Alaska Travel Tips from a Local Guide | Lifetime Adventures & Trail Guides with Matthew Worden

In this episode of It’s Alaska Podcast, we sit down with outdoor guide and Alaska adventure expert Matthew Worden, the force behind GoHikeAlaska.com, LifetimeAdventures.net, and AlaskaTrailGuides.com.

Matthew shares what it really takes to explore Alaska beyond the tourist spots—from hidden trails and breathtaking backcountry routes to the mindset you need to safely experience the Last Frontier. Whether you’re a seasoned hiker or someone dreaming of your first Alaska adventure, this conversation offers insight, inspiration, and practical tips straight from someone who lives it every day.

We talk about:

•  What makes Alaska hiking unlike anywhere else in the world 
•  How to prepare for real wilderness adventures 
•  Hidden gems most visitors never see 
•  The difference between guided trips and going solo 
•  Why Alaska changes people 

If you’ve ever felt the pull of the wild, this episode is your invitation to answer it.

🎧 Tune in and discover Alaska through the eyes of someone who knows its trails best.

Find more episodes at www.itsalaskapodcast.com!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to It's Alaska, where we learn about Alaska, the good stuff, the crazy stuff, and the oh my God, I didn't know. Uh I'm Brett Erickson, your host, and the lovely Blaze Bell. She's the eye candy. So if we could do more camera work here, that would be great. And uh our guest, good looking guy. Yeah, I agree. I agree. You know, Matt, we didn't need any confirmation. Let me tell the jokes. We don't need any confirmation from you on those, please, sir. Can we bring in our next guest? Do we have we don't have another one? Okay. All right. Well, we got uh Matt Word and got kicked off the podcast. It was the shortest podcast ever. We got Matt Wordon from Go Hike Alaska. And uh that is a big well, how big is the company? I guess like it's a big company. Well, how big is it?

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Exactly. Yeah, right. Well, right now it is just me, but in the summer we ramp up, right? So uh headed in the winter here, you're looking at them.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

You know I got a couple people who are gonna help me out with with some stuff on a fill-in basis, but so like during the summer, like during this past summer, how many people did you have other people taking people tours on hiking tours, or was it just you?

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Yeah, I had uh four full-time employees. Oh, okay. You know, we're gonna kind of get into it, but I have two other businesses as well, so I'm able to hire folks on a hybrid basis. So the four that I had were doing different things, they were working for the other businesses as well. Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Yeah, oh nice. All right. So this is, you know, I don't know if a lot of people in other states ask, you know, what's your Florida story, or what's your Minnesota story, or what's your Iowa story? But we always hear this because Alaska is such a unique place. We're kind of in the middle of nowhere. Um, it takes effort to come here, it takes effort to live here. It's uh awesome, like no other place in the world. But what's your Alaska story? How did you how did you get up here?

SPEAKER_00 1:55

How did I get up here? Okay, well, 14 years ago I decided to come up here. And before I arrived, I I was living out in Dover, Delaware. Okay. I was stationed out there in the Air Force and military.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Okay, that's that's a common for story for a lot of people. So you weren't ever stationed up here, you were in Delaware, or have you been stationed up here?

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Despite all my effort to leave that base, no, I didn't make it up here. I came up here because people who I served with kind of described what type of place it was. And because I'm you know an outdoorsy dude and uh look, I like adventure, you know, they were like, well, why don't you go check it out? And I'm kind of an impulsive guy, you know, I didn't have anything going for me at the time other than married, no kids. Well, I I met this this gal out there and we got married right before I got out. So uh, you know, like I have my GI Bill, I could go anywhere and use that. And I was ready to go do an MBA. So it didn't really matter where we went. So we kind of we settled between Denver and Alaska, and her employer helped move us up here. So oh wow, what did she do?

SPEAKER_01 3:00

What did she do?

SPEAKER_00 3:00

She works for the World Wildlife Fund. Oh, nice, and she yeah, she's worked there for 18 years.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

She's the perfect place for that.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

Yeah, you know, yeah, worked in their little field office of about eight employees and works on conservation work. So uh blessed to be up here because of them. They were the ones who really enabled us to come up here. So that that's kind of the story of how I arrived. Um, I was born in Michigan, though. So I I hailed from Kalamazoo, and voluntarily did I go into the military before it was not voluntary, and uh went on my way around the age of 20 to the to the Air Force.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

Oh, okay. So how many times how many years did you spend in the uh in the military? 20 years?

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Four years too long. It was a total of eight. The second one I probably could not I could have done without, but I did do eight years and uh it was a good time, yeah. Learned a lot of skills, worked on C5 aircraft, so I got a lot of systems now as I work on my own vehicles now, and now I got to maintain my bikes and everything. So a lot of the systems knowledge I got from working on the aircraft carries over and to other areas of life.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Yeah. So how did you start um Go hike Alaska then? When did that happen?

