Wrangell – St Elias National Park

The Wrangell – St Elias National Park is the largest national park in the US. It is larger than several states and some countries. There are only two roads that lead into the park. Both are gravel roads about 60 miles long. Both roads lead in from the west.

The northern road is the Nabesna Road. I drove in on it for about the 30 miles until the first stream crossing. I'm pretty adventurous with the motor home, but I draw the line with crossing rivers of water where I'm not sure how deep it is. I was told the mountain views are spectacular, but it was all low clouds while I was there. There are no park services along the road. They were preparing to build a small campground, but that's it.

I did take a hike to a small cabin the park service has available. I could have stayed there, but then I thought of the furnace, electricity, microwave the motor home has, and hiked back out. Actually, the motor home was parked alongside the road overlooking a lake and valley whereas the cabin was in the bushes.

When I left the Nabesna Road, I went south to the next access road. I camped near the “town” of Chitina, above the famous Copper River, at a great spot overlooking the river and valley. The day I arrived, the salmon also arrived heading up river to spawn. I arrived on Thursday and there weren't many fisherman there. That changed quickly. By Saturday, every wide spot had cars, trailers and gear. From the pictures above, you can get an idea of dip netting. The river is so silty that the fish really can't see. So the fisherman walk upstream, put the net in the river and walk it down stream hoping to snag a fish. It is hard work. The quota is 30 fish per fisherman with an additional 10 this year since the run is so large. Can you imagine that!

I was visiting with a Native American family from Nome. Since this wasn't their tribal lands, they could only sport fish, ie catch 40 fish each. There was 4 of them so they could catch 160 fish. And it looked like they and many others would catch the quota or come close