Alaska 2026

It's raining out, I'm resting my foot, and I'm tired of trying and failing to fix my refrigerator. So I'm going to write blog posts. 

You'll probably remember that I went to Alaska in June. I already wrote summary thoughts (which, thank you, dear reader, engendered multiple comments) but I'll put everything here and re-organize it as well.

I flew to Fairbanks and took the Dalton Highway Express (DHE) shuttle ~12 hours north to the Brooks Range. It's not as bad as it sounds. Yes, the road was bumpy, but every single other passenger was a fellow adventurer, and the drivers had interesting Alaska experience, so I enjoyed it. (I do wish one guy had shut up for a single moment, but it was still fun despite his non-stop inane comments.) 

I backpacked about 80 miles in 6 full days, went over five 5,000' passes (one of which was over 6,000), plus a couple other lower ones. I didn't see much wildlife, except for this cute fox after I was done hiking and waiting for the shuttle back to Fairbanks:


I wish I'd been able to do a bigger loop, instead of kind of finishing early and having a down day, but that's the way the weather-cookie crumbled. I had a bigger loop planned, but I'm pretty sure the extra miles and the 6,800' and 6,300' passes would not have been doable in the time I had. 

I also wish I'd been been able to use PTO more efficiently. DHE has shuttles twice a week. Northbound Tuesday and Saturday. But they leave at 6AM, so you have to get there the day before, and you kind of have to get there during business hours so you can make sure to get bear spray and camping fuel locally (which you can't carry on a plane). Traveling from the east coast, that's two days right there. It would probably feel a little better if instead of Tuesday-up and following Wednesday-down, I'd done Saturday up and following Wednesday-down, but carrying that much food is tough. Or Saturday up and following Sunday down might be able to make it work a little better with PTO? I don't know. The more time the better, and the better weather, the better. Duh.

I had fun
 

 

Day 0: Drive Up. Fairbanks to Chandalar Shelf shuttle and a couple miles of hiking. A little bit stressed out since I'm really going solo, my pack is too heavy, and GPS wasn't working. It all ended up fine!

Northern Hawk Owl from the Dalton Highway

Sukakpak Peak from the Dalton Highway

Dropped off at the Chandalar Shelf airstrip

Day 1: One Pass

Snow at the pass, but it wasn't too bad. This is going to work. 

First pass, 5,600'

Day 2: Three Passes 

A gorgeous lake on the Divide, then two more climbs for a long day.



 

Day 3:  High Pass in a Storm

A nice day along Your Creek, then a climb to the high point of my trip and a brief white out at the pass.



Fog rolling in, the end of good weather

Day 4: Gray Day along the River

Flat hiking along the river with ice floes.



Day 5: Easy Day

I meditated on a nice low pass and decided which way to go. 


 

Day 6: Last Pass in Torrential Rain 

It rained all night and all the next morning. The rivers were muddy and raging, and side streams were barely crossable, but I made it back to the highway. 




I made it back to the higway
 

Day 7: Pipeline hitch-hiking 

I tried hitch-hiking but the weather was bad and there were very few civilian vehicles so I also sat in a DOT gravel shed and tried to stay warm. 

  

This might be the furthest north Spruce tree


 Here's an album of all my favorite photos. Enjoy. I also wrote some thoughts on where I might go next.

 

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