Itineraries and routes

Where will your trip meet, and what we do there? When will you start hiking, have lunch, and find camp each day? And where exactly will your group go? For answers to these questions and more, scroll down or jump to these sections:

• First and last day: Lower 48
• First and last day: Alaska
• Typical daily schedule
• Route selection
• Signature Series 2025

Lower 48 trips: the first and last day

Day 1 briefing

Briefings are always in the morning on Day 1. For specific meet-up times and locations, refer to this page. At this gathering, we will:

• Make introductions and some announcements;
• Update you on conditions;
• Distribute breakfast & dinner rations, loaner gear, paper maps, stove fuel, and some other supplies;
• Check your gear, and weigh your full pack; and,
• Model how to correctly pack a backpack.

If you are driving to the briefing location, please be within at least three hours so that you’re not already tired when you get there.

The guides normally arrive 45-60 minutes early to set up. If you have been instructed otherwise or if feel that you need a lot of help in checking your gear, you can arrive early as well, but please by no more than 30 minutes.

Please take care of yourself before and during the briefing:

• Have breakfast
• Get hydrated
• Go to the bathroom if you have the urge
• Protect yourself appropriately from the elements, like by applying sunscreen or wearing warm clothing

Food and water is not provided at the trailhead — please pack in what you will need. Most trailheads do not have potable water. We always try to meet in a location with bathrooms.

The rest of Day 1

Our goal is to depart the briefing location about 90 minutes after the meetup time. We’re able to start hiking so quickly because of all the pre-trip work that you and we have done beforehand.

In some locations, we start our hike from the briefing location. In others, we must drive (usually 15-60 minutes) to a trailhead.

Groups are encouraged to pull into camp early on the first night, especially beginner-level groups who may be using unfamiliar shelters, sleeping bags, and stoves. Also, this night it’s important to discuss our goals for the trip so that the guides can help accomplish them.

The last day

Expect to arrive at the trailhead between 10 AM and noon on the last day of your trip.

Some clients head home immediately, especially if they must catch a flight or have a long drive. Others linger for an optional post-trip lunch; guides can recommend locations and may join you, depending on their own schedules and mental needs.

Alaska trips: the first and last day

The 7- and 11-day trips in Alaska follow a different schedule. The logistics are more complex, and we will share with you a spreadsheet that has precise details.

Day 0

Most groups meet at 4pm the day before your trip officially starts. We meet at our hotel in Fairbanks for the briefing, where we will:

• Make introductions and some announcements;
• Update you on conditions;
• Distribute breakfast & dinner rations, loaner gear, paper maps, stove fuel, and some other supplies;
• Check your gear, and weigh your full pack; and,
• Model how to correctly pack a backpack.

Afterwards, your group may gather for an optional dinner. That night in your hotel room, you will probably fiddle for too long with your kit, wondering if you’re carrying enough food, enough warm clothing, and enough bug spray.

Day 1

Together as a group, we take a hotel shuttle to the airport terminal. We take a 9-passenger plane to a bush village, and then 3- or 5-passenger planes into the field. At best, we’re in the field by early-afternoon; if everyone is in the field by dinnertime, feel fortunate. These flights are expensive but necessary — there’s no easier way to get into the Brooks that is faster or more economical. Plus, landing on a remote lake or gravel bar is pretty exhilarating.

Last day: Day 5, 7, or 11

All groups will finish in Anaktuvuk Pass, a Native village that sits on the Continental Divide and that has an airstrip with daily flights back to Fairbanks. Most clients take a red-eye flight that night.

We recommend that you build some flexibility into your return flight, because occasionally groups get stuck in the field for an extra day due to weather. Plan to fly out a date layer, or have a flexible ticket.

Daily schedule

Each trip is different, and we do not expect (or want) groups to follow a universal program-wide schedule or routine. You do you — come up with a schedule that works for the location, terrain, conditions, the guides, and the group.

