Days 1-2
Flying into Anchorage and the staggeringly rustic Alaskan landscape, you’ll quickly come to understand why this land has been labeled "America’s Last Frontier." Exiting your plane, you’ll be quickly greeted by your leaders and the rest of you fellow venturers. Between your new untamed wilderness surroundings and the beaming excitement of your teammates, you’ll quickly see what a stupendous time you have in store for yourself. Leaving the airport, we’ll travel only a few minutes until we reach our first campsite just outside of Anchorage. There it’s basically just a time for learning and hanging out. Learning how to set up our tents, learning about our Alaskan expedition to come, and learning about each other.Days 3-14
The morning of our third day together marks our departure into the Talkeetna Range wilderness! Starting by backpacking into the interior of the Talkeetnas for the first ten days, we’ll learn a lot of important skills and practices that are necessary for traveling comfortably through the backcountry wilderness. While learning things like minimum impact camping, as well as map and compass skills, we’ll be taking the ‘road less traveled’ and trek mostly off-trail through the remarkable alpine tundra. Once we’ve navigated our way through the wilderness and we reach the headwaters of the Chickaloon, we’ll be greeted by our professional rafting guides. For the next two days, we’ll float out of the wilderness through astoundingly gorgeous landscape and also through some pretty exhilarating whitewater. While en-route, we’ll enjoy the simple life of living on the river, relaxing, eating awesome meals, and absorbing the views. After we’ve gotten off of our rafts for this segment of our journey, we’ll grab showers and do some laundry.Days 15-16
Our next two days are spent in Anchorage primarily in preparation for our next adventure, ice climbing and glacier trekking in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park! But while in the city, we’ll still take advantage of some of the cultural and historical attractions such as the Native Heritage Cultural Center. Our next stop will be McCarthy, Alaska. There we’ll be greeted by our ice-climbing guides as well as take time to do some final packing for our extraordinary glacier trek!Days 17-26
Today we take to the Wrangell-St. Elias Range and its amazing glaciers! For our first days spent there, we’ll explore the rustic wilderness that comprises this incredible area. Next we’ll explore the ice formations that reside in this glacially sculpted mountain range, an ideal location for us to learn the basics of glacier travel. While trekking across the vibrant blue ice formation we’ll learn about things like crampon and ice axe techniques. For three of our days spent here, we’ll even take the opportunity to climb the Root Glacier! A striking glacial formation, we’ll take the time to truly understand how it came to be as we make our ascent on Donoho Peak. A great accomplishment for this leg of our journey, after we’ve scaled our way to the summit, we’ll head back towards civilization for showers and laundry.Days 27-28
Our next stop is Valdez, Alaska. From there we’ll hop on a ferry and cross the glacier-strewn Prince William Sound over to the historic town of Whittier. While we’re on the water, there’s a great chance we’ll see some of the local wildlife, such as eagles, seals, and maybe even some Orca whales! We’ll even take some time to relax and get ourselves prepared for our next jaunt through the Alaskan landscape.Days 29-34
Since we’re already right on the Prince William Sound, we might as well take advantage and hop in some sea kayaks and go explore the ‘Barry Arm’ of this great water-way! For our next seven days, our team will discover the hidden intricacies of the area. Paddling between our own private secluded campsites each day, we’ll be neighbors to these imposing masses of ice as well as observe frolicking seals and soaring eagles. And as we set up camp and retire to bed each night, we’ll fall asleep listening to nothing else but the cool Alaskan breeze and the sound of calving glaciers. After our last day of kayaking is through, we’ll hop on a boat that will taxi us back to Whittier. From there we’ll make our way, once again, back to Anchorage for showers and laundry.Days 35-36
Once we’ve arrived back in the ‘big city’ of Anchorage, we’ll assemble one last time for our delectable trip-closing banquet. Served in true Alaskan style, we’ll eat, laugh, and reminisce about our incredible quest that seemed to have just started only days ago. As we board our planes home, we’ll have to make some hard goodbyes, but it’s not so bad when you know you’ll always have a lifetime of memories and new friends to hold on to.
