Alaska visitors love wilderness experiences. Few destinations can offer travelers the opportunity to exchange stares with a fish-hungry Kodiak brown bear or feel the ground shake from rut-crazed moose crashing their antlers, which are as wide as most folks are tall.
Unfortunately, Alaska wilderness experiences come at a price to the client. Bush aircraft insurance for a three-month tourist season easily runs into six figures, while a gallon of milk in northern Alaska villages can easily exceed $10 a gallon — a price that can double by the time it’s transported by Bush plane to a wilderness camp or lodge.
Yet, wilderness tourism is evolving.
Savvy businesses have been analyzing the key elements visitors want in their wilderness experiences — wildlife, time away from crowds and cities and a healthy dose of natural beauty untouched by humans — and have developed a niche market offering nearly all the benefits of these experiences without the access issues or costs. For instance, should the weather turn bad, select destinations offer primary or secondary road access, which ensures clients can arrive and depart on time.
The term that best describes this new category in the Alaska travel market is “wilderness fringe tourism” — and it’s one travel advisors would be wise to familiarize themselves with.
Over the course of the 20th-annual Alaska Media Road Show, a professional event sponsored by the Alaska Travel Industry Association and major tourism partners, I met with 25 Alaska tourism partners and found several operators who meet the criteria for a fringe wilderness experience.
Here, I’ll introduce you to some of the new players and tours that exemplify the best fringe wilderness experiences Alaska has to offer in 2024.
Susitna Adventure Lodge
The Denali Highway is the “bad boy” of Alaska road travel because of an ongoing landslide. Most car rental companies have placed it off-limits for travel during the summer months, and during winter, the state closes the 135-mile road to all wheeled traffic.
That’s why Susitna Adventure Lodge, located at Mile 77.5 of the Denali Highway, is a prime example of fringe wilderness tourism. To reach the lodge in winter, clients travel the 77 miles to the property via a dog-sled team — lodge owners Paige Drobny and Cody Strathe are veteran Iditarod and Yukon Quest mushers — with an optional overnight campout along the way. Even with night temperatures that can dip to negative 20 degrees Fahrenheit, clients enjoy hot and hearty trail grub, sleep in toasty Arctic Oven expedition tents and learn how to quiet the howling chorus of hungry sled dogs, ending the day with a viewing of the auroras dancing over the Alaska Range.
Although this tour is one of Susitna Adventure Lodge’s most popular, clients seeking a bit more pampering can choose to make the trip in the lodge’s customized, snow-track-fitted Chevy Suburban, which can tackle the worst snow roads and weather that Denali can dish out. Or, they can opt for a bush plane flight to the lodge's landing strip, weather permitting.
Susitna Adventure Lodge offers year-round accommodations for up to 11 guests.
Credit: 2024 Susitna Adventure LodgeThe two-story property, open year-round, offers accommodations for up to 11 guests. Local chefs serve meals using seasonal items such as salmon and wild blueberries picked near the lodge, and activities range from fishing, canoeing, snowmobiling, hiking and skiing to whitewater rafting, ATV sightseeing, dog mushing (in both summer and winter) and birdwatching.
Alaska Glacier Lodge
For an impressive one-stop base camp for adventures on Knik Glacier and the nearby Chugach Mountains, Alaska Glacier Lodge has partnered with Alaska Helicopter Tours. Clients arriving at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport can take the lodge shuttle or rent a car for the 45-minute drive to the 22-room property.
“Tourism partnerships and investors with vision have built this operation from its humble beginnings,” said Sage Dudick, communications and digital marketing manager for Alaska Helicopter Tours. “Our businesses cater to residents and visitors alike.”
Dudick notes that the lodge's restaurant, Raven’s Perch, has earned high marks from the state’s residents and tourism pros for using Alaska seafood with locally sourced produce from the Mat-Su Valley.
New tours for 2024 from Alaska Helicopter Tours include Back Country Bear Viewing, Fly-in Remote Fishing and Heli E-Mountain Biking. Established popular tours include glacier dogsled tours, glacier landings, heli-skiing, ice climbing and pack rafting.
My recommendation: the four-hour glacier paddleboarding experience, where guests find their balance in 33-degree, azure-blue ice melt.
Camp Denali
Recent engineering surveys estimate that the mountain landslide that closed the road-accessible corridor to the heart of Denali National Park & Preserve will not reopen again until summer 2026.
While concession tours will still operate in 2024 for the first 43 miles of park road, much of Denali’s best wildlife viewing is located from Mile 43 to Mile 99, where the road ends at Kantishna.
Camp Denali sits near the end of the park road, and owner Simon Hamm sees opportunity in adversity, even if it depends on air travel for this year.
“We’re actively working on logistics for our guests to visit in 2024, because this will be the best opportunity in 50 years to experience the park’s western end without the crowds,” he said.
Hamm says the road closure will prevent tens of thousands of backcountry adventurers, cruise tour visitors, drive-in and support crew traffic, and park maintenance road crews from accessing the park beyond Mile 43. Camp Denali will be open for business, however, as it will be chartering clients to the Kantishna airstrip.
“It will be the opportunity of a lifetime for Denali lovers,” he said. “It will be a no-show for do-it-yourselfers, who generally balk at the huge cost of hiring an air charter when the road has historically provided access at low cost.”
But as good as this fringe opportunity appears, Hamm warns travel agents that the caveat here is weather.
“Clients who travel on tight schedules or anyone with severe health-related issues should weigh the pros and cons of travel before booking,” he said. “Without road access, a life-threatening emergency evacuation via air might not be possible during periods of inclement weather.”
Salted Roots
Alaska’s fringe wilderness doesn’t need to be geographically remote to be viable. Salted Roots, a boutique inn situated at the head of Seward’s Resurrection Bay among an old-growth spruce forest, offers 12 accommodations that range from cottages and A-frames to a cabin built atop a converted 1970s retro bus.
Owners KellyAnn Cavaretta and Matthew Cope had traveled the West Coast for years in a retro bus of their own until they found a remote parcel near the sea that matched their vision for a property that embodied solitude and serenity. Now, Salted Roots offers year-round getaways in style and comfort, and activities such as fishing, kayaking and glacier touring.
Cavaretta and Cope also operate Flamingo Lounge a must-enjoy steakhouse in town where visitors can enjoy craft cocktails amid 1950s-style decor.
