Utukok River Exploratory
Western Arctic • Brooks Range
wildlife•hiking•archeology
10 days/9 nights June 23-July 2, 2010 $4600 per person

The Utukok (meaning “old’ or ‘ancient” in Inuit) starts high in the Delong Mountains of the far western Brooks Range and runs north and west to eventually spill into the Arctic Ocean’s Chukchi Sea. This wild and extremely remote river, contained within the nations largest block of public land, the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, is part of the calving grounds for the almost 500,000 strong Western Arctic Caribou Herd and is home to Alaska’s highest density of wolverine and arctic grizzlies. Arctic wolves, fox and muskox also reside here as do numerous shore birds, song birds and raptors. Signs of early man and the more recent ancestors of the Inuit and inupiat people are found throughout the region in the form of stone tools, chert scraps, old village sites and abandoned whale bone sled runners. As with most terrain on the north side of the Brooks Range we expect excellent hiking on the open tundra slopes and rolling ridges adjacent to the river and spectacular far reaching vistas from the expansive Utukok Uplands. These wild and unspoiled lands of the Petroleum Reserve-Alaska are under constant threats from oil and gas development and we hope that travel to these remarkable places will help in the fight to preserve and maintain these wild places for future generations. Our exploration of of this remote river valley starts high in the mountains, 35 miles from the Utukok’s headwaters.

We’ll fly by bush plane from the Brooks Range community of Coldfoot after a short flight from Fairbanks. We’ll paddle raft about 70 miles of river, encountering some swift current but easy going paddling conditions. We’ll take several layover days for exploring, hiking or fishing along the way before arriving near the end of the mountains and our take-out point. Here we will once again board our bush plane for a flight back to Coldfoot and eventually on to Fairbanks.