Float the largest undisturbed watershed in North America, where the Brooks Range opens into a treeless arctic valley unchanged for millennia.
The floatplane banks hard over a granite ridge and the valley opens below us. A ribbon of turquoise water winds through green tundra, flanked by mountains streaked with late snow. The pilot points out the window toward a blue lake tucked against the edge of the valley. That’s Pingo Lake. That’s where we’re going.
Two hours ago we were drinking coffee in Bettles, a village of maybe 50 people accessible only by air. Now we’re threading through the Endicott Mountains, past the spires of the Arrigetch Peaks, with 8,510-foot Mt. Igikpak filling the horizon. The flight into the Noatak headwaters is worth the trip alone. When the pontoons touch down and the engine cuts, the silence is immediate and total.
This is Gates of the Arctic National Park. No roads. No trails. No cell service. Just the largest undisturbed watershed in North America and a week to explore it.
The Portage Ritual
The plane taxis to shore and we pile out, stacking drybags and packrafts on the tundra while the pilot turns for another load. Within minutes he’s airborne again, shrinking to a speck against the mountains, and we’re alone.
The first task is the portage. Pingo Lake sits about half a mile from the river, and everything we’ll need for the next week has to cross that distance on our backs. Drybags, food barrels, kitchen kit, rafts. We walk the route once to scout it, then start hauling. It takes a dozen trips each, two hours of steady work across spongy tundra. By the time we’ve assembled the packrafts on the gravel bar and set up camp, we’ve earned our dinner.
The portage is honest work. It’s also a transition. Somewhere in the repetition of hauling loads and picking routes across the tussocks, the world you left behind starts to fade. By the time you’re done, you’re fully in this place.
Into the Valley
The upper Noatak River moves at a pace that invites observation. Some sections barely have current; you paddle forward just to make progress. Others have enough push to let you drift, scanning the hillsides for movement. The water is impossibly clear, running over cobbles and gravel bars, cold enough that you feel it through your drysuit when you dip a hand over the side.
We don’t rush. The whole point is to be here, not to get somewhere. When someone spots sheep high on a ridge, we pull over and break out the binoculars. When a pool looks fishy, we stop and cast until we’ve caught enough grayling for dinner. The river is the thread; the country is the point.
On the second day, we leave the boats and climb the ridge north of camp. It’s a thousand feet of tussock slog through willows before the terrain opens into alpine tundra, then another thousand feet on sheep trails to the top. The view stretches for miles in every direction: the braided river below, snow peaks on the horizon, not a single sign of human presence. This is what 8.4 million acres of roadless wilderness looks like from above.
On the way down, we spot a grizzly grazing a hillside a quarter mile off. It looks up, considers us, and returns to digging. Good bear. We give it space and descend a different ridge.
Life on the River
Days blur into each other. The sun barely sets, dimming to a golden twilight around 2am before climbing again. We shift to an 11am-11pm schedule without deciding to, just following the light. Mornings are slow. Coffee, breakfast, breaking camp. Afternoons on the water. Evenings fishing, hiking, or sitting on a gravel bar watching the alpenglow climb the peaks.
The fishing is absurd. Grayling stack up in every deep pool, eager to hit small spinners or woolly buggers. The guides weren’t exaggerating when they said “slaying.” One afternoon I catch and release two dozen fish without moving more than fifty feet along the bank. Char and Dolly Varden are here too, though harder to find.
Camp life is simple. Gravel bars make the best kitchen sites: dry, breezy enough to keep bugs at bay, easy to leave without a trace. We cook over stoves, eat well, and talk until the light fades to dusk. Some nights a wolf howls somewhere up the valley. Some nights the only sound is the river.
Bugs? Yes. Arctic mosquitoes are legendary for a reason. But head nets and bug shirts handle them, and the gravel bars and ridgelines offer relief. It’s a small price for having the valley to yourself.
Matcharak Lake
On the last paddling day, we reach Lake Matcharak. The take-out isn’t obvious; we scout on foot to confirm we’re in the right place before committing. The portage to the lake is shorter than the put-in but wetter, crossing tussocks and small streams. Everyone hauls. By late afternoon, we’re camped on the lakeshore, boats stacked and ready for pickup.
Matcharak is more than a convenient floatplane beach. Archaeological sites here date back 7,000 years. People camped on these shores before the invention of the wheel, hunting caribou and fishing the same clear water we’ve been floating. The landscape hasn’t changed. Stand on the bluff above the lake at midnight and you’re seeing exactly what those hunters saw.
The floatplane arrives the next morning, buzzing low over our camp before circling to land. We load gear, climb aboard, and lift off over the valley. The river shrinks to a thin blue line, then disappears behind a ridge. Two hours later we’re back in Bettles, ordering burgers, trying to remember what day it is.
What Stays With You
People ask what the Noatak is like and I struggle to answer. It’s not one thing. It’s the quality of the silence after the plane leaves. It’s the grizzly grazing a hillside like cattle. It’s the midnight light on the peaks and the grayling rising to a fly and the ache in your shoulders after a long portage. It’s the feeling of being somewhere genuinely wild, not wild in a managed or compromised way, but wild the way places used to be.
The upper Noatak is one of the most intact river systems left in North America. Float it and you’ll understand why that matters.
Expeditions Alaska offers guided packraft trips on the upper Noatak River through Gates of the Arctic National Park. 5-7 days, small groups, all gear provided.
