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The World's Largest National Park

On Sunday the Omega Block, so named because the jet stream flowing high above forms the shape of the Greek letter omega thereby blocking bad weathers approach from the south for weeks at a time, that was dominating the weather pattern in the southern half of the state continued to hold fast. This clear and calm weather allowed us to launch up for a day trip into our world’s largest national park, Wrangell St Elias, at 13.5 million acres. The Canadians have the 7 million acre Kluane in their system of park's, which is contiguous with Wrangell St Elias, making for a total protected acreage of over 23 million.



It being Fall and cloudless, things took a bit of time to warm up. Janet napped as we zipped up over Marshall Pass, which follows the Tasnuna River and the Lowe River into the Copper River Valley. It allows one a view of some of the seldom seen glaciers to the north of Cordova. This one is the Schwann, which is on the north side of the Rude River.



The Copper River is Alaska’s third largest river. Because the river cuts directly through the Chugach Mountains, one of the state’s most rugged ranges, it forms a natural conduit to the Interior for people, birds, animals, and machinery. The Copper River and Northwestern Railway ran on the left side of the river until round about 1938.



Looking south down the Copper River, towards Cordova and the Gulf of Alaska, we could see warm wet winds whipping up the river from the ocean. There are also extensive sand dunes in this area - which would make for a sweet landing/lunch spot if only we had a bit more power at our disposal! Some day...

Out of view in the right side of this image, lie several glaciers which damned the river here during Pleistocene times when they flowed across its path, thereby creating a massive glacial lake known as Lake Atna. Lakes always seem such a solidly permanent feature of a landscape as you loiter on their shores. But the reality of their transitory nature burns through at times when you alter your perspective.

The Copper River also serves to delineate the western boundary for Wrangell St Elias National Park. In an airplane at 7500 feet there were no lines of cars and no entrance fees to negotiate and we slid smoothly into the parklands.



Just east of the Copper River we had to choose between two drainage's to fly through. Based on a friend’s recommendation, we turned to the north and entered the Tebay River Valley. The very head of the valley terminates in a glacier, the Little Bremner, that is obviously retreating rapidly from its former dominions into a high hold-fast. In hindsight, I should have soared over it on the way back as it has cut an obvious pass back into the Copper drainage.



The Tebay Lakes are in one of those valleys that would take more than a lifetime to explore and to get to know intimately; the time would be well spent. As we zipped over the lakes, Janet and I mused upon the future acquisition of a float plane so we could better access this country. But how to land on both water and sand dunes? Hmm. Maybe a heli?



Geologists say the Tebay Lakes are a prime example of a deranged drainage. Seeing no immediate or obvious signs of this instability or condition, I was a bit confused. It turns out that an understanding of this, like myriad other geologic concepts, forces you to imagine things outside the bounds of a human time scale. Normally, a river or stream drains downhill via the most direct route available to it. In a deranged valley such as this one, which, in the not so distant past, was inundated with slow moving rivers of ice glaciers, like the Little Bremner Glacier in the shot above, water cannot always flow in a direct path. These random blockages force lakes like the Tebay to drain in ways that ignore logical valley morphology.



In addition to deranged waters, sublime views, and ice glaciers, the Tebay Valley is home to rock glaciers. These rivers of rock slowly advance inexorably downward in a process similar to ice glaciers. The plutonic rock that makes up this mountain is thoroughly jointed and weathers into small fragments. Ice fills the cracks and as it expands and contracts during freeze/thaw cycles continues to fragment the rock and lubricate its downward flow.



Janet and I advanced slowly onward in our little 100hp rig and before too long the young jagged peaks of the Chugach Range began to flatten out and allowed for views of the older and massive volcanoes of the Wrangell Mountains, where we were headed.



Another 45nm of flying brought us to McCarthy and its huge airstrip, by AK standards. Apologies for the exposure, this one was not my handiwork.



These flying machines really take you to some amazing places, I for one am mighty pleased to live in a time when a person can avail themselves of this technology.



The McCarthy strip, PAMX, sits at the terminus of the Kennecott Glacier which seems to funnel the wind into a semi permanent quartering crosswind.



Of course, it was Sunday on Labor Day weekend, so there were a fair number of other pilots around.

The colors on Porphyry Mountain were just popping!



We saddled up and ambled through the Wrangell Mtns and the visceral fall colors on up to the Park’s visitor center. As an aside, I should add that if you drive here it takes a full day and a bit of skookum. For that reason, the Park’s main HQ and visitor center are 60 miles away in a far less energetic landscape, kinda akin to Denali’s HQ versus Eielson.



