WESTERN
MENTASTAS
HIGHLINE
Multi Day
- Backpacking
- Advanced
Explore the wild country of the north side!
Explore the even less-traveled side of Wrangell – St. Elias by taking the Nabesna Road to the north side of the Park. The brightly colorful rock of the Mentasta Mountains welcomes hikers with expansive views, open hiking, and good chances of wildlife sightings. Spend time packing together with your guide and exploring the area on a half-day hike. Ease into the wilderness by car-camping on the Nabesna Road before heading into the backcountry.
Hike out a 4-wheeler track into the backcountry, then get off-trail and into the soft and beautiful tundra of the alpine. Gaining impressive elevation, travel high up on an epic ridgeline – marmots, sheep, and ground squirrels making frequent appearances along the way. Views change frequently as you weave in and out of wildflower-filled valleys and up and over rocky passes. Make your way down a rocky creek bed and back into the cover of the aspen and spruce forest and look for blueberries along the way!
- Scenic ridge walking with panoramic views
- Open alpine tundra trekking with little brush
- Challenging elevation gain and mileage
- Explore the Nabesna Road and the north side of the Wrangell – St. Elias National Park
- Easy logistics for those with a rental vehicle
Trip Details
Trip Length
5 days
(4 days backpacking)
Total Mileage
28mi
Total Elevation Gain/Loss
8,000’
Rates
Private Solo
$5,425
Private 2 Participant
$2,890/person
Private 3-6 Participants
$1,790/person
Private 7-8 Participants/Group
$1,410/person
Group Trip Date
August 2 – 6, 2025
Private Trips with custom dates are available. Book the dates that look best to you or call our Expedition Coordinator to plan your trip today!
The “Alaska Factor”
There is a reason Alaska has such a rugged allure for the lower 48 and beyond: it is still wild! This raw and untamed landscape offers our clients the opportunity to authentically pioneer new territory and have real adventures. Part of embracing the “Alaska Factor” is understanding that things may not always go as planned and expecting the unexpected. Water levels might rise, snow might fall, glaciers may shift and move – the landscape is dynamic and unpredictable is what makes Alaska, Alaska!
All of our trips are customized as they unfold and your guide will fluidly make decisions based on weather, logistics, and group dynamics to maximize each day’s experience. There can be quite a bit of variation, but on each trip we promise a big slice of the real Alaska and authentic adventure!
DAY 1
DAY 2
After an efficient and delicious breakfast, we’ll pack up our camp and leave all luxuries in the van for the next 4 days. We’ll start down a 4×4 track into the woods until eventually, we peel off the trail and into the wilderness! We’re starting off with a big day of elevation gain (about 3k’) as we make our way all the way up to the high ridge. Watch the landscape change from shady forest to tundra to rocks at the top of today’s highpoint and take in the glorious views from up high! Descend into the valley beyond and find the perfect place to camp near a crystal clear stream.
DAY 3
Sleeping in this morning and taking your time, stretch those legs out over a strong cup of coffee and a sizeable breakfast – you have two passes to hit today! But don’t let that scare you as today’s mileage will be the shortest on the trip. Keeping a comfortable pace and allowing for exploration along the way, we’ll follow the landscape’s cues through this secret world of wilderness. Keep your binoculars handy as you crest the next rise for sightings of sheep, bear, and eagles above and below. End the day at the top of a long creek drainage and enjoy the dramatic views from camp.
DAY 4
Morning brings the smells of fresh coffee and another delicious breakfast prepared by your guide. Today you’ll make your way up to gain the final elevation of the route – the last mountain pass brings you int a stunning creek drainage. Make your way down past a huge waterfall and into a white-walled canyon. Following the creek down can be tricky and may require some back and forth through the creek as you descend. A game trail leads to the perfect camping spot for your final backcountry night. Enjoy a final dinner with your guide as you laugh the night away, high on the adventure of the last few days.
DAY 5
Packing up camp, you’ll wonder if you really need to leave today…but a shower calls! A short hike will get us back to the van and then we’re back on the road! Back to Gulkana by late afternoon, you’ll have plenty of time to travel to your next destination today. Waving goodbye to your guide, your head is still in the clouds, high up on that ridgeline…
- Customized trip planning
- Logistics consultation*
- Your professional guide(s) – 4:1 ratio
- Orientation and a Gear Shakedown
- Van transportation from Gulkana Airport to the trailhead and back
- All the food on the trip (starting with lunch on Day 1 and ending with lunch on Day 5)
- Group gear (bear canisters, cookware, fuel, tents**)
*Upgrade to a Trip Package and have logistics included with your trip!
**We recommend that you bring your own tent if possible
What’s not included?
- Gratuities
- Personal camping and hiking gear
- Additional Logistics
Your guide will meet you at 10am at the Gulkana Airport. If you drove a vehicle, they’ll show you where you can stow it for the trip or you can caravan with our van to Nabesna. We will drive together from Gulkana to Nabesna and car camp along the Nabesna Road for our first night of camping. We will do our Orientation and Gear Shakedown at the car camping site.
