A blonde, brunette and a redhead walk into the Arrigetch for the first 2 weeks of August…

The Arrigetch Peaks, ‘fingers of an outstretched hand’ in Inupiat, are a collection of wild granite spires, nestled deep in the Brooks Mountain Range in Gates of the Arctic National Park of Alaska. Remote, hard to access, hundreds of miles from the nearest road, and located several degrees above the Arctic Circle. 

Any expedition here requires planning, rigor, chartering bush planes from the 1950s, willingness to slog for days through swamps and mosquitoes, grizzly bear encounters and general grit in pursuit of the legendary walls of the Arrigetch. So naturally, 3 weeks prior to boarding the plane to Fairbanks was when I first proposed this idea to Daphne and AJ. Here’s our story of a last-minute expedition that became a wildly successful adventure. 

The crew for this expedition: Daphne (the blonde), AJ (the redhead) and myself (the brunette). This is a story of our climbing expedition to explore this remote corner of the Arctic by hauling way too much gear, way too far into the swampy backcountry, and way too much bushwhacking. This is also a story of ancient glaciers, laughter, blueberries, rad ladies, stoke, sufferfest carnage and ability to execute on a last-minute plan with style.

Pre-expedition packing and repacking and repacking again. We would have to carry our gear multiple days, so every ounce counts. Yes, I snapped my toothbrush in half.

Packed and loaded. Time to fly to Bettles! (a remote village only accessible by a small 6-seater plane like a twin otter in the summer months).

Getting there

We flew Seattle -> Fairbanks, Fairbanks -> Bettles, then our final bush flight Bettles -> Arrigetch on a DeHavilland Beaver from 1957 that was used by the military in the Congo before ‘retiring’ to work in Alaska as a bush plane.

Getting our backcountry orientation and bear canisters from Bob the Ranger, who has been a backcountry ranger in the Gates of the Arctic National Park for over 30 years. We learned that if a grizzly is attacking you, fight back.

Getting some beta about approaching our objectives from the man who probably has more backcountry miles in the park than anyone else.

We were eating dinner in Bettles, sleeping bags ready for the evening, our belongings strewn about the shed we were sleeping in for the night, when the pilot radioed in and said ‘weather is clearing! The girls can be dropped off tonight’. 

We scrambled, threw everything into our bags and an hour flight over the Brooks Mountains we were landing on a tiny oxbow lake at 9:30pm in pouring rain. 

The plane circled our landing ‘lake’ (not much of a lake than a narrow piece of water that used to be part of a river before being cutoff from the main stream). Our pilot Sieg expertly landed and pulled up to the swampy embankment. 

He pulled the plane as close to the shore as he could and we hopped off, throwing our bags onto the water-logged shore. We were in a bog. Our boots filled up with water immediately. It was pouring rain. Stoke was high. We hooted and hollered as Sieg flew off, leaving the three of us alone in the wilderness.

Next step: find a dry place to camp before beginning our swamp-bushwhacking journey to get to the rock walls we intended to climb. Mosquitoes were abundant and our bug shirts were our most treasured possessions. 

We bushwhacked through some terrible willow and slide alder groves. Branches whipped us in the face and shins, pulling everything attached off the backpacks. Underfoot we were still walking on soggy, tussocks tundra - a bog. Mosquitoes would attack us at all times and we walked with our bug nets on. 

We made it to our high base camp exhausted. 

The bushwhacking was worth it! We emerged from the undergrowth to the higher alpine tundra terrain with incredible views of the surrounding valley and peaks.  

The Climbing 

There is so much rock in the Arrigetch. It stretches for miles in multiple valleys, punctuated by sharp spears, dragon-like ridges and behemoth domes. 

The Albatross. My personal favorite formation 

There is very little information or beta on the internet about climbing in this area and I’m going to keep it that way. Finding your way around here is part of the adventure. Good luck to future travelers ;) 

The climbing is varied, in some places solid, in many places chossy kitty litter that threatens to explode on you when you place protection. We came for the adventure climbing and the Arrigetch delivered. 

Ridge-climbing was my favorite activity. Moving fast over the rock, covering ground, seeing valleys drop down into alpine lakes on both sides of us. 