The visitor center is in the midst of the historic Kennecott Mill Town.



The Mill Town is the mill site for five of the biggest and most productive copper lodes known to humans around the turn of the last century. In its heyday, Kennecott was a self- contained company town, complete with a hospital, general store, schoolhouse, baseball field, skating rink, tennis court, and recreation hall and dairy. It was owned and financed by the Guggenheims and JP Morgan. The mining company, originally called the Alaska Syndicate, became the Kennecott Copper Corporation in 1915. The thousands of workers who labored in the mines and the mill and who lived here treated more than 400 million tons of ore and produced around ½ a million tons of copper ore and 100 tons of silver for shipment to Seattle over the CRNW railroad that was laboriously constructed solely for access to this mother of all copper lodes.



By 1938, the mill town reached its zenith and since then the buildings, which took an almost unimaginable amount of energy, hubris, and money to construct, populate, and maintain, began to succumb to entropy's inevitable advance.

In 1980 the area became a National Park and World Heritage site. Over the years since then, NPS has been steadily shoring up failing structures and slowly rebuilding and preserving the town.


This is the Concentration Mill where tramlines totaling over 16,000 feet in length descended from mine sites 4,000 feet above the mill town. Ores were crushed and sorted and stamped here. NPS put a new roof on this building a few years back and is actively stabilizing the structure.


Everything is easier with power. The power plant was recently stabilized by NPS and is an amazing building.



I don’t know much about these things, it appears that 4 boilers powered the town…

…by spinning these generators.

Some of the industrial detritus has been collected and arranged by NPS; here in the center you can see one of the spent dynamos from the generators.



The copper lodes in Kennecott are mostly to be found along the line of contact between the dark Triassic Nikolai Greenstone and the lighter colored Chitistone and Nizina Limestones, here making up the upper half of Donoho Peak.



Here in the center of this picture, again where the greenstone and limestone meet, 4,000 feet above the mill town, lies the Jumbo mine, one of the 5 that fed the town and the mill.



Here at the base of the Concentration Mill you can garner a solid impression of just how un solid the old buildings are.



The 500 or so year round denizens of the mill town had a stunning panorama to gaze upon as they labored. The town sits on the rock covered terminus of the Kennecott Glacier which has its beginnings…



… high upon the slopes of Mt Blackburn. Blackburn is the eroded remnant of a massive shield volcano that was active 3.5-4.5 million years ago. There are a series of lava flows more than 3,000 feet thick that emanate from it. These days, it seems icy cool, perhaps due to its place as the tallest of the Wrangell volcanoes at 16,390 feet.



The mill town’s position just to one side of the constantly moving Kennecott Glacier makes for some interesting instability in regards to the town’s buildings foundations.

One of NPS’s more recent projects is this bridge crossing National Creek.

When the mill was running, workers had to either hike up 4,000 feet over a 4 mile long trail or ride one of the tramlines in a bucket from this concentration mill. Think 3 mile long, 4,000 foot drop zipline!



We left the mill town and headed into downtown McCarthy to meet Janet’s friend Cynthia who lives in McCarthy during the summers as the owner of Currant Ridge Cabins.



As a rookie photographer I was drawn to the display of local giclee prints on display.



All too soon it was time to leave the superlative setting, people, and weather behind, and we made our way back to the airport.

It didn’t take long to preflight and pack and before long…

…we were treated to a completely different view of the area.

I always get a kick out of the perspective shift flying brings with it. We zipped along the lower reaches of the Kennecott Glacier towards Donoho Peak.

Along the way we flew over the Kennecott mill town.

Donoho Peak, Root Glacier and Regal Mountain.

Turning back towards the mill town and Porphyry Mountain. Curious word isn't it? Apparently the term is from Greek for purple, and is now used for igneous rocks that have large crystals, which this mountain does.

Jumbo Creek, three of the mines feeding the mill are up around the talus fields of the rock glacier in this shot.

An aerial view of the Kennecott Glacier near its terminus.

Another view of the mill town and the Kennecott Glacier.

45nm into the return flight we crested back into the Chugach Range. Here we have the Hanagita River valley, beckoning for some more exploration.

Summit Lake in the Hanagita Valley also looked particularly interesting.

But we had limited fuel on board, and consequently limited time, so we shot back through the Tebay Valley, looking again at its rock glaciers and…

…its ice glaciers.

