Alaska is America’s largest and most remote state, a vast landscape of mountains, glaciers, forests, tundra, and Arctic wilderness. With relatively few people spread across such an enormous area, much of Alaska still feels like it belongs more to the wildlife than to us.
People travel here from around the world for the wilderness, northern lights, wildlife, and some of the most spectacular scenery in North America. Alaska also offers incredible fishing, kayaking, hiking, and world-class mountaineering, with huge areas of the state remaining roadless and difficult to reach.
The first time I ever stepped foot in Alaska wasn’t really a trip at all. I was in the Marines and our plane broke down on the way to Japan, leaving us with an unexpected stop in near Anchorage. I was able to walk around the city for a day, but as we never knew when we might be departing I never had the chance to truly explore. A decade later, I returned and spent four weeks climbing Denali, America’s only 6,000 meter peak. Seven years after that, I returned to see the northern lights in Fairbanks.
My first real trip came in May 2009, when I returned with a much bigger objective: climbing Denali, the highest mountain in North America. Unfortunately, terrible weather kept us on the mountain much longer than expected, and by the time I came down I didn’t have enough time left to explore much more of the state.
Alaska is one of those places where I’ve barely scratched the surface. These are the places I’ve explored so far.
Explore Fairbanks
Fairbanks sits deep in Alaska’s interior and serves as a gateway to some of the state’s most remote adventures. Its location beneath the auroral oval also makes it one of the best places in the world to see the northern lights. I visited in the depths of winter, when temperatures plunged to around -40°F, finally seeing the aurora after years of trying—and discovering that watching the lights actually move across the sky was far more impressive than I had imagined.
Explore Anchorage
Anchorage is Alaska’s largest city and the main population center in a state otherwise dominated by wilderness. Even here, mountains and the natural landscape never feel very far away.
Winters are long, dark, and cold, but they also bring opportunities to see the northern lights and experience Alaska at its most wintry. Summer is completely different, with extremely long days, warmer temperatures, and seemingly endless daylight for exploring the outdoors.
Explore Denali
At 20,310 feet (6,190 meters), Denali is the highest mountain in North America and one of the Seven Summits. It rises dramatically above the surrounding Alaskan wilderness, with roughly 18,000 feet of vertical relief from its base to summit.
I came to Alaska in 2009 to climb Denali by the West Buttress Route. For weeks we hauled enormous loads across glaciers, climbed through deep snow and extreme cold, and waited through some of the worst mountain weather I had ever experienced.
Denali became far more than another mountain on my Seven Summits list. It was one of the longest and most difficult expeditions I had attempted, and easily the biggest part of my experience in Alaska so far.