Sketchy rappels into the unknown, microwave-sized blocks we accidentally dislodged, all part of the fun.

Expedition life revolves around food, staying dry, packing up, bushwhacking, climbing, food, sleeping. Yes, food is listed twice because you think a lot about it when carrying a 25 kilo+ pack with climbing and expedition gear.

Down climbing some chossy kitty litter

We foraged for berries of all sorts: blueberries, lingonberries, red currents. Lots of edible mushrooms as well, however we decided trying to cook them with no oil over a jet boil was a culinary feat we weren’t quite ready for

Trying to keep our routine of 2 packets oatmeal/per person/per day interesting with some natural food coloring.

We shared the wilderness with grizzly bears. They were gracious enough to avoid our camp, but one time we were returning from a long day climbing, were 100 meters away from our camp, when Daphne ran back whispering ‘sleeping bear, turn around, quick, backup, backup, backup, bear!’. There was a grizzly napping in the willow bushes only a few meters from our camp. 

Ramen and mashed potatoes were our two dinner menu items. Sometimes spiced up with slices of cheddar cheese that Daphne (being Dutch) refused to acknowledge as real cheese and called it ‘fake yellow plastic’.

We were graced by gloriously beautiful weather and made full use of it. 

The climbing was punctuated with periods of some down time. When the mosquitoes would blow away, it was perfect for some late-evening reading. The sun set almost at midnight, so it never quite got dark. We all brought headlamps and never once used them. We didn’t see stars the entirety of our trip, even on clear nights.

Other past-times included yoga sessions led by AJ in our ‘PALACE of a f*ckin'g tent’ as we would say. The tent had arrived a day before the expedition, and we didn’t double check the fact that it was a 4-person expedition tent that weighed 12lbs. Oh well, at least we lived it up in style up there.

Every day we climbed into our sleeping bags, happy to have a warm and dry place to sleep.

 Ropes make great pillows. Especially when you’re exhausted from a day of climbing. 

Room with a view of Xanadu. It’s great to see the rock formation that my friends have established new routes on in the last few years. Strong work Zeb, David, Billy, Gabe and Vitaliy! You guys are beasts for hauling aid and new-routing gear up there. [The American Alpine Journal has great write-ups of their new routes]

Getting ourselves back to civilization

Soon, (too soon), it was time for our 4 day bushwhack to our pick-up location. We dreaded descending back into the bogs and swampy forest, but we got ourselves into this, so now we had to get ourselves out.

There isn’t much to say about the bushwhack out except it was very long, hard, we almost ran out of water at one point (and had to haul multiple extra liters on our already heavy backs), the willows were exceptionally dense and we swore a lot. It was sweaty, hot, miserable and a sufferfest.

We had a brief respite on top of a pass from the bushes. Never has walking on flat, non-bushy terrain felt that good. 

Water was readily abundant everywhere… except where it was not. We had one day of thirst and strategically hauled 6 liters of extra water for camp after I had an intuitive inkling that this was the last stream we’d see for the rest of the day and next day. It made our packs a lot heavier, but having drinking water felt like a godsend after a long, hot, mosquito-bitten day of bushwhacking.

We stumbled out onto the lake where we were to be picked up looking like three feral cats. The multiple days of shwhacking left remnants of twigs in our hair, bruises, covered in mosquito bites. When the plane landed on the lake and made its way over to us we hollered and clapped.

Overjoyed to see Sieg, our stoic pilot. (Or is it the Stig? I asked him and he neither confirmed nor denied that he is in fact, the Alaskan cousin of the Stig).

The girls are flying back! Packed,loaded and ready for those beers.

This expedition ended like many do. At the local Alaskan pub eating salmon and drinking pints.

Now that I’ve made the trek into this incredible area, seen these walls (and taken lots of high resolution beta photos), I am already scheming a return trip. So much to climb, not enough time. When memories of the bushwhacking fade, I’ll definitely be making a return trip. Who's with me?

Thank you to Grivel, Arc’teryx and Beal Ropes for sponsoring the gear for this expedition. The conditions were tough and having reliable technical clothing, gear and ropes that rose to the challenges of the Arctic were crucial. Thank you for keeping our lady-crew safe, dry and warm.