We soon crossed the Copper River again, leaving the Park behind. With the sun in our eyes, and also in the lenses of my camera, things were marginal as far as photography goes. But I include the following shots simply as a record of the sublime scenery that slid beneath our wings and fed our hearts and minds as we surfed homeward on that magnificent afternoon.

The Schwann Glacier.

The Woodworth and Marshall Glaciers.

And with that, we were home!

After experiencing a fair amount of Alaska over the years, I have to say that the country we sampled over the course of this day trip was some of the most superlative the state has to offer. Few places in the state combine such a fascinating mix of geology, volcanism, and human historical drama in such a tight package.

Perhaps the sublime weather and company over the last two days combined to color my view, but this Labor Day weekend was near ideal!

I Got My Wings Back for Labor Day Weekend!

Labor Day Weekend this year brought hands down the prettiest and most sublime concurrence of weather and autumnal color I’ve seen in a while. Additionally, I got my wings back!

I got word from my mechanic on Friday afternoon that he had finished the annual inspection on 53J and I could pick the plane up at my leisure. 14 hours later I was on board a Dash 8 headed for PANC. I grabbed my plane, fueled it up, and launched into the air. After 2 weeks of ground pounding I was amped to be airborne again!

I set course for Portage Pass, but by the time I reached that geographic line between the windward and lee side of the Kenai Peninsula, I was high enough to flit about the mountains and pick my way through the peaks.

As always, it was a pleasure to cogitate on the myriad ways that the ice and rock interplay.

I also found it interesting to see ash fall from Mt Redoubt’s March eruptions still very much in evidence.



Directly across from Whittier, you can see the Billings Glacier exposing a granite pluton. Whenever I hike I always appreciate granite for its integrity as a foothold, and its aesthetics. Scattered about PWS, you’ll find numerous plutons of granite, formerly molten bubbles of igneous rock that have cooled ever so slowly underneath the Earth’s mantle.



The Billings Glacier, like many others, is carving away (maybe rasping is more apropos) the softer sedimentary Cretaceous turbidites that make up most all of the mountainsides you see here, revealing the harder grey granite pluton in the center that is unyielding to the pressure of even that much ice rasping across it. Think Yosemite thousands of years ago. It’s enjoyable to watch those processes in action, especially from the armchair of your airplane.



Parts of the Sound had some low level Advection Fog that was pretty much burnt off by the time I crossed in. This is Culross Passage.



Bad shot, but the pass pictured here is one I need to shoot, takes ya from Harriman Fiord into the Matsu valley. Another possible way out of PWS if the weather turns sour.



College Fiord. Popular place for the cruise ships, which are strangely absent today. Not many people come up here at this time of year, which is their loss, and a net gain for those of us who like it quiet.



Davis Lake and Cap Glacier; you can see very clearly how the valley was scooped out by Cap Glacier many years ago.



Jonah Bay and Unakwik Inlet. This is the place, the place where the biggest seismic temblor to roil through the North American continent during the 20th century was birthed. Interesting that such a beautiful spot can mask such dangerous energy. What lies beneath.



Looking back towards College Fiord from Jonah Bay, easy to see why the Fiord attracts so many people. Look at all those tidewater glaciers!



Speaking of tidewater glaciers, the Columbia is the granddaddy of them all, at least in PWS. While this shot hardly does it justice, I like the juxtaposition of color and texture between the ice and the granite of the Cedar Bay pluton.






A lot of ice coming off the glacier at this time of year; again, cruise ships oddly absent.



When aviating above this icy cold ocean water with icebergs ½ a mile across, my mind always turns to my engine and its ongoing maintenance. Wish I had the money for a twin.

The First Branch of the Columbia.

The East Branch of the Columbia. Close enough to home to glide back now.

Coming into Valdez on Saturday during (1) Labor Day weekend and (2) the peak of the Silver Salmon run. Look at all the activity!



For whatever reason, this year the best Silver fishing was in the boat harbor. There were stories of Silvers jumping onto the boat dock piers! (Silver’s jump a lot when spawning, some say it is to loosen eggs, some say it is to knock sea lice off, I dunno, maybe it’s just the energy of life’s climax.) Look at all the cars! This is a really busy weekend for this town.



After flying to Anchorage and back, it was nice to see the airport and home.
On the other hand, it was hardly noon on a sublime day and I had wings again…I didn’t stay grounded for long.