Alaska - Off-Trail in the Last Frontier
6-days | 42 miles | 8300 vertical feet of gain | 5+ river crossings | 3 miles of glacier | 2 passenger plane | 1 shower | 0 trails
We had such an incredible time on our first Alaska trip in 2021 that we decided to go back, but go on a longer, more remote experience. This trip involved a wild, 6-day backpacking adventure in the remote depths of eastern Alaska - filled with river crossings, swampy “bogs”, alpine tundra, lush green forests, glacier travel, and more. We were lucky that our friends Kelly and Austin agreed to join us on this Alaska adventure and I think it’s safe to say - this was one of those trips of a lifetime we’ll all look back on. It wouldn’t be complete without its series of challenges though - the first of which started before the four of us even left Denver.
When our plane landed in Denver it suffered from a flat tire, requiring the plane to be towed to the gate and then put on jacks to remove and replace both the tire and wheel. All of this required maintenance led to a 5 hour delay that set us on a more time-crunched itinerary to make a dent in our journey to eastern Alaska. The arrival into Anchorage was beautiful - flying along Glacier Bay National Park with clear visibility to see the huge glaciers - culminating in the ocean. We even flew by Mount St. Elias, a peak that reaches over 18000 feet. The scale was hard to comprehend.
After quickly picking up bear spray and fuel in Anchorage, we were on the road - heading East. We were fortunate to capture sunset at a beautiful vista overlooking a very prominent peak - right from the side of the road. It was a beautiful sunset, but also gave us our first indication of just how bad the bugs would be on our 6-day backpacking adventure. We camped near the Copper River and experienced first-hand how popular salmon fishing on the Copper River really is. We couldn’t believe how many people were out fishing at midnight in the land of the midnight sun - or that people were ripping dirt bikes around the camping area at 1 am, but that’s a different story entirely. The unexplained noises continued when we were woken up around 3 am by someone revving their car engine, screaming, and honking about the biggest fish they’d ever caught. It’s safe to say we would be very ready to be camping in the backcountry the next night instead of right along the Copper River.
The drive became more and more rural, but we were thankfully able to find coffee and pastries in the parking lot upon arrival to our destination and we were able to double and triple check our packing lists before meeting our pilots. We ventured over to the air taxi service and it turned out, our pilot was also from Colorado. The plane sat two people and the pilot - so we needed to take two trips. Grady and I went first. Our pilot encouraged me to sit up front and Grady to sit in the back because the photography would be better out of that window. After a quick safety nod to the important switches, we were well on our way up in the air - venturing into the backcountry. It was wild because there were two sets of controls and every time the pilot would hit the pedals or move the yoke - it would move in front of me too. I tried to keep my feet tucked under me and my hands as far away from the yoke as possible!
The flight was incredible. Our pilot’s knowledge was also enlightening as he described to us that the glacier was over 1000 feet deep and the furthest reaches of the glacier we were seeing were almost 25 miles away.. It’s hard to comprehend the scale of it all.
When it came time to land, our pilot calmly said, “This will be a little abrupt” and we proceeded to bounce down the gravel landing strip like a bouncy ball. We waited at the air strip for our pilot to go back and fly in Kelly and Austin. The time was well spent because we were able to chat with a guided group flying out that day who had done a similar itinerary. We compared notes on a few critical parts of the route and were happy to have been able to learn a few tips from them. On a route with no trails, it’s great to have a little inside baseball.
The bugs were really bad at the landing strip - which wasn’t giving us a warm and fuzzy feeling about how the bugs would be the rest of the trip, but thankfully - they were hit or miss. We started the bushwacking early - within the first 10 minutes - as we tried to make our way to our first river crossing. We thought this would be the most involved river crossing, but it turns out this one was manageable and others were far more complex than expected. The river braided out near where we crossed - keeping the segments shorter and lower flow. The glacial water was frigid as it touched our feet, but we soon came to terms with the fact our feet would be numb and wet for a while.
The bushwacking continued as we tried to follow along the edge of the river. The river bank disappeared for a while, pushing us inland, but we wish we had stayed closer to the river given it may have helped us avoid some of the dense bushwacking. We finally emerged out of the thicket and to a larger section of the river near the terminal moraine of a glacier - giving us a great spot to relax for a few minutes before our first big, uphill push. We continued up, up, and more up until we could see a large waterfall and make out the ridge in the distance we were aiming for. Given there is no defined route, we used our best judgment to pick our headings and occasionally would find little sections of social trails. The views kept getting better and better as we continued to ascend the ridge - culminating in an incredible view from our camp spot.
