Wrangell-St. Elias Park Offers Unforgiving Taste of History : Alaska: Nine of the 16 highest peaks in the United States are found here, along with grizzlies, wolves, wolverines, caribou, moose, mountain goats, Dall sheep and fewer than 100 humans.

Here, more than anywhere else in Alaska, bigness is a trademark.

At 13.2 million acres, an area larger than the states of New Hampshire and Vermont combined, Wrangell-St. Elias is the largest U.S. national park, and perhaps the wildest and least-known.

Nine of the 16 highest peaks in the United States are found in Wrangell-St. Elias. Established in 1980, this park could swallow five Yellowstones. Privately owned lands within its borders total a million acres, most of them set aside in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971.

Fewer than a hundred people live here year-round. It is home to grizzlies, wolves, wolverines, caribou, moose, mountain goats and its best-known wild denizen, the snow-white Dall sheep.

Here could be the tail end of the last ice age. Down the valleys creep more than 150 separate glaciers, a collection unmatched outside the polar regions. The most spacious, Malaspina Glacier, is larger than Rhode Island.

“Many of these valleys were filled with ice, and not very long ago,” glaciologist Ed LaChapelle said. “The cool northern climate here delayed its disappearance, and glaciers are receding as the great ice sheets did before them. So if you want a glimpse of what Wisconsin and New York were like 12,000 years ago, you can see it here.”

It is not entirely so, for humanity has left its traces on these mountains. Slow-healing tire tracks mar the alpine bowl at the top of Chitistone Pass, which marks the meeting point of the Wrangell and St. Elias mountain ranges. A scientific team in the 1960s had helicoptered in a motorcycle to speed their rounds to research stations.

To the west, the copper-mining complex at Kennicott employed as many as 550 workers for a quarter of a century, and a suburb, McCarthy, sprang up.

Wonderfully empty as the pass appears now, it was once a thoroughfare for prospectors heading for gold fields two days north. It was part of a route that some called “a hideous nightmare.”

Like most of today’s travelers in Wrangell-St. Elias, I shortcut my trip to the gold by bush plane. From 1913 to 1915 the boomers turned Bonanza Creek upside down, in a time of quick fortunes and even quicker suspicions. The latter hasn’t changed. When I arrived at the cabin of one of only two active miners north of the pass, I was met by a .30-30 rifle and the command: “State your business.”

Grace Byrd apologized later. “We didn’t go to the claim today with my husband, Paul, and he told me to meet any visitors with a gun.” She served me a plate of ham and beans while her 14-year-old daughter, Blyss, stoked the wood-burning stove.

A rangy Vietnam veteran, Paul Byrd prefers wilderness to a society he believes has gone rotten. “This is therapy, being out here,” he said that evening. “The gold is just a bonus.”

Therapy began the next morning with a two-mile walk to the claim on Bonanza Creek. Paul squirmed into a diver’s dry suit and pulled on a mask. Then he went head-down into waist-deep, 36-degree water.

After 90 minutes, Paul climbed out. “An ounce of gold is a good day for us,” he said. “It’s not much money for all the hardship, but I consider it a privilege to be out here. It takes a raw kind of person for this life.”

This is no place for the Winnebago crowd. Only two roads enter the park, both gravel. Wrangell-St. Elias is one of 52 areas (out of 367) administered by the National Park Service that allows limited sport hunting in designated preserves.

In this profound wilderness, campsites don’t welcome a wanderer, marked trails don’t point the way. There are valleys that have never been walked, peaks never scaled.

Despite the rugged terrain, Park Supt. Karen Wade said she considers Wrangell-St. Elias “highly accessible,” thanks mostly to the skills of Alaska bush pilots.

Hunting guides fly clients to postage-stamp landing strips, jump-off points for stalking Dall sheep, goats, bears and moose. Even in the hunting preserves--about a third of the total park--sheep horns are not easily taken. The terrain is steep, the hazards often unexpected.

A pair of likable, athletic sheep-hunting twins from Anchorage joined us for dinner one night. Next morning they headed into the hills.

Marty Phelps was in the lead five days later when they walked up an unnamed canyon, staying near a glacier wall to hide themselves from sheep on the opposite slope. “There was a noise,” Mike said later, “and Marty turned to me and said, ‘We’d better get out of here.’ ”

Truck-size chunks calved off the glacier, tipping outward and onto the Phelps twins. Protected from the tons of ice by a small depression, Mike clawed his way free. Hearing no response to his frantic shouts and unable to move the ice, he raced 30 miles to a hunting camp, calling Marty’s name all the way.

Rescuers noted that more of the glacier leaned over the break-off point, dangerous for digging. Marty Phelps’ body remains under the shattered ice.

“Those two did nothing wrong,” said pilot Paul Claus. “This is just very unforgiving country.”

Although more visitors come every year, Karen Wade feels the park’s vastness can handle them.

“We’re not going to develop it like a Yellowstone,” she said. “But we foresee cooperative arrangements with private-property owners inside the park who might want to offer lodges, horseback riding and camping areas. The short season limits the number of visitors.”

A visitor center, scheduled to open in 1998, will showcase the park and help hikers plan their trips. “Whatever happens to Wrangell-St. Elias beyond that will require a change in legislation,” Wade said. “For now, we won’t do anything to detract from its natural beauty.”