Frequently Asked Questions

The nature of our trips, hiking off trail in the mountains while carrying a heavy backpack, requires everyone to have a reasonable baseline of fitness. As a rule of thumb, if you can hike with a 45lbs/18kg pack at a slow pace along a rough trail, you probably have enough fitness for all of our trips. Most people can grunt out a day of backpacking, but the more you’re used to carrying a big pack, the more fun you’ll have on our trips.

That being said, we have developed our trips to have a mix of easier and harder days and we’ve tried to keep the daily distances manageable (usually 5-12km/day) to ensure we can set a slow and comfortable pace that works for the everyone in the group. In addition, all of our trips have planned day hikes that gives us a break from having to move camp and carry a heavy pack.

Once you’ve signed up for a trip, we’ll provide you with training tips and preparation guides. Most avid hikers with little backpacking experience can get the necessary strength to progress to backpacking with a month or two of easy training.

No, definitely not! Our guides are there to make your life as easy as possible while out on the land and will show you all the tips and tricks of the trade.

For our Kusawa Territorial Park trip, just having hiking experience is enough. For some of our more challenging expeditions, we recommend prior backpacking experience, but it is not always a requirement. Before you book a trip, we’ll chat about your experience and ensure you’re perfectly matched up with one of our trips.

Hiking off-trail is a unique experience that opens up a world of possibilities. You’re no longer constrained to walking along a predetermined trail and instead can go in any direction you see fit. That being said, the added difficulty of this style of hiking can vary dramatically depending on our elevation. Alpine plateaus typically offer expansive, effortless routes with grassy terrain while valley bottoms sometimes have dense bushes that can be challenging to hike through. Anticipate encountering diverse terrain and varying levels of difficulty throughout our excursions.

All our trips start in Whitehorse. Get yourself here and we’ll take care of the rest.

Whitehorse, the capital city of the Yukon Territory is one of Canada’s three cities north of the 60th parallel. While geographically far from any other big city, you can easily fly direct to Whitehorse from many major airports around the country. In fact, with our local airline Air North, you can usually fly to Whitehorse from western Canada for only $99.

Wildlife encounters and sightings are magical experiences while traveling in the backcountry. While our guides may not have the power to summon animals at will, the intimate nature of our small group sizes and the exclusivity of our remote fly-in trips significantly increase our chances of encountering wildlife in their natural habitat.

The Yukon is home to some big animals that can pose a danger to humans. Black bears, grizzlies, rutting moose and bison all live here and we must do our best to co-exist with these incredible animals. Yukon Alpine Adventures takes animal safety extremely seriously and you can rest assured that our guides will follow industry standards for traveling in bear country.

Simple steps like not hiking alone, storing food securely at night and cooking away from our tents will tremendously reduce our chances of having any negative interactions with wildlife. Furthermore, we provide bear sprays to our guests as an added layer of safety.

The weather in the Yukon can be unpredictable but we believe that it’s all part of the adventure. While it’s nice to have endless sun, we’ve had many guests tell us that inclement weather added a uniquely memorable experience. There’s something special about being out in the mountains when the weather is bad and not just surviving, but thriving! Our guides are experts at setting up shelters and will coach you on how to stay warm and dry when things go south.

The Yukon is famous for its mosquitoes and its reputation is well deserved. Thankfully, the bug season peaks around the time the snow melts in early to mid June. By July, most camps have a manageable amount of bugs and our alpine camps are often completely bug free. If the bugs are out, a bug hat and a long sleeve shirt is all you need to keep those pesky mosquitoes at bay.

Good news, there are no human bitting ticks in the Yukon. This might change in the upcoming decades due to climate change, but for now you can roll around in the grass carefree!

Yes. 100% definitely super delicious certified! Our professional chef and co-director Emma has been developing an incredible array of meals that we can’t wait to serve you! We’re proud to offer a tasty and nutritious menu that’s entirely homemade. We also do our best to cater to any dietary restrictions people might have including gluten free, dairy free and vegetarian options.