Root Glacier Hike

The Root Glacier hike is a rare opportunity to hike on a large, active glacier that is easily accessible by car. The hike is entirely within the Wrangell-St Elias National Park, the largest National Park in the US, and one of the least visited. This is a moderately easy trail of 4 miles with 400 feet of elevation gain. The hike begins at the end of the road in the old copper mining town of Kennecott, giving you ample time to survey the historic buildings, some of which are still in quite good condition.

Kennecott Copper Mines

Power plant at the mine

The hike meanders through a thick scrub forest for about a mile before crossing Jumbo Creek on a wide foot bridge. Soon after you get a sighting of your ultimate destination: the always moving and always changing glacier, changing the landscape of everything in its path. At the signed junction the trail heads downhill and then undulates steeply over a few moraines with loose scree, arriving at the toe of the glacier after about 1/4 of a mile.

Trail to access glacier toe

The toe of Root Glacier and its’ glacial moraine in foreground

Mike heads up Root Glacier

Getting a close-up look at a glacier

On Root Glacier with view of Kennicott Glacier in distance

This glacier was described to us thusly, “as benign a glacier as you can get”, which pretty much means you have to go out of your way to get in trouble. Since there are no crevasses to worry about, the only thing left is traction on the ice. There is much glacial debris embedded in the ice, so I’m thinking plain old boots would be fine. But we used traction assist devices (Ice Trekkers Diamond Grip Cleats) on our boots just in case and never slipped once, even when trying to on steep sections.

We used Ice Trekkers to have good traction

Root Glacier

The glacier is quite large and you could spend hours exploring it. We walked around a bit and saw a sight you don’t see often in mid June in the Northern Hemisphere: ice climbing. Part of the glacier has a small head-wall, maybe 50 feet high, that tempted a few ice climbers on the day we were there. After having fun on the ice, return down the trail the way you came.