Chilkat Range: Mount Young and the Peaks West of Juneau

Where is the Chilkat Range?

The range stands in the northern panhandle of Southeast Alaska. Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve runs along its western flank; Chilkat Inlet, the Chilkat River valley and the town of Haines lie along its eastern one; Juneau is about 50 miles (80 km) to the southeast across Lynn Canal. The Takshanuk Mountains rise on the far side of the Chilkat River, which is why the two ranges are easy to confuse from the Haines Highway — the Chilkats are the ones on your left as you drive north out of town.

It is a narrow range and a short one by Alaskan standards, but almost all of it is roadless. There are no maintained trails on the crest. Approaches are by boat from Haines or Gustavus, by float plane, or by helicopter.

How high is the Chilkat Range?

Ask a search engine and you get 4,268 ft (1,301 m), with no peak named. That figure is the elevation recorded for the single coordinate the US names database attaches to the range as a whole — 58°39′06″N, 135°28′56″W, a point near the southern end, roughly 24 km (15 mi) from the actual high point. It is not a summit height at all; it falls between the fifth and sixth peaks on the list below.

The highest named summit in this catalogue is Mount Young at 1,702 m (5,584 ft), and three peaks in the range stand above 1,500 m.

The named peaks of the Chilkat Range, highest first

• Mount Young — 1,702 m (5,584 ft)
• Mount Case — 1,605 m (5,266 ft)
• Mount Wright — 1,566 m (5,138 ft)
• Miller Peak — 1,456 m (4,777 ft)
• Yang-Webster Peak — 1,309 m (4,295 ft)
• Nun Mountain — 1,295 m (4,249 ft)
• Mount Golub — 1,282 m (4,206 ft)
• Shuk Da Doogu — 1,148 m (3,766 ft)
• Lulxooshaa — 1,053 m (3,455 ft)
• Tree Mountain — 1,031 m (3,383 ft)

Two of them, Shuk Da Doogu and Lulxooshaa, carry Tlingit names rather than the English ones that cover most of the map in this part of Alaska.

The glaciers you can see from the road

The eastern slope drains into Chilkat Inlet through two glaciers that need no approach at all. The Davidson Glacier spills off the range and spreads into a forested outwash plain near the mouth of the Chilkat River; it is the one most people photograph from the Haines ferry. The Rainbow Glacier hangs on the cliff a little further north, with its meltwater dropping straight to the shoreline in summer. Both are visible from the Haines Highway, and both are reachable on day trips by kayak or small boat.

Skiing and climbing

Haines is one of the best-known heli-skiing bases in North America, and the Chilkat Range supplies a good part of that terrain: steep, consistently loaded faces with a maritime snowpack, close enough to town that flying time is short. The season runs roughly from February to April.

Climbing is a different proposition. The summits themselves are not technically hard by Alaskan standards, but there is no trail network, the lower slopes are thick coastal brush and devil's club, and glacier travel is required on the higher approaches. Most ascents here start with a boat.

Getting there

Haines is the practical base. It is reached by the Haines Highway from Haines Junction in the Yukon, or by Alaska Marine Highway ferry from Juneau and Skagway; there is scheduled air service as well. Gustavus, on the Glacier Bay side, serves the western flank. Neither town is on the road system from the Lower 48 except by way of Canada.

When to go

For skiing, late February through April. For boating, hiking the shoreline and glacier viewing, June through September, with July and August the driest — which in Southeast Alaska still means rain. November and December bring the other reason people come to this valley: the bald eagles that gather by the thousand on the Chilkat River below the range, drawn by a late salmon run on water that stays open after everything around it has frozen.