Chitna Pass (Backpack)

Just 90 miles from Anchorage out the Glenn Highway, some very well-used ATV trails form a gateway into the limitless high country of the Talkeenta Mountains. The Chitna Pass circuit, starting at Pinochle Creek trailhead and ending at Purintan Creek, is a local classic with its own hand-drawn map on page 147 of the guidebook 55 Ways to the Wilderness. When she wrote the Chitna Pass section of the guidebook back in the 70’s, Helen Nienhueser said, “Experienced backpackers, in good condition and able to follow USGS maps, will find it a delightful experience, if they don’t mind using ORV trails.”

Credit: Mike Records

True enough. I’ve heard countless stories of other hikers on this circuit who sank up to their thighs or chest in mud from ATV trails that cross from the Glenn Highway to Caribou Creek. Even in dry autumn weather following a dry summer, the trail has significant stretches of mud and gaping holes in the tundra from ATVs. But it also has hundred mile views of endless tundra, bountiful wildlife, and some of the easiest backcountry walking I’ve seen anywhere in Southcentral.

Backcountry almost would be an exaggeration. Chitna Pass in hunting season is as busy as the Glenn Highway, as hunter pilgrims make their way into the wilderness and back on ATVs, many lugging moose and caribou on the way back. How they find success is baffling--the hunting pressure is intense anywhere near ATV trails. Those same trails--despite muddy patches--make for quick travel. It is fairly easy to walk from Pinochle trailhead past Hicks Lake to Caribou Creek in a half to full day, depending on how many blueberries are out and how many pictures one might want to take. A large ATV trail goes the whole way, right down to a series of pastoral, fairly dry campsites along Caribou Creek. For travellers planning three days on the Chitna Pass route, these campgrounds are a logical stopping point with shelter in spruce trees, firewood, and flat places to set up a tent. They are busy in hunting season, however.

A couple miles upstream along Caribou, the main trail ascends a bench and parallels the creek above a section of canyon. Then the ATV trail goes back downhill briefly, crossing Chitna Creek before ascending to another bench on the north side of Chitna’s gorge. Hikers will head west on an unmarked but well-used foot trail that departs from the ATV trail just west and uphill of the Chitna/Caribou confluence. There may be a small cairn at the trail/ATV track intersection, but the best way to locate the trail is to look carefully to the left after ascending to the bench some 200 feet above Chitna Creek.

The footpath seems to dissipate and re-consolidate as it winds gradually uphill and west toward Chitna Pass, apparently used more by moose than humans. Nonetheless, it is larger, more obvious, and easier to walk on than most game trails, and provides enjoyable travel through a patchwork of brush and tundra. Approximately two miles from Chitna Pass, the path turns right again and leaves the brush behind. This expansive tundra, with views of the Wrangells far to the east, feels quite distant from the bedlam of ATVs below. If you have time, spend a day or two exploring around Chitna Pass. Many peaks are a fairly easy climb and offer remarkable views. To the west, the Chickaloon Glacier complex shrouds high peaks of the central Talkeetnas. Down the Boulder Creek drainage, King Mountain looms over the Matanuska Valley. To the south, hanging glaciers and jagged Chugach peaks tear into the cloud line. Even for travellers on a three day trip, a side peak trip is short and well worth it: The peak to the north-northwest of Chitna Pass is only about a two hour round trip.

Joyous walking continues on the Boulder Creek side of the pass as an eight lane highway of caribou trails leads west. The broad valley gently descends toward the braided creek below, and nearby peaks bleed black and orange like some palette exploded during the last rainstorm and drenched the Talkeetnas. Note that a foot path continues this entire time--it’s worth staying on it. The trail sidehills above the creek when that tributary of Boulder Creek drops into a steep canyon. Then the trail wraps around and continues down the nose of a minor ridge, as the full sweep of Boulder Creek valley emerges downstream. In addition to views of overwhelming color and scale, this ridge has great blueberry picking.

All too soon, the trail reaches the valley floor, a broad gravel plain once occupied by a glacier. Tundra slopes with occasional brush rise up to rocky spires above, while glowing birch dominate the intermittent valley forest. Walking down Boulder Creek is exceptionally easy due to ATVs smoothing paths through the gravel. In late summer and in low snow years, Boulder Creek has too little water to paddle. In the early season, its twelve or so miles down the mellow upper valley can be packrafted. If incorporating packrafts in this trip, be sure to take out before Boulder Creek drops into a Class V canyon.

A large, well-used ATV trail leaves the river and circles beneath Anthracite Ridge. This is part of the Knik-Nelchina trail system, an old network of routes that took human powered travellers from the Knik River out the Mat Valley toward the Copper River Valley. Today, the portion of the trail between Boulder Creek and the Purintan Creek trailhead is a fairly dry route (with the exception of one deep bog) that stays on small ridges and provides almost constant views of the towering Chugach Mountains to the south. The double track, which in some places is as wide as a gravel road, meanders past several lakes, patches of blueberries, and small stands of birch trees on its way back to the Glenn Highway. A spur ATV trail also leads up to the low point in Anthracite Ridge, which could be a worthy destination in its own right.

Most fit hikers will backpack Chitna Pass in three days. It’s quite possible for relentless hikers to do it in an overnight. Make sure to take detailed topographic maps and, in case of low visibility, a GPS. Chitna Pass offers an incredible portal into an alpine landscape that looks remarkably like parts of the Brooks Range. It was a must-do route when Nienhueser wrote 55 Ways to the Wilderness nearly a half century ago, and remains so today.