Backpacker Magazine – May 2008

Top 3 White Mountain Treks

No, not the famously wind-whipped peaks in New Hampshire. Explore some of the country's lesser-known Whites with these accessible spring summits in Arizona, New Mexico, and Alaska.

by: Charlie Wood

White Mountains, AZ | White Mountains, NM| White Mountains, AK

Photo by Jerry & Marcy Monkman

WHITE MOUNTAINS, AK
Cruise a breezy ridge to a quiet shelter

Voracious mosquitoes and thawing muskeg can make foot travel hard-duty in low-lying, inland areas during Alaska's warmer seasons. The Summit Trail, an hour north of Fairbanks, is a pleasing alternative. It's a 21-mile out-and-back along a breezy ridge of black spruce, almost entirely above 2,000 feet (high for Alaska's interior). Boardwalks cover the few damp spots, making it an ideal early-season hike–or any time between June and September. Day-trippers should turn back after 3.5 miles at Wickersham Dome, a broad bald rising above the spruce. This is prime caribou-sighting territory (and aurora borealis in the darker months). For an overnight, add seven miles of easy ridgewalking to reach the first-come, first-served Summit Trail Shelter. It sleeps four on wooden bunks and has an outhouse that's, um, relatively clean. (800) 437-7021

Refuel
Slake your thirst with a Cooper Creek Amber Ale at The Silver Gulch Brewery, a roadhouse north of Fairbanks, in the town of Fox. silvergulch.com

The Way
From Fairbanks, take AK 2 38 miles north to the trailhead.

White Mountains, AZ | White Mountains, NM| White Mountains, AK

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