Gates of the Arctic Adventure Tours

About Gates of the Arctic National Park

Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve covers 8.4 million acres above the Arctic Circle in the central Brooks Range – twice the size of Connecticut, slightly smaller than Switzerland, and entirely without roads or maintained trails. It is one of the most remote and unspoiled wilderness areas on Earth. The Arrigetch Peaks – a tilted intrusion of granite peaks whose name in the local Indigenous language means “fingers of the hand extended” – are the park’s signature landmark. Wilderness activist Bob Marshall, who explored the region in the 1920s and 1930s, described the Arrigetch in 1929 as “a series of sensational needlelike peaks extending in a horseshoe around a gushing creek which rose in the glacier.” Traversing this landscape alters both the sense of scale and the definition of true wilderness. The park supports grizzlies, Dall sheep, moose, caribou from the Western Arctic herd, and wolves. The Noatak and Alatna river drainages cut through the park’s interior; salmon spawn in the lower reaches of these systems through summer. The Iñupiat and Athabascan peoples of northern Alaska have lived in the central Brooks Range for thousands of years. Anaktuvuk Pass, the only contemporary village located inside the park boundary, sits on a historic Nunamiut Iñupiat migration route through the central Brooks Range; villages along the southern boundary – Bettles, Allakaket – continue patterns of subsistence travel that predate the park’s establishment by millennia.

Our Guided Gates of the Arctic Trips

We run five scheduled trips into Gates of the Arctic each summer. Three are Gates-only expeditions; two are multi-park itineraries that combine Gates with neighboring Kobuk Valley National Park. Our Backpacking the Arrigetch Peaks is a 10-day Level 3 expedition – 40+ miles of off-trail travel through the park’s signature granite landscape. The drop-off and pick-up locations are the same, so the route loops back to the starting point. Our Oolah Valley High Route is also a 10-day Level 3 trip, 45+ miles through the Oolah Valley on the north side of the Continental Divide. Unlike the Arrigetch route, the Oolah is point-to-point – separate drop-off and pick-up locations – and sees fewer visitors than the Arrigetch each season. Our Arrigetch-Alatna Pack Raft is a 12-day Level 3 trip that pairs backpacking in the Arrigetch with a 50+ river-mile rafting descent of the Alatna River by inflatable canoe – one of the most demanding trips in our catalog. All three Gates-only trips begin in Fairbanks with a night at Pike’s Waterfront Lodge (orientation dinner and breakfast), access Bettles by Wright Air Service flight, and enter the park by Brooks Range Aviation bush charter. The two multi-park trips include Kobuk Valley alongside Gates. Our Noatak River and Great Kobuk Sand Dunes Combination is a 12-day Level 2 multisport trip pairing a Noatak River float with a Great Kobuk Sand Dunes hike – it begins in Fairbanks at Pike’s Waterfront Lodge, then routes through Wright Air, Brooks Range Aviation, Golden Eagle Outfitters, and ends with a flight to Anchorage from Kotzebue on the final day. Our Western Arctic National Parks Basecamp is a 7-day Level 2 hiking trip structured as a more accessible introduction to the region – it begins and ends in Anchorage with a night at our partner hotel (orientation dinner and breakfast), and accesses the parks via Alaska Airlines and Golden Eagle Outfitters.

How to Get to Gates of the Arctic & When to Visit

Gates of the Arctic has no roads. Every visitor enters the park by bush charter aircraft. Four of our five trips begin in Fairbanks at Pike’s Waterfront Lodge, then continue by Wright Air Service to Bettles and Brooks Range Aviation bush charter into the wilderness. The Western Arctic National Parks Basecamp routes through Anchorage and Kotzebue instead, with Alaska Airlines and Golden Eagle Outfitters. The Gates of the Arctic season runs from early June through August. Late June and early July offer the longest daylight – 24-hour sun above the Arctic Circle – and the most reliable weather. August brings the first hint of fall color and cooler nights. The Brooks Range receives less precipitation than coastal Alaska, but mountain weather can still shift quickly. Mosquitoes are part of Arctic summer travel; in our experience, guests come prepared for them and are generally surprised that they aren’t as bad as anticipated. For travelers new to Arctic Alaska, the Western Arctic National Parks Basecamp is the most accessible introduction. For experienced backpackers, the Arrigetch-Alatna Pack Raft and the two Arrigetch-area expeditions are the most demanding in our catalog.

Frequently Asked Questions

Ready to book a Gates of the Arctic trip? Browse our five Gates expeditions below, or call us at 907-351-4193 to talk through which itinerary fits your group. Our team has been guiding the Arrigetch since 2005 and can walk you through the Brooks Range, the access, and the trip arc before you commit.