That said, most days look something like this:

• Around 7 AM: Meet for breakfast and to review the day’s plan
• Around 8 AM: Depart
• Between camps: Hike your planned route, with appropriate breaks for resting, snacking, water collection, navigation decisions, and curriculum modules. So long as the circumstances allow, we take a longer lunch break (about an hour) in early-afternoon, during which you can swim, wash clothes, nap, and dry gear
• 4 PM to 6 PM: Pull into camp with sufficient daylight to set up camp and have dinner
• Dinnertime
• After dinner: Discuss the day and tomorrow’s plans, cover some light curriculum topics, and hang out until it’s bedtime

Route selection

By design, we do not follow fixed itineraries. Instead, each group is assigned a starting point and ending point (usually the same location, except for the Alaska trips), and given a “Core Route.”

Katie and I plot the Core Routes, sometimes with input from guides. We account for the specified fitness level and technical comfort of the group, and build in opportunities for shortcuts and extensions. Groups are expected to loosely follow the Core Route, but we expect (and want) adjustments to be made, based on the group’s abilities and goals, and on the actual conditions.

Core Routes will vary in difficulty, based on the group and location. Some routes are mostly on-trail, with limited and relatively easy off-trail travel. Other routes are burly, with extensive off-trail travel, significant vertical gain and loss, and frequent semi-technical features.

Paper and digital maps are provided for the Core Route and its potential alternates. We share the routes ahead of time, usually 1-2 weeks in advance of the trip.

You may want to know exactly where you will go before you sign up for a trip and pay the fee, but that’s not the way this program works. And it works quite well — read our testimonials. By being flexible with our routes before and during the trip, we can:

• Better work within strict and competitive wilderness permit systems
• Respond to real field conditions (e.g. weather, water levels, snow conditions)
• Fine-tune them to closely match the abilities and goals of the group
• Elevate the sense of adventure and allow for exploration, since we’re not just offering standard “tours” on routes that guides have done many times before

2025 Signature Series

In the past, and with most of our 2025 trips, we assemble a route that is appropriate for the group. With our Signature Series trips, we reverse this: we assemble a group that is appropriate for the route. These itineraries are not offered each year, and they get our guide team excited — we’d do them on our own as personal trips, and they can be very fun to guide.

Utah: Overland Route (11 days)

Tucked into the back of Canyoneering 3, the definitive guidebook for the Escalante written by Steven Allen, is a very succinct description of the Overland Route. This off-trail route parallels the Escalante River from Highway 12 to Coyote Wash, near where the Escalante meets Lake Powell, connecting its side canyons and sandy benches using old cowboy trails, Moki steps, and scrambles.

You won’t find much online about the Overland Route. But like high routes of the Sierra, Winds, or Rockies, this is the premier backpacking itinerary for this area. This highlight tour of the watershed will test your desert skills, physical fitness, and knowledge of the Escalante. The route gets harder as you go, with increasingly more time spent in the Wingate and less in the more forgiving Navajo and Kayenta.

The goal of this 11-day trip is to complete as much of the Overland Route as possible. The group will likely make a few deviations for risk management (e.g. bypassing Class 5 scrambles that can’t be protected) and for aesthetic considerations (e.g. following a better route than the official route).

A shuttle will be required to complete this point-to-point itinerary. This trip will be without resupply, which we understand translates into heavier loads. We’ve successfully run many 11-day trips without resupply and guides will pace the group accordingly.

Alaska: Upper Itkillik (11 days)

We’ve been leading trips in Gates of the Arctic since 2019, and at this point our groups have been in most areas of the park. During my traverse of the Brooks Range in 2010, I was able to check off other parts, too.

On this 11-day trip, though, I will be leading a group into an area that no group has yet explored, on both sides of the Itkillik in the park’s northeast corner. This year, we should have the necessary fitness and time to get in there. I’ve been eyeing the route for years, intrigued by the steep topography and lingering glaciers.

This trip will follow the same itinerary as the other Alaska trips, so read that section above. This trip will be without resupply, which we understand translates into heavier loads. We’ve successfully run many 11-day trips without resupply and guides will pace the group accordingly.

