Backpacking the Southern Traverse in Wrangell-St. Elias
I’ve been guiding backpacking trips in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park since 2002. We lead more backpacking trips here than anywhere else, and for good reason. Six million acres of glaciers, mountains, and valleys with almost no trails and fewer visitors than most people can believe. But if you asked me to name one route that captures what backpacking in Wrangell-St. Elias is really about, I’d pick the Southern Traverse every time.
Bremner Mines to Tebay Lakes. Roughly 10 to 12 days in the backcountry. Through the heart of the Chugach Range. No trails. No other people. Some of the best campsites I’ve seen anywhere.
It’s almost 20 years since we first guided this trip, and I’m still yet to see another person on the route ever. That’s pretty special.
The Southern Traverse may just be my favorite hike in the world.
The First Trip
We ran the first commercial guided trip on this route in 2008. One of the first groups of people to complete it, period. Mike, Sergei, Sveta, Geoff and Jodee. An awesome group of experienced hikers, adventurous all, and we had a blast.
Our flight in to Bremner was delayed nearly 24 hours due to weather, and when we finally did get in, a short hailstorm greeted us. We hiked the 25 minutes up to the Bremner Bunkhouse without too much chatting or laughing, all of us trying to keep tucked in from the hail. That pushed a unanimous decision to spend the night in the bunkhouse before heading out over the first pass in the morning.
A short snow flurry the following morning, then clearer weather after that. In fact, though we had cloud cover most of the time, we got almost no rain for the rest of the trip. Ten days. A little cloudy for great scenic photography, but the respite from precipitation was welcome.
The route is challenging at times, but enough long mellow stretches of easy hiking that we all enjoyed it.
One of the favorite sections is Harry’s Gulch, and the hiking a few miles east and west of it. A sweet section of mountain terrain. The bear trail up in the pass is incredible. A narrow path where individual footprints, embedded in the soil over millennia, reflect the steps of countless grizzly bears, each walking in the footprints of their predecessors.
The Klu River valley was the most scenic stretch for me. Wildflowers everywhere. Lupine in full bloom after hours of hiking over moraine and talus and through willow and dwarf birch. It’s always a treat to see a great bloom of alpine flowers, but never more so than after the rough stuff.
Finish was great. A quick bushwhack down to Tebay Falls, which are really something else. Stunning, powerful waterfall we could hike right up to. Spectacular blueberries along the way, particularly the nearer we got to Tebay Lakes
A relatively easy walk over to the lake for our final campsite.
I knew this trip would become a classic.
McCarthy Weather Delays
The year before, we’d hiked this route the other direction, Tebay to Bremner, with Sergei and Mark. The flight from McCarthy to the Tebay Lakes landing strip is a long one, nearly 45 minutes.
We took off from McCarthy in gloomy drizzly weather. Sergei had come out the previous year on a trip from Skolai to Wolverine and got absolutely nailed for 10 days with that kind of weather. The look on his face was “oh no, not again”.
We flew to within maybe 100 yards of the upper lake, where the landing strip is, before Don, pilot extraordinaire, turned around, saying “I’m not flying into THAT!” A blanket of fog lay in front of us, right over the lake, and there was simply no way through. A 90 minute flight-seeing trip.
Then we spent the rest of the day hanging around McCarthy, waiting to see if the weather would clear. Because we were at the whims of the weather, we couldn’t really go for a hike or anything. So we did the McCarthy tour. Ate at the Mercantile store, ate at the Potato, went back to the Merc for ice cream, had a latte back at the Potato, and talked to the good folks at Wrangell Mountain Air. Not an exciting day, but we did enjoy the ice cream.
It was something like 7pm before Don took off again with us in tow, and this time we made it all the way in. The flight is absolutely amazing, and it really was a treat that we got an extra one.
The following morning, the sun was shining, the clouds gone, and the mood changed markedly. Sergei smiled. We found some blueberries, and Sergei smiled even wider. Mark and I had a swim in this gorgeous little tarn not too far from the lakes. The pace slowed a little after that, partly from running into brush to clamber through from time to time.