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Sure. So uh seven years ago, you know, like I was working at boys and girls clubs at the time. I worked there for four years and managed their grants funds. So all that uh learning I did with my MBA kind of landed me into that role. And I started getting to the the I started getting the itch to to do something different. And uh, you know, over the first, what was it, eight years or so that I lived here, I tried experimenting with doing other ventures and everything like that, and they all failed. Common story 100. What was one of them? What was what was something you tried? I'm hesitant to tell you, but I'll tell you the uh steal it or something. Do you want to try it again? The dumbest idea I had to do.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

That's honestly that's what I was looking for.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

It's dumb in the fact that I had no desire to do it. I just knew that we could maybe like make a little side hustle, right? Because my wife is a conservationist, right? When we got married, she made this really cool bouquet out of buttons instead of having flowers because she didn't want to like have a bunch of flowers at the wedding. So she made a like a renewable button bouquet, right? Okay, and I was like, that is so like original and niche, and you could sell these on Etsy's and just make uh a couple bucks on the side, right? And what I definitely didn't want to do any of that, so uh that was like a good idea coming onto another venture, you know, like this one it still might happen too, but uh I really wanted to do a food truck because I worked in the the restaurant industry for many years, and actually when I got out of the Air Force, I worked at Orso for a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

So uh I had this idea to make a food truck called Mr. Goodbye, and I did all the planning and all the modeling for it's gonna be just bite-sized food, bite-sized food. Yeah, it was either gonna be savory or some sort of dessert or something, but it was all just gonna be bite-sized food. Hence the name Mr. Goodbite, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Nice, all right.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

And uh it just proved to be a little bit too costly, and I was running out of money. You know, I had to find a job, so that didn't happen either.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

Food trucks, I mean, to build one is eighty thousand dollars, eighty, eighty-five, expensive. Yeah, and then all the permits and stuff. But so you got you got Go Hike Alaska, go ahead and gohikealaska.com. So how did you start this? And when when when was the year that you started this?

SPEAKER_00 6:36

So it was 2018, and how it originally like transpired, you know, uh I like telling the story too of like when the thought hit my mind, but it was it was because of this cat that I had for like 13 years, oddly enough, right? And he was getting to the end of his life, and I got to that moment. I never had a like a pet die with me before, just me, right? It was my cat, right? Made the trip up from Delaware and everything. I know it's just a silly little cat, right? But I was like 13 years, I mean that's a big chunk of your life, you know. Like my J Boy is gonna die. And I was like, I gotta go on this long hike. And uh I I went out for a day and went out for like 10 hours. And for anybody who spent some time in the Chugach Mountains, you may know the route that I'm referring to, but the Willow Lakes route that leads into the ball field and Little O'Malley that day. And when I was up on the ball field going back, I just had this like thought creeping in my mind. I was like, do you love because like since I've been up here, I've just been infatuated with hiking, right? I'm an Eagle Scout, I love spending time outside, and that's when the idea hit me where it was like, why don't I just take people out and show them the Chugatch State Park? That's when it happened, right? Because there was nobody really doing it at the time? Were there were there any companies that you knew of that you looked at? And yeah, so like I started looking into that, right, right afterwards, and there was a very the presence was really limited, right? There was a send there was a sending path and uh Alaska or two it was the Chugach Guides, I can remember those two businesses were actively marketing that they were doing stuff, but this was the funny thing, right? Like uh as part of starting up, like I contacted a bunch of businesses around here, including those two, to just kind of like figure out ways if we were gonna partner or just introduce myself. And if I I find out that Chugatch Guides is like done their selling and ascending path decided to relocate to Girdwood, which left a huge hole. Yeah, and uh between the opportunity that lies in there and just uh kind of looking at the market and and tourism in general, I was like, well, there's there's a good chance that I can at least get some traction with doing some hiking tours around here. And uh be I just throw this out here too. I think part of the process that was kind of fun too was I was like hiking guided hiking tours, right? Like, is that something that people actually do? So I started looking for hiking guide jobs around the state of Alaska, and I want to say only two popped up. There was one for their guiding on the Chilcat or Chilku trail, and then uh something with Tal Keatna guides up in Tal Keatena, but nothing around here. But I was like, you know what? It looks like that there's there's jobs to be had, so and a little bit of reinforcement there as well that people were actually doing this type of work.

SPEAKER_03 9:31

Yeah, so I feel like that would be huge in Alaska, especially in the summertime. I'm surprised there's not like multiple groups doing it.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

It still surprises me. You know, you I talk to people from the tour.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

I mean, hiking isn't easy, you know.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

I think like hiking tours like finding your your piece and and where you fit in with the market too, like the market share is is difficult with that one. I've talked to so many different people from the president of Alaska Trails to a couple people I worked with on the Citizens Advisory Board for the Chugatch State Park, and all have mentioned oh, there have been people who came before you who tried to set it as you saw with Chugatch Guides and Ascending Path, and they're like every person who comes into Chugash State Park for some reason ends up like for one reason or another, uh like doing something a little bit different. So uh it's uh been thrilling, and uh I'm blessed to be able to have stuff that has stuck. And I I I really think like coming in at the time that I did and getting the traction in the way I did and building the partnerships the way I did all contributed the to the initial success of uh of landing us here. Yeah, and it just and now it's solid, you know, like so I don't have to worry as much as about another competitor coming in, you know. But there's other people doing little things here and there, but yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_01 10:58

Nice. Okay, so it's growing and and that's huge. Um so how does someone book? Like uh I'm down the lower 48 and I'm thinking coming to Alaska, uh go to your website or call you. How does that process work?

