Night hiking in the Chugach Mountains will make you feel like Batman
I was several episodes deep into a couple buckets of bad TV and good ice cream the other night when I decided it was finally time to do something productive with my day. The Army might get more done before 9 a.m. than most people do all day, but I can’t be beat after 10 p.m.*.
Lucky for me it was a good night to be formerly young and currently restless, with a nearly full moon and electric aurora action forecast for the early morning hours. Nature porn. I figured the combination of Northern Lights and bright moonlight would make for an epic trek into the mountains…unless there happened to be any werewolf/electric eel hybrids about — which I doubted.
My plan was to hike up the backside of Flattop Peak in the Chugach Front Range behind Anchorage, which is one of the most traveled treks in the park in all seasons. I’d climbed the same trail two days before and ran into at least a dozen other hikers, but when I got to the Canyon Road trailhead a little before midnight my only company was the cold.
With no wind the single-digit temperatures were ideal for climbing, and I had to keep my pace slow to keep from overheating — an easy enough task for someone so gifted with lethargy. Despite recent snows, the trail was relatively hard-packed and in ideal condition for hiking in a pair of trail running shoes and microspikes with heavy socks and the going was easy on the lower reaches of the trail.
A note on safety here. Actually, a bunch of notes and a disclaimer — which will come first: I’m not an expert and conditions can change rapidly and therefore my advice should be taken only as the ramblings of an enthusiastic amateur and not to be considered anything other than glorified Grizzly Adams fan fic.
Before going out on your own, consult actual experts, seek out training and gain the needed experience and skills incrementally. Though the terrain is absurdly accessible, Alaska’s mountains and wilderness are no joke: bad shit can and does happen on a regular basis. An avalanche claimed the lives of three experienced hikers in another area of the Chugach recently and avalanches are not uncommon near Flattop, where there have been at least two fatal slides on the western slopes of the mountain. The southern (“Sunny Side”) trail I chose is less prone to avalanches, but anywhere with snow and a slope is potentially deadly. Before I left I told someone the area I’d be going and when I planned to return. I did not, however, carry an avalanche beacon, which is highly recommended by people smarter than myself for travel anywhere in the backcountry; you should listen to them on that one and not follow my stupid example. I wore layered synthetics with heavy winter gloves, hat, headlamp and balaclava and brought a backpack containing extra clothes and socks, a shovel, first aid kit, some chemical hand warmers, candy bars, a tripod, a knife, a lighter and flare and a fully charged cell phone. My rule of thumb is anytime I’m heading into the wilderness I should be prepared to spend the night there — this is actually a lot easier if you start in the middle of the night already. I also brought along an adjustable hiking pole. Some folks travel with an ice axe in the backcountry but the slopes I stick to are usually tame enough that a fall will only result in a long slide and even longer hike back up (weird how that works), but an axe can definitely be handy on steep slopes. I’m sure I’m forgetting to mention something about safety…please read the comments for anything I missed, I’m sure someone will point out any errors or omissions. The bottom line is this stuff is inherently dangerous, and you shouldn’t do anything you’re not comfortable with and suitably trained to undertake and should probably always strive to be overprepared rather than under.
Remember the headlamp I told you about like 10 minutes ago? I didn’t need it. As I began to climb, the lights from the city 2,000 feet below and the stars twinkling though an ultraclear sky provided more than enough glow to get me going, and within a half hour the moon was up and illuminating everything in that silvery black-and-white shimmer you only see in 1950s sci-fi flicks.
Getting to the trailhead in Chugach State Park is relatively easy, but Canyon Road (spoiler alert) runs up a canyon, so winter conditions are variable and often a bit sketch. It’s not a bad idea to park at a wide spot a quarter-mile from the road’s end at the Rabbit Creek trailhead. Four-wheel drive is recommended even in summer months, so don’t go back there with a car you aren’t prepared to roll off the side of a mountain. Actually, don’t do that, either.
My biggest worry was v̶a̶m̶p̶i̶r̶e̶s̶ moose, and for good reason. The last time I’d been on the trail a couple dogs had riled up a trio of teenage moose, and one ended up sulking after me for 50 yards before I was able to activate my cloaking device by hiding behind a tree. Moose are like the Roger Alan Wade song — they’re dumb, but they’re tough. Like the mountain itself, the big, ugly ungulates are more than capable of moosing you up pretty Smurfily if they get the chance. I saw a few moose ghosts that turned out to be bushes on the way up, but eventually got above the treeline and away from any potential hoofings.