I am considering two landing areas. Chimney Lake is more reliable because it’s lower and melts out earlier; and this would give our group some time on the timbered south side of the range. The other option would be in the Oohla Valley, which is less reliable in mid-June but which is a better starting point for exploring this area.

California: Kings Canyon High Basin Route (11 days)

The Kings Canyon High Basin Route (KCHBR) wraps 124 miles around the upper watershed of California’s Kings River in the High Sierra. Two-thirds of its distance is off-trail, and it averages 725 vertical feet of change per mile. It accesses many of the most remote and least traveled areas in Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park, and is a wildly different experience than the John Muir Trail.

It’s not practical for even very fit groups to finish the entire route in eleven days, but we hope to assemble two groups who can complete two of its biggest loops, around the Middle Fork of the Kings and the South Fork of the Kings. Both routes generally connect high off-trail valleys and basins with exciting off-trail passes. Expect to spend a significant amount of time above treeline, to encounter few or no other groups, and to have daily opportunities for swimming in alpine lakes.

This trip will be without resupply, which we understand translates into heavier loads. We’ve successfully run many 11-day trips without resupply and guides will pace the group accordingly.

California: Peak bagging (7 days)

The focus of this trip will be on tagging summits, not hiking beneath and between them as we normally do. The route in the embedded CalTopo map above links Banner Peak, Electra Peak, and Mount Lyell, but there are many other routes of comparable quality elsewhere in the High Sierra between Sequoia-Kings Canyon and Yosemite. (Banner Peak is one of the most prominent peaks of the range, Mt Lyell is the highest peak in Yosemite at over 13,000 feet, and Electra would be a worthy objective between them.) Ultimately, I’ll let the guides and wilderness permits dictate the location.

This route will include scrambles on Class 3 and possibly Class 4 terrain. Sketchy bits will be managed with buddy assists and hand lines; we will not be using ropes, rock protection, or belays, which significantly complicates things and adds a lot of weight. The trip is suitable for individuals who are already comfortable with exposure, who want to learn best practices for alpine scrambling, and who most enjoy itineraries filled with Type 2 Fun.

Yellowstone: Upper Lamar River + Mirror Plateau (7 days)

Unlike other National Parks, the primary appeal of Yellowstone is its geology and wildlife, not its mountains. (Most of the park is fairly flat and carpeted with lodgepole pine.) This route has all three elements, however. As we would with other Yellowstone itineraries, we’ll encounter backcountry boiling mud pots and be kept awake at night by bugling elk in rut, but we will also have some phenomenal mountain travel, including alpine ridgewalks, off-trail passes, craggy summits, and game trails.

I was hoping to complete this route in 2024, but unfavorable weather, an accidentally discharged bear spray, and some nagging injuries pushed my group off it. From the northern shores of Yellowstone Lake, we’ll work our way up Pelican Valley, stopping long enough to admire the harrier hawks, sandhill cranes, and bison. The middle of the trip will be spent in the upper Lamar River watershed, jumping side drainages in a northwest direction with a mix of on-trail and off-trail travel. Day 5 can be a short day, or a pack-less day-hike up Mt Norris. To finish, we traverse the Mirror Plateau, which has no manmade trails but which is laced with bison and elk trails.

Yellowstone: Trident Plateau and Thorofare River (11 days)

The most remote point in the contiguous United States, defined as the furthest point from any road, is in the Teton Wilderness, along the southeast border of Yellowstone National Park. This 11-day group is bound for this area, not necessarily because it’s “the most remote point” but because it feels really remote.

The heart of the route is the Trident Plateau, a sprawling claw-like expanse that hovers over the upper Yellowstone River, and the Thorofare River, a major tributary of the upper Yellowstone. To reach this area, the group will warm up with a few trail-heavy days through Yellowstone National Park or the Teton Wilderness (where our commercial use is less reliable). Thereafter, it’ll link alpine peaks, passes, and plateaus of the upper Yellowstone with a mix of off-trail and lightly used trails.

This trip will be without resupply, which we understand translates into heavier loads. We’ve successfully run many 11-day trips without resupply and guides will pace the group accordingly.