Saturday, August 18th, found us headed north from Valdez on the Richardson Highway, over Thompson Pass, down into the Copper River valley, and along the western and northwestern sides of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve. We stopped at the park’s Visitor Center (VC) and decided we would take the more northerly of the two drives into the park. This VC is something else! It probably has fewer visitors than any other park and the new buildings—not one, but three—are pretty incredible for such a remote area. I’d guess the Alaska congressional delegation had a hand in getting the appropriations for this complex—they have taken VERY good care of their constituents in the past. (Their power seems to be coming to an end due to scandals involving all three of them over the past months. It will be interesting to see if the two up for re-election next year run and are elected.) Anyway, enough of politics—even though politics seems to be the rule in AK.We took the Tok Cutoff north of Glennallen and headed towards Slana where we drove the 42 mile (each way) gravel Nabesna Road into the park. It was a beautiful drive with tall rugged mountains along the way. Although it was evening, the only wildlife we saw was a porcupine. At the end of the road was a B&B as well as a short dirt landing strip with a couple of planes parked there. This park is unique in that air taxi operators and private aircraft can operate in and out of it.
Wrangell-St. Elias N.P. and Preserve is the largest U.S. park--six Yellowstone N.P. would fit in it. The park is larger than southern New England at over 12 million acres. It adjoins Kluane N.P. in Canada and the whole area was the first designated UN World Heritage site. Nine of the 16 tallest mountain peaks in North America are found in the Park—and the Park’s southern boundary is shore line on the Gulf of Alaska! The ice fields are immense and are said to act as a natural cooling system affecting areas as far south as Chicago and the Central Plains. Copper was mined for many years at the Kennecott Mine prior to the area being designated a park.
We returned late in the evening from our drive so pulled into a nearby turnoff with a beautiful view of the mountains for the night. The next day we continued on to Tok where, once again, we joined up with the Alaska Highway. We stayed overnight in Tok and talked with a gentleman who was driving an antique car, being followed by a 5th wheel. He was from AZ and had previously driven the car to the Canadian Maritime provinces and was headed to Chicken, AK, from Tok, then back to the Lower 48.
We commenced our southeastward drive down the Alcan Highway on the 20th. Our destination was one of our favorite northbound stops—Destruction Bay, Yukon Territory (YT). However, to get there, we again had to negotiate a rough section of the road for 228 miles with a top speed of 40-45 mph most of the way. A couple of caravans were parked at Destruction Bay and the owner invited us to eat dinner and stay for the entertainment being provided one of the caravans. It was a very enjoyable evening—
plus we reconnected with folks on the caravan we had seen at various places in AK. The owner here is very congenial and the food was good both times we stopped. It was definitely one of the top places we stopped at on the trip. And the scenery is spectacular with the mountains rising up directly behind the park and Kluane Lake across the road! This is remote, rugged country with rugged people living there, but they are really the salt of the earth.