We were camping in grizzly country every night of this trip so we followed the “triangle rule” where your cooking, food storage, and camping areas are separated like the vertices of a triangle - no shorter than 100 yards apart from the other vertices. We began calling our cooking area the dining room and the name stuck for the remainder of the trip. The clear blue water tasted so refreshing - so much so, that we were tempted not to even filter it. We made Angel Hair Pasta for dinner and taught Kelly and Austin how to play Casino. We couldn’t remember the rules for scoring the face cards, but made something up to get by. It was a gorgeous sunset - albeit, at nearly 11pm and after a long first day of the journey, we all slept for 12 hours.
Our second day was planned to be our shortest day of distance so we had a lazy morning around camp - with savored coffee and breakfast. We took our time for a short day of hiking up to the top of that “zone” so that we could soak in all of the variations of the views. We found another great campsite and some areas to explore - including an upper lake and a big bluff above the lake for more expansive views. We finally tried the famous Skurka Beans and Rice recipe for dinner - and we understand why there are bumper stickers made about this meal now. It’s that good. Our lack of knowledge of the scoring for the face cards in Casino was driving us crazy - so we used one of our Garmin InReach texts to fire off a rules question to Nate, the expert in Casino and most other card games. He understood the assignment and replied in 160 characters or less - saving us from further confusion about the rules.
Grady and Austin woke up early for sunrise on the bluff. They were back down by 7 am for all of us to have breakfast together and we soon learned from pictures how beautiful of a sunrise they were able to experience that morning. I was proud of the oatmeal varieties I crafted for this trip where each day had a different, unique combination of flavors. Oatmeal is one of the backpacking staples that you can quickly tire of, but I think some variety in flavor and texture goes a long way.
Day three was projected to be a longer day - with two potential camp spots scouted out ahead of time and marked on our maps. We hiked up to the top of the pass, taking a quick break for a photo and some water. Little did we know, this break would become very consequential as I dropped my bear spray off of my hip pocket when taking off my backpack and lost the bear spray. At this point in the trip, we were down to 3/4 bear sprays. We were hoping that we didn’t continue losing them at this rate! The first several miles of the third day involved a lot of side-hilling along steep slopes and intermittent bushwacking. The wild flowers were breaktaking though.
Our earliest river crossings on the day were thigh-high and we felt like we had accomplished the crux. We left our Chacos on in preparation for the next projected river crossing, but that was a mistake... The next section included scree fields, snow fields, and dense bushwhacking through down willow trees. Our feet were scratched, sore, and later - we realized we actually got small amounts of poison ivy. Good news was that the dense willow tree navigation gave us plenty of time to perfect our bear deterrence sounds. Mine became “Wideeee load, coming through!” Austin and Kelly tag-teamed, “Hey Bear, Oh Bear” and Grady stuck with just “Hey Bear”. It was a little symphony in the brush.
We crossed the river via a snow bridge because we believed we needed to be on that side of the river based on the steep, cliff-like nature of the side we had been traveling on. From there, we continued up the left side of the river until that was no longer feasible. We sought out an opportunity to cross the river via a tributary in the braided part of the river. The first part of the river was about thigh-high with decent flow, but the second part of the crossing was scarier. It was over waist deep for me and Kelly with a very strong current - especially in the last part of the crossing which also happened to be the deepest section. Austin and Grady bravely went first, dropped their packs, and came back to help me and Kelly. We unstrapped packs and I went first - with Austin upstream to break the current and Grady downstream to help in case of a fall. It was challenging and after a slip near the end where we all started sliding and Austin lost a pole - I was not in the best mental state - but was thrilled when I was finally out of the water. The crossing with Kelly went more smoothly and Grady was able to catch her when she started to slip a bit. At this point, we were all safely across and we were thrilled to be through that part. It was probably the upper limit of what we could safely navigate.
We decided to switch back to boots as we learned our lesson the hard way early in the day by wearing chacos a bit too long. This next section involved tons of horrible bushwacking and side-hilling on 40 degree scree slopes. The biggest challenge here was whether or not we should cross the river again on a snow bridge - trusting that there would be a route on the steep slopes on the opposite side or if we should continue through the known, terrible bushwacking. After some deliberation, the group voted to continue. We moved at approximately 100 yards / hour during the most dense sections. It was horrible. We had to crawl through some parts where the trees were sideways and there was no option to downclimb because it led to a deep, gushing part of the river with no river bank. After many hours in the deep brush, we finally made it to camp. The group was happy to be there, but quiet after the mental toll that the day had taken on us. We made food and went immediately to sleep.
