Category: Backpacking Trips

This is the 100th Anniversary of our great National Parks established within the framework of the National Park Service Organic Act of 1916.  Since their inception, millions of people from around the world have been humbled standing in arenas of mountains, trees and rivers forever protected from the crush of humanity. “(NPS)which purpose is to conserve the scenery and the […]

Twenty years ago, Tabitha and I took our first backpacking trip together. The rest is a love story and thus a lifetime of partnership exploring some of the wildest places in Alaska and the world.  That first trip included hanging our backpacks and ourselves on the hand tram across the creek to McCarthy and an arduous trip to Nikolai Pass. […]

I now understand why Chuck Comstock raved about the White Mountains which are located northeast of Fairbanks.  Comstock and I served in the Coast Guard together in Valdez and after his discharge he wandered off to Fairbanks to get a degree in Geology and a residency at the Sandvik House, the hub of the climbing community in that part of […]

The Amphitheater Mountains lie as a unique subset of gentle peaks to the south of the Alaska Range along the eastern Denali Highway. Most of the range lies in the Tangle Lakes Archeological District managed by the BLM folks in Glennallen.  The area has a few marked ATV trails to poach that make for excellent mountain biking. Tangle Lakes also […]

The Gulkana Glacier is one of three benchmark glaciers in the United States that the US Geological Survey have been monitoring since 1971. The “mass balance” of the Gulkana has been calculated at different times in an ongoing study about the effects of our dependence on fossil fuels and the related global warming crisis. Of course, the irony of hiking […]

Twenty years ago, Tabitha and I took our first backpacking trip together out of McCarthy. That was an arduous five-day trek to Nicolai Pass. This past weekend we returned to celebrate that trip by exploring the Root Glacier. We were greeted by a much better road that makes the drive from Valdez doable in about four hours.  This would be Tabitha’s […]