So let’s begin the new year with a shot from summer in Gates of the Arctic National Park. Even though our Alaska days are now growing longer by the hour and we’re having a spectacular winter, we all long for the warmth of midnight arctic sunlight and yearn to shed a layer or two of winter garb.
I took this photo last August as our team rounded the corner of upper Arrigetch Creek and caught our first glimpse of the famed Arrigetch Peaks. We spent the next 6-days hiking on a carpet of autumn-drenched tundra past the peaks and through the valleys pictured. The fact that we enjoyed 11-straight days of perfect weather did nothing less than gild the entire experience. Our adventure into the Arrigetch and down the Alatna River was, as one of our guests so aptly described it, purely “transformative!”
As you begin to think about your summer vacation plans, I’ll let this particular guest sum up his experience traveling with Alaska Alpine Adventures. “The word I keep coming back to is “pivotal.” There was something about the physical exertion, the mental challenge, the mind-blowing Alaska landscape, the natural serenity – it all just combined to have a very positive and transformative effect on me. I now find myself wanting to seek out similar trips and embrace similar challenges. And this trip is staying with me far more than most trips I’ve ever done, almost like some tangible asset that is now mine and mine alone, having been conveyed to me by the experience itself.”