We had an amazing campsite that night, up on a ridge over a tributary of the Bremner River, camped right by a steep cliff face. My tent was probably 5 feet from the edge of a sheer drop, and the view was out of this world.
This is what backpacking in Wrangell-St. Elias looks like when the weather cooperates. And sometimes, even when it doesn’t.
A Tough Walk
This is a tough hike, and I don’t recommend it to people lightly. It’s not for everyone. A guide from another outfitter leading his clients made it about 3 days into the hike and turned around, as he felt they weren’t going to make it out in the allotted time. It definitely helps to know the area better, and avoid the brush and the gnar.
For strong intermediate to advanced backpackers, for sure. And definitely give yourself a good 10 days on this route. It’s a “bit of a mission”, as my friend Gabby from New Zealand would say.
This trek has always been good to me, weather wise. So far I don’t think I’ve had anything burlier than a hail storm the day we flew in, and a light rain or snow the next morning. Other than that, I’ve always had good weather here.
One trip, we ended up doing in one day most of what I would typically do in two. John was sitting quietly before breakfast on a rock by his tent, and I had grabbed my camera to shoot some landscapes when I saw him there. The fog in the valley below was amazing. So thick it looked like you could walk across it.
Then as silently as it had appeared before dawn, it simply vanished and the entire valley scene opened up. We had a grand, but tough, day’s hike ahead of us.
The Mezzanine
We call this little ridge “The Mezzanine”. Great hiking, great campsite, and just a fantastic place to wrap up the day. Rhane saw a wolverine wander through camp here one summer.
I love Brad’s authenticity in this unscripted, spontaneous clip. You can’t beat how real, and how perfectly, this video wraps up a Wrangell-St. Elias backpacking trip. An absolute gem.
Brad seems pretty stoked about it as well.
The route from the Mezzanine to Tebay Lakes, if you’re hiking east to west, is probably the most challenging stretch of the trip. It also has some of the biggest, grandest views in the park. Looking down the Little Bremner River toward the Copper, or back up the East Fork toward Harry’s Gulch. Memorable scenes. Or hiking through the granite monoliths as you approach Tebay.
Each time one of our guides has led this route, we’ve found new spectacular places to camp. In 2022, Rhane found a new camp in a small hanging valley halfway up the Klu, which is just stunning. Having guided this trip a number of times, each of us has our own favorite campsites. Mine is Cliffside, and always will be.
In 2024, Trevor hiked it for his first time and loved it. His words were “I think I might have a new favorite backpacking trip”. He guided a private trip with a guest and his teenage son, starting late June through early July.
What was interesting was how different the rivers were that time of year compared to when we’ve hiked this route later in July or August. The river crossings that were a little more challenging later in the summer were no problem at all. And one crossing that is usually easy peasy was a lot more challenging due to spring runoff. There was still a good bit of snow on the ground that early in summer, but the trip went well. Finished up at Bremner Mines right on time.
As with all of the backcountry trips we guide in Wrangell-St. Elias, we don’t filter or treat the water on the Bremner to Tebay route. I don’t know anybody who does. Certainly none of the locals or other guiding companies filter water in the backcountry of the park. It’s just that good.
And if you’re not familiar with sidehilling in Alaska, the Southern Traverse is the perfect backpacking route to learn just how hard hiking on the side of a steep hill with a heavy backpack can be. It will rough you up.
What This Route Asks of You
The terrain challenges aren’t about distance. Most backpackers are surprised just how far we do NOT go on a backpacking trip in Alaska. The challenges are in the terrain you’re walking over, and how well you adapt to it. Steep sidehills. Brushwhacking through alder and willow stands. A little glacial travel, a river crossing or two. This is a route for experienced backpackers.
We’ve done this trip a good number of times since that first run in 2008. I’m still learning the route, still finding better lines through the terrain, still discovering new places to explore along the way.
If you want to know what backpacking in Wrangell-St. Elias is really about, the Southern Traverse is where I’d start.
Cheers
Carl
