Explore Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve

Wrangell–St. Elias National Park and Preserve is a United States national park and preserve in south central Alaska. The park, the largest in the United States, covers the Wrangell Mountains and a large portion of the Saint Elias Mountains, which include most of the highest peaks in the United States and Canada, yet are within 10 miles (16 km) of tidewater, one of the highest reliefs in the world. The park's high point is Mount Saint Elias at 18,008 feet (5,489 m), the second tallest mountain in both the United States and Canada. The park has been shaped by the competing forces of volcanism and glaciation, with its tall mountains uplifted by plate tectonics. Mount Wrangell and Mount Churchill are among major volcanos in these ranges. The park's glacial features include Malaspina Glacier, the largest piedmont glacier in North America, Hubbard Glacier, the longest tidewater glacier in Alaska, and Nabesna Glacier, the world's longest valley glacier. The Bagley Icefield covers much of the park's interior, which includes 60% of the permanently ice-covered terrain in Alaska. At the center of the park and preserve, the boomtown of Kennecott exploited one of the world's richest deposits of copper from 1903 to 1938. The abandoned mine buildings and mills comprise a National Historic Landmark district. The park and preserve were established in 1980 by the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, following its designation as Wrangell–St. Elias National Monument on December 1, 1978, by President Jimmy Carter using the Antiquities Act, pending final legislation to resolve the allotment of public lands in Alaska. The protected areas are included in an International Biosphere Reserve and are part of the Kluane/Wrangell–St. Elias/Glacier Bay/Tatshenshini-Alsek UNESCO World Heritage Site, which includes the Canada's Kluane National Park and Reserve to the east and Glacier Bay National Park to the south. The park and preserve form the largest area managed by the National Park Service with a total of 13,175,799.07 acres (20,587.19 sq mi; 53,320.57 km2), an expanse larger than nine U.S. states and around the same size as Croatia. 8,323,147.59 acres (13,004.92 sq mi; 33,682.58 km2) are designated as the national park, and the remaining 4,852,652.14 acres (7,582.27 sq mi; 19,637.99 km2) are designated as the preserve; the chief distinction between park and preserve lands is that sport hunting is prohibited in the park and permitted in the preserve. The area designated as the national park alone is larger than the 47 smallest American national parks (out of 63) combined, and it is over 43 million times larger than Gateway Arch National Park, the smallest American national park. In addition, 9,078,675 acres (14,185.430 sq mi; 36,740.09 km2), or about two-thirds of the park and preserve, are designated as the Wrangell–St. Elias Wilderness, the largest single wilderness area in the United States.