Upon return from the backcountry, we’ll aim to be back in the van by Noon and back to Gulkana by 1:30pm with a quick lunch ready to go by 1:45pm. You can plan to travel onward by 2pm. Gulkana is about 10min from Glennallen, at the intersection of the Glenn and Richardson Highways. From here you can head north toward the Denali Highway and Fairbanks, South toward Copper Center, Chitina, McCarthy/Kennecott, and Valdez, or west to Anchorage.
Check out our Transport+ Lodging page for more details on planning your logistics for this trip.
Trip Package
If you are planning your trip +2 months before your trip start date, upgrade to a Trip Package! A Trip Package will include transportation to/from McCarthy, local lodging, and any other local activities you’re interested in. We charge a non-refundable $50 Trip Package fee per person for this service.
Outside of a Trip Package, we can also help arrange group transportation between Anchorage and Gulkana.
This is a Advanced Backpacking Trip. 
On our Advanced Trips, we will be completely off-trail trail for the entirety of the trip, traversing some combination of steep and rocky slopes, tussocky and squishy tundra, loose and dynamic moraine, thick brush and/or slick glacial ice in crampons – all of it uneven and hilly. On these trips, you will cover 6-10mi/day with up to 2500’ of elevation gain/loss while carrying your own gear along with a portion of the group gear (total pack weights usually come in at 40-50lbs). We highly recommend starting physical training in preparation for Moderate trips 2-3 months in advance. These trips are great for very fit hikers or backpackers with at least four +3-day trips under their belts, but honestly, the more experience you have, the better prepared you will be for the “Alaska factor”!
GALLERY
GET IN TOUCH
WITH AN EXPEDITION
COORDINATOR!
FAQ
Wrangell – St. Elias National Park is home to both black bears and grizzly bears and we are honored to share our home with such majestic animals. We treat the bears with respect and do our best to maintain their wild environment and nature. The bears out here are truly very wild and have very little contact with humans – this means that they are naturally afraid of us! Yes, even grizzlies! Bears do not hunt humans and our most common bear sighting is of a bear’s butt as they run away.
Although bear sightings may be exciting, we do our best to avoid close encounters with preventative measures at camp and while hiking that our guides will share with you. Just in case of unusually close encounters, our guides carry flare guns (to scare a bear away) and pepper spray (in case of an uncomfortably close meeting). It is very uncommon to have to use either.
If you want to, you can bring your own bear spray too, however, know that your guide has one and has been trained on how to use it. With 40 years of guiding in the Park, we have found that being bear aware, taking preventative measures and the flare gun and pepper spray to be sufficient mitigations.
Please refrain from bringing firearms with you on our trips. Not only does this make our other guests and guides uncomfortable, but they are also completely unnecessary for bear safety. We know that other areas of Alaska may recommend firearms for bear safety, but we specifically recommend against them.
We pride ourselves on cooking healthy and delicious meals even under the most adverse conditions! Your exact menu will depend on the trip, your guide, and the dietary preferences/restrictions you list in your Trip Application. No matter what kind of cook your guide is at home, all our guides are well-trained backcountry chefs and use time-tested recipes from our proprietary cookbook for their trips. We carry a plentiful and varied stock of ingredients and most meals are prepared from scratch (allowing for easy substitutions, additions or subtractions of ingredients). We onlyt use pre-packed freeze-dried meals on summit pushes on our mountaineering expeditions.
On our backpacking and basecamp trips, you can expect 3 meals a day, plus snacks of your choice. Breakfasts and dinners are usually hot meals and lunches are served cold. On mountaineering trips lunches consist of a variety of snacks as it can be hard to organize group meals while on a rope team.
We use a combination of fresh, dehydrated, and freeze-dried ingredients to make our delicious meals, however on longer backpacking and mountaineering trips your guides will use more freeze-dried foods than fresh foods to keep pack weights as low as possible. On our rafting trips, we cook full multi-course meals with fresh ingredients and enjoy hot and cold breakfasts, cold lunches and hot dinners.
Meals for most trips start with Lunch on the first day and end with Lunch on the last day. *
*If you are signed up for a Custom Trip Package with us, it may include more meals. Check with us if you’re not sure. Mountaineering trips also include meals in McCarthy before and after the backcountry expedition.
We understand that you may have luggage or things you don’t want to bring into the backcountry with you so we have a designated area at our headquarters where your guide will label and store your stuff while you’re out. This area is not locked, however, we have never had any issues with loss or damage. If you have a small item of great value that you are particularly nervous about, we may be able to store it in our office for you – just ask your guide.
On the Chitina River, Copper River, Source to Sea, or Custom Trips with different start and end points, any luggage you leave behind with us will be brought out to meet you at the end of the trip.
