Backpacking Wrangell-St. Elias National Park

Your trip begins today in Anchorage, Alaska. You’ll be staying at our Anchorage partner hotel. You can arrive anytime and transfer to the hotel on their complimentary shuttle. Depending on your arrival time, the remainder of the day is yours to relax after your flight or to explore some of the city’s notable sites including the Anchorage Museum of History & Art or the city Park Strip. Later this afternoon, you’ll meet your guide(s) for an orientation and gear check, followed by a group dinner featuring gourmet pizza and local craft brews. The orientation will include a discussion of the route, an introduction to our unique style of Alaska wilderness travel, a familiarization of the principles of Leave No Trace, and a conversation about traveling safely in bear country.

After an early breakfast, You’ll then load into our passenger van and will begin the drive north to Glenallen, AK.  Your route will take you from Anchorage along the Chugach and Talkeetna Mountains and into Alaska’s breadbasket – the Matanuska valley.  By noon we’ll be at Tolsana Lake where we'll meet our floatplane pilot.  As you lift off from the lake, the grand scale of this wonderful wilderness will be immediately apparent. The stunning vastness of nearly 13-million acres is overwhelming, and you’ll immediately understand Alaska’s sense of scale as the small plane drifts over the landscape. After an hour, you will begin the descent toward a Grizzly Lake. The skilled bush pilot will bid us farewell and disappear into the landscape. We’ll then shoulder our packs and begin hiking toward the headwaters of Tumble Creek, all along trying to digest the majesty of the surrounding peaks that tower well over 13000’! We’ll camp tonight in the tundra country above the lake.

For the next three days, we’ll make our way south toward the expansive north face of Mt. Jarvis. The size and scope of Mt. Jarvis is really beyond description and can best be described as incomprehensible. From the verdant tundra mesas to the twin summits, you’ll enjoy the rare opportunity to witness seven thousand feet of vertical relief and what is literally one of the most majestic vistas in North America. We’ll cross Tumble Creek on the morning of Day 3, move up along a stunning tundra ridge toward Jarvis, and will set up camp next to a small lake beneath a hanging glacier. Day 4 will be spent on a long and amazing day hike where we’ll cross an unnamed glacier (no ropes or glacier skills necessary) and ascend onto a large mesa beneath Mt. Jarvis. Scouting the tundra for caribou and sheep, we’ll stop for lunch overlooking the Jacksina Glacier and the mighty north face of Jarvis. By day 5, we’ll be headed north and onto the second stage of our circuit.

The character of the country will change as we begin stage two of our journey and head north toward Tanada Peak.  Broad singular vistas will be replaced by tight steep valleys and new views around every corner.  We’ll hop glacier creeks, ascend steep and exposed sheep trails, and cross a 7000’ pass along the way.  While the weather and the terrain will dictate the exact location of each night’s camp, we will have plenty of time to truly explore this amazing and diverse landscape.  By the end of Day 10, we’ll be camped along a small creek near Grizzly Lake.

After a celebratory breakfast in the wilderness, our pilot will begin the process of flying us out of the wilderness. By late afternoon, we'll make the journey by van back to Anchorage where we will bid one another farewell. If you are leaving Alaska on this day, please schedule your homebound flights for after 8pm. Better still, you can opt to stay in Anchorage overnight.