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Created in 1972 using land from the earlier Kluane Game Sanctuary, the KLUANE NATIONAL PARK contains some of the Yukon's greatest but most inaccessible scenery, and for the most part you must be resigned to seeing and walking its easterly margins from points along the Alaska Hwy (no road runs into the park). Together with the neighbouring Wrangell-St Elias National Park in Alaska the park protects the St Elias Mountains , though from the highway the peaks you see rearing up to the south are part of the subsidiary Kluane Range. Beyond them, and largely invisible from the road, are St Elias's monumental Icefield Ranges , which contain Mount St Elias (5488m), Mount Logan (5950m) - Canada's highest point - and Mount McKinley (6193m) in Alaska, the highest point in North America. These form the world's second highest coastal range (after the Andes). Below them, and covering half the park, is a huge base of mile-deep glaciers and ice fields, the world's largest nonpolar ice field and just one permanent resident, the legendary ice worm. Unless you're prepared for full-scale expeditions, this interior is off-limits, though from as little as $100 you can take plane and helicopter tours over the area with companies such as Trans North Helicopters, based on the Alaska Hwy (Mile 1056/Km 1698) between Silver City and the Sheep Mountain Reception Centre (tel 668-2177, www.tntaheli.com/tours.htm ); information on these and other guided tours are available from the Whitehorse Visitor and Haines Junction Reception centres. On the drier, warmer ranges at the edge of the ice fields a green belt of meadow, marsh, forest and fen provides sanctuary for a huge variety of wildlife such as grizzlies, moose, mountain goats and a 4000-strong herd of white Dall sheep , the last being the animals the park originally set out to protect. These margins also support the widest spectrum of birds in the far north, some 150 species in all, including easily seen raptors such as peregrine falcons, bald eagles and golden eagles, together with smaller birds like arctic terns, mountain bluebirds, tattlers and hawk owls. Limited trails offer the chance to see some of these creatures, but the only campsite within the park is at the Kathleen Lake , on the Haines Road 16km southeast of Haines Junction ($8) - though there is hotel and camping accommodation along the Alaska Hwy.
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