Life in the Backcountry
On one and three-week long backpacking trips, glaciers, rock glaciers, and alpine ecosystems are our primary learning environments. Glaciers melt in the summer sun, rivers cut new channels, plants flower and go to seed in a matter of weeks. Students traverse forests, alpine meadows, bare ice and rock glaciers, post-glacial landscapes, and more. Complementing field observations, students read and discuss literature on landscape structures and processes encountered.
7:30am – Awake in your tent on a river bar near an alpine meadow. Pack your bag and join your cook group for a camp-stove breakfast.
Sample Day in the Backcountry
9:00am – Packs on and ready to go. After reviewing the route for the day, backpack down a valley, occasionally recording observations of, e.g., marmots and ptarmigan sightings and shifts in rock types with descent.
10:00am – Hike over moraine to the Kennicott Glacier.
12:00pm – During lunch, attend a faculty talk on post-glacial succession, noticing the progression in plant communities around glaciers.
3:00pm – Students split into teams to investigate ice topography like crevasses, moulins, streams, and moraines, diagramming, and sketching hypotheses for their formation.
5:00pm – Make camp. Set up your tent and organize your field notes from the day; join your cook-group to make a hearty dinner.
7:00pm – Under the guidance of faculty, discuss an article about historical land use in the Copper River Basin and Wrangell-St. Elias region.
8:30pm – Head to your tent, reading or journaling under the midnight sun before bed - getting ready for another big day tomorrow!
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Contact Us
Please submit this form with inquiries about Field Studies, or email fieldstudies@wrangells.org