The day of the Glacier crossing had arrived. The Glacier was over 3 miles wide and 1000 ft deep - it’s hard to comprehend the scale. We made our way to the Glacier past a seasonal lake that was dried up, but the icebergs remained. We wandered around within the icebergs - careful not to step beneath the looming ice chunks. We already thought that the icebergs were cool, but that was nothing compared to wait awaited us on the glacier. We charged ahead, but quickly were put into another critical decision making point - Do we go straight and try to round the corner? Or do we go up and over the 1200 ft vertical wall next to us?
We weren’t sure the right approach, but the route around the corner did not look safe so we opted to retrace our steps to see if there were any indications of a better route. We found a little use trail that appeared to head up and over. It was overgrown, but well trodded, probably because this was a crux in the route where all travelers had to pass the same way. This approach brought us above treeline where the “trail” quickly turned into some loose foot prints above a scree field. I did not like this section because of the exposed scree, but Grady stayed near me on each of these sections, and Austin with Kelly, and the four of us pushed through - with only a little concerned whimpering on the way across.
The top of the route greeted us with more dense bushes - of course! All of it was worth it though when we emerged into a spectacular, panoramic view looking down over the glacier. The descent was much more manageable. We made up some time and had a restful lunch at a small lake before embarking on the glacier.
When we entered the glacier we were careful to choose the best route to ascend the lateral moraine. We knew that route finding would not be trivial and we’d need to do some trial and error to find the best way across, but we did know that there was a safe way across and had some intel from the park rangers about the headings to take to find that safe route.
We didn’t expect the medial moraines to prove so challenging as we thought those would predominantly be scree or boulder fields. In reality they were scree fields with sneaky ice under the scree and gushing rivers embedded throughout. Crossing the little streams in the glacier was okay, but the rivers were a different beast.
We started to venture north to avoid the steep walls with wide glacial rivers to cross of unknown depth. It seemed to be impassable. Our route was to go South, but we tried to look for the least difficult route across - and finally, after approximately 30 minutes of detouring we found a safe place to cross the glacial river. From there, onto the white ice we went.
We thought that the white ice of the glacier would be undulating, but provide a relatively straight forward path to follow. Unfortunately, we were wrong on that account mostly because we did not account for more rivers on the glacier. The glacial rivers were like ice slides with water raging and sending the water down into deep holes in the glacier. We jokingly said it looked like something out of Ice Age, but in reality - they weren’t something to joke about. We started calling them death holes. On our next section of white ice, we had to cross yet another glacial river. We continued to go north with the glacier appearing to be more crevassed to the south. 150 yards more… 150 yards more... the detour seemed endless. Finally, right before turning around, we found a spot we felt confident that we could cross. The jump to the first rock was too big for me and Kelly to tackle alone, but Grady and Austin stood on rocks along the way to provide some extra hands and support. We all made it across & captured a few cool pics along the way.
Unfortunately, more challenges awaited us on the other side of the river. We ascended the next moraine and down onto the last section of white ice. We thought that we would be done with the rivers, but we found another river that required us to boost each other up to cross. The saga continued, this time with the next glacial river a bit wider, but much shallower. We decided to put micro spikes on our Chacos since this one appeared to be one we could cross with ease. It yielded some great branding photos for @Chacos (Sponsor us!?).
At this point, we hit the “flat walkout” we were promised, but it wasn’t quite so flat. We did hit a good stride on the white ice and found a safe route. We made up some time and finally arrived to camp around 9 pm. It was a relief that we could move more quickly in this section as we were starting to get worried about time after all of the unexpected obstacles on the glacier. After another delicious dinner, we all promptly went to sleep. It was a mentally and physically demanding day as our 5 mile off trail day turned into 10 miles of off trail glacial travel.
Our fifth day involved hiking up to a vista that we had scouted for a photo. We anticipated hiking up there and camping for the night so we could shoot sunrise photos near this location. We knew that it would create a longer exit for ourselves the next day, but we determined it was worth it. Plus, there was a strong appeal for a 2-3 mile day after the adventure of the previous day.
