Buckle up! We have more driving to do before we get to the center of our next national park – the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve.
It’s just over 40 miles from the Sourdough Creek Campground to the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve Visitor Center, which isn’t within the park boundaries, but is definitely worth a stop. There’s an ~20 minute film called “Crown of the Continent” that’s well done and a considerable amount of information about the park. They also have picnic tables, a large parking lot and free wi-fi – what a treat!
Continuing south we could already start to see some of mountains in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park from the road.
Copper Center is the next “major” town and even it is pretty small (population ~280), but we stopped for milk, eggs, and to fuel up. Less than 20 miles from here will be the junction with paved Edgerton Highway that leads to Chitina.
We stopped at Liberty Falls Campground, where the river was raging! A pretty falls and nice lake hike nearby, but we were parked right next to the falls and white noise doesn’t begin to describe the sound this falls made all evening.
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The next morning, we continued to the small town of Chitina (population 71). On the outskirts of town, an old railroad bed has been covered in gravel to create the 59-mile road now called McCarthy Road. A one-lane rock cut made to accommodate the railroad is the start of this dirt road that leads to the interior of the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park.
A large bridge that crosses over the massive, braided Copper River is a good place to watch dip net salmon fishing. Fishwheels can also be seen in the area.
The entire road is slow going due to slides, standing water, washboard, and potholes. I’ve never seen a national park road that has a warning sign at the beginning of it that essentially says, “enter at your own risk”. In some places, old pieces of wood from the railroad stick up, but if you’re paying attention and going slow, it wasn’t horrible to maneuver around things and there’s great scenery along the way – the surrounding mountains, large lakes, small ponds, and pretty valleys.
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It’s a long day in an RV, but rewarding when you get to the end of the road and have glacier views. Can’t wait to share the national park with you in our next post!
