Alaska Wilderness Lodge
The Wrangell/St. Elias mountain ranges are a remote wilderness paradise – volcanos, glaciers, bears, goats, moose, gold and copper – and the highest coastal mountain range on earth. Deep in this protected wilderness, a hundred miles from the nearest road, our guests discover an outpost of comfort and civilization at Ultima Thule Lodge.
Your Cessna soars eastward over the glittering Chitina River. Row upon row of mountain ridges march off into the wilderness. Eagles soar beneath you. Ducks splash in the sunlit water of a thousand glacial ponds.
"What are these mountains called?" asks your companion, over the rumbling engine.
The pilot glances back at her. "These mountains haven't been named yet."
You turn to each other. The Cessna banks northward, coming in low. You skim along between craggy cliffs, breeze down over the tops of black spruce. And then with an exhilarating bump of the tires on a grassy plain, you are on earth. It is silent.
“No one,” says your pilot, “has ever landed here before.” And he opens the door.
