Despite its enormous size, most visitors experience only a small corner of it around McCarthy and Kennecott, since the rest is largely trail-less wilderness.

Getting there involves a long, rough gravel road, which naturally filters out casual day-trippers and keeps the area feeling genuinely remote even by Alaska standards.

To use this map - use the buttons on the bottom right to toggle between the Parks, Places to stay (lodging), and Spots to visit in the parks (Spots)

Things to Do:

Touring the historic Kennecott copper mine, a remarkably preserved early-20th-century ghost town, is the park's signature and most accessible activity, with guided tours available through the mill building. The Root Glacier Trail offers a relatively easy hike right up to (and in season, onto, with proper gear) a genuine glacier.

For a broader view of the park's scale, a flightseeing tour over the surrounding peaks and glaciers shows off terrain that's otherwise essentially inaccessible on foot.

Get the Full Itinerary

Closest airports: There's no direct commercial airport — most visitors drive the long gravel McCarthy Road from Chitina, or fly into a small local airstrip from Anchorage or Chitina.

Nearby Attractions:

The town of Chitina, at the start of the McCarthy Road, offers basic services and is a natural staging point before the drive in.