SPEAKER_00 11:13

You know, that's always the preferred way. It's always the preferred way. We like when people contact us up to contact us directly. We can save them processing fees, offer them the lowest uh fare, and we don't have to worry about commission or anything. Not that that's a bad thing. Uh so it's you know, working directly with us through a website, gohikealaska.com is always the best way to do it. And uh we also work with a ton of partners, right? Like the yes, you work with we work with what we call OTAs or online travel advisors like Viader and get your guide. Those guys like to charge a lot of commission, but they're they bring in a lot of business too. So that's really an easy way for people to find this. And then there's more there's like travel advisors that work here in town. So you're familiar with salmon berry tours, and uh they do a great job, and they do a great job of um of of just I mean their own their own things as well.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

So they're a great partner, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

So they yeah, you know, like entities like them in Alaska Tour and Travel, Alaska Private Touring, a bunch of local resellers and and non-local resellers offer our product too. So there's lots of different ways for us to work our channels for people to find us. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:35

Um not in my notes, but you mentioned you have some other businesses as well. We'll come back to that again because it's adventure-y, but what what are your other businesses right now?

SPEAKER_00 12:45

I it's kind of funny like going through this and talking about each one of them. I had a uh the former owner of Lifetime Adventures. A lot of locals may recognize the name, Lifetime Adventures. We're really well known out at Oclutinal Lake as being the bike and rental shop the bike and kind of rental shop. I don't I don't like referring to it as that. Well, we're gonna come up with a different name here in the next couple years. Uh because I got one that's gonna work a little bit better.

SPEAKER_03 13:11

So I love a straightforward business name. I want to know exactly, you know, I like it.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

It one that's gonna identify a little bit better.

SPEAKER_03 13:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

So we'll keep it like held tight a little bit for right now, but it'll be really fitting when it does happen. Because I I have some plans for what I'd like to see that operation at Oklutna become. But uh Oklutna is pretty interesting too, though. Um and actually let me go back. I was talking to the former owner, right? And he represented our our brands, all three of them at the Alaska Travel Industry Association convention last week. Well, I was in Hawaii or whatever. And uh he came, I saw him yesterday and he was like, So how do you how do you like tell people about all three of your brands? Because like people start losing interest, and it's because it's like so much to just like we just spent like 10 minutes talking about Go Hike Alaska, so it's like, yeah, let me let me kind of just like summarize real quick, you know, Lifetime Adventures is at Oclutina Lake. We just talked about bike and kayak rentals. Uh oddly, so this is this is kind of an interesting thing, and you might expect to hear this, but with Go Hike Alaska, and then we'll drop the other one in Alaska Trail Guides, that's the third business. We see about 90 to 95 percent out of state visitors to local, whereas out at Lifetime Adventures, we see about a 50-50 split. And that's because the former owner Dan did such a great job at bringing in the local market here to experience his services that uh that were that we have that type of mix, which is really, really good for business. Uh not only do we do rentals out there, we do guided tours and we um we have large groups that will come out there to us. So premier or last.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

How big of groups do you do?

SPEAKER_00 15:06

I did one of the craziest experiences I've had running that business was I did a group of 92 this summer.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

That's a big that's a big group.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

Just you? It was no, it was okay. I'll never forget July 17th. That was a monumental day. I think I had like 20 guys working across Alaska that day. And we had uh about 10 of us out at Oklutna to do that group of 92. So that yeah, that was uh that was a big group. I don't always get 92, they're usually like 20 to 40, is what I see. And uh just for an example, we work with Premier Alaska and they send to us adventures by Disney cruise guest. And that's a uh, yeah, if you didn't know, Disney actually packages together land-based excursions for for people.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

So that's the Princess Company, right? Is that the Princess Cruise? It's actually not, it's Disney. It's Disney itself, okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

Yeah. So group tours. We do. Does Mickey come with it?

SPEAKER_01 16:06

Do you get uh do you get him hiking with or goofy?

SPEAKER_00 16:10

We got some Mickey Mouse lights that we can since we have no power out there, you gotta put in it, plug it into the battery pack, but you know, it's always fun trying to to make things happen out there without any power or water.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

But what's the um what is the wildest hiking story that uh that you have?

SPEAKER_00 16:29

I'm so glad we're getting into that. Yeah. Oh my God, it's so it's so hard to think of what it is. I so are you familiar with Trail Tales? I'm not. Trail Tales is an event that happens every month in Alaska Trail Guy or Alaska Trails, the organization. They they hold this event. I don't know if they're still using the Alaska or the Anchorage Museum.

SPEAKER_02 16:53

But uh entries of but like stories.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

Yeah, and they have a lot of it uh people in the adventure community there come there and talk tell and tell their story and whatnot. And uh