62 Parks Traveler started with a simple goal: to visit every U.S. national park. Avid backpacker and public-lands nerd Emily Pennington saved up, built out a tiny van to travel and live in, and hit the road, practicing COVID-19 best safety protocols along the way. The parks as we know them are rapidly changing, and she wanted to see them before it’s too late.
Wrangell–St. Elias is huge, even by Alaskan standards. By far the largest national park in the U.S., at 13.2 million acres, it sits seven hours east of Anchorage and, according to the National Park Service, encompasses an area the size of Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Switzerland combined. The park is home to the second-highest peak in the States, 18,008-foot Mount St. Elias, and many of the largest glaciers in North America. Trying to see it all, I knew, would be impossible in a lifetime, let alone four days.