After an hour of easy hiking I’d gained roughly 1,000 feet in elevation and reached a point where the trail traverses the side of a gully and up to a saddle between Flattop and the next high point on the ridgeline, a spot called Peak 2. Snow conditions in the gully were heavily wind-packed, with a layer of compacted slab snow a foot or more deep sitting atop a weak layer of snow. I’d seen the aftermath of a slab avalanche on similar conditions on the western side of the mountain just a couple days before and while the on the southern slope is not as avalanche prone, I made an executive decision and decided to stay off the slab just to be safe. Instead, I veered up the steeper and nearly snowless slope leading to Peak 2, which at 3,568 feet is only 100 feet taller than neighboring Flattop.
When I reached the summit I was rewarded with an epic view of the surrounding mountains and valleys, including Powerline Pass — where I could make out the lights from a small party of winter campers — and the ridge of peaks above that lead clockwise from O’Malley Peak to Hidden Peak, The Ramp, the Wedge, Avalanche Mountain and Ptarmigan Peak. The moon provided more than enough light to take a couple cool shots for the ‘Gram, but the only hint of aurora was a faint green glow above the Ramp.
Nevertheless, the total stillness of the shadowy evening was mesmerizing, and I sat frozen and snug on a snow-covered rock, wrapping myself in the silence like I was crawling into the still-warm carcass of a dead buffalo.
Ok, it wasn’t that dramatic. Nothing in my life has been, nor ever will be that dramatic. But it was damn cool, and as I sat there looking down at the porchlights of my 293,000 neighbors I couldn’t help but feel smugly euphoric, like Bruce Wayne enjoying a nightcap while Gotham fights and fucks the night away below.
I snapped out of it quick when I looked to the north and saw someone had turned on the lights. Where moments ago there had only been a shadowy emerald hum, now there were played upon the sky the luminescent turquoise notes of drum-and-bass, heaven’s cherubs tripping balls to the flowing rhythms of a song called “all the different ways of being green.”
It was that dramatic. Or at least close enough to take some pics. I quickly pointed my tripod and phone in the direction of the lights, managing to get a few good ones off before the lights died down and my fingers froze off. I even managed to snag a selfie, which is absolutely mind-blowing when you consider I was using a device we used to call a phone but which is now known as a magic wand. I do most of my backcountry photography with an iPhone and am constantly upgrading to get the latest camera technology. The iPhone 12 Max Pro does not disappoint, and its f2.0 lens and LiDAR technology allow for nighttime photographs that now rival those taken by DSLR cameras (please don’t @ me). It’s a game-changer for aurora photographs, and a lot of the recent pictures I saw posted on social media seem to have been taken with these cameras. I predict you’re going to be seeing a lot more nighttime photos in the near future as more people start taking advantage of this. If combined with a tripod the photos you can get for a fraction of the cost (nearly) make more expensive cameras obsolete.
Over in five minutes, the show was as brief and muted as it was enjoyable, like lovemaking at a bed and breakfast. When it was over I realized my fingers had gone numb so I put my gloves back on and gathered up my stuff. The lights in the valley were out and I figured I’d better make tracks for bed myself. I packed up my gear and started gingerly down the slope, taking my time to enjoy the lingering moonlight and make sure I didn’t end a good night with a bad decision.
I got back to my pickup around 3 a.m. and was in bed within the hour. Had I decided to stay in bed all night I’m sure I would have slipped off to sleep at roughly the same time — I’d just be eight episodes of the Office closer to the grave and a little richer in trans fats.
Living in Alaska is a gift I’m thankful every day and a privilege that I’m constantly reminded is not offered forever or with any guarantees. The wilderness takes exactly what it gives — and what it gives isn’t doled out freely. It’s cold and it’s dark sometimes and you might die at any moment; the wind is going to blow and the snow is going to fall and sometimes you’ll get hurt so bad you’ll want to shake your fist at the sky and cry out for mercy and the sky will just stare back. It’s big and it’s bad and sometimes it’s not much fun.
But God it’s pretty, ain’t it?
*This is not accurate. The Army gets more done than me on a 24/7 basis.
About the author: Matt Tunseth is an unemployed writer, photographer and screen actor from Alaska. Formerly a newspaper editor and reporter, he’s now a volunteer content producer for several major social media platforms. He is not the Batman.