We traveled through scree, more bushwhacking (surprise, surprise), and through a small murky stream. Unfortunately, the streams we anticipated being near the camp site were all dry so we did not feel comfortable camping up there with no water source. We saw bear scat, but no grizzlies so we kept making a lot of noise as we traversed around - double checking for any potential water sources. We took some daytime photos at this beautiful vista - which ended up far surpassing expectations.
We decided to hike back down and continue past our camp site of the past night to make our exit shorter the next day. Most of that was smooth, other than Austin taking an unexpected dip in the murky river. From there, we experienced a lot of squanchy soil in the marshy areas between the lakes. The deep brush in this area made it more challenging and we made a ton of noise because we were very worried about bears in the marshy, brushy area near the lake. Wet feet and socks were unavoidable at this point. There was no trail so we kept heading in the right direction, but no matter which way we deviated - the swamp seemed to get worse. At one point, we had to cross a thigh-deep, black, swampy river and that was not fun. The mucky soil made us glad to be wearing thick boots - despite our wet feet, wet pants, and wet boots - except for Kelly who bravely scouted ahead in her Chacos. I really think this trip should be an advertisement for Chacos.
Kelly almost stepped into 6 ft deep murky water thinking it wasn’t very deep, but thankfully checked the depth with her trekking pole at the last minute. We did not make that mistake again and checked all depths with the poles before crossing! After exiting the swampy situation we re-gained a bit of a use trail and things improved from there. We started to make up some time and ramped up our bear calls as we felt like we were deep in grizzly country. We pushed past the final lake and the last remaining distance to get to a food locker area where we had decided to camp. It was the first sign of civilization in 5 days and yet we only saw one other person at camp. He said that the area we had just hiked through is notorious for bear sightings - so we’re glad we made as much noise as we did. After the long previous days, this nearly 10 mile off-trail day took a toll on our legs, but we were rewarded by a dinner of Skurka Beans and Rice, tea time with friends, and a few games of cards - the perfect relaxing end to the day.
We had a magical start to the sixth day. We entered the glacier for the final glacier crossing at sunrise - just as the sun was peaking up behind the mountains bordering the glacier. The ice was noticeably harder and firmer than the day before - a clear effect of the sun on the top layer of ice as the day goes on. The glacier crossing on our final day was far more along the lines of what we expected for white ice glacial crossing - it was undulating, but straight forward route finding and all rivers were avoidable. This was honestly a really fun glacier crossing, with beautiful ice formations and many moulins (the ones we were calling death holes). This was a no-stress glacier crossing, unlike the glacier two days ago, but the blue and white ice was spectacular.
We made quick progress - motivated by curly fries at the one local restaurant in town. Our last two miles, after exiting the glacier, were on trail and we were shocked to see so many tour groups who had come out to see the toe of the glacier. We noticed how good they all smelled, which was probably an indication of just how bad all four of us smelled. We caught the van back into town and celebrated with beers, sandwiches, and mounds of curly fries.
This restaurant has their own beer brewed specifically for them at a brewery in Anchorage. The vibe at the restaurant was immaculate and sitting on the front porch gave us a little peek into life in this town - with people driving around on ATVs with dogs in boxes on the back. The winter population of this town is 30-40 people and we are strongly convinced that one of the men there at lunch with a very long, curly beard is one of those brave souls who survived the winters there.
We made our way back to Anchorage, stopping at an airbnb for showers, beds, and a home cooked pasta dinner in Palmer. We all think we ate more than 2000 calories of pasta each for dinner, but it was exactly the evening we all needed. In the morning, the eating train continued with Austin drinking jet fuel coffee and Grady eating 25+ pancakes. From there, we drove down to Seward to spend some time on the coast. We enjoyed a beautiful drive down the Turnegein arm to head towards a one-night backpacking trip near the coast.
It’s funny how nonchalant we have become about one-night backpacking trips. We packed up quickly and left the car within 5 minutes - starting the hike up around 5 pm. The campsite was beautiful and we played lots of games of Hearts and Euchre. The next day we enjoyed delicious drive-through coffee and even more spectacular local seafood in Seward. Once back in Anchorage, we killed some time at our favorite secondhand store called the Hoarding Marmot and celebrated the end of the trip with pizza at Moose’s Tooth. It was an unforgettable adventure and it’s no wonder they call Alaska the Last Frontier - its vast, wild, landscapes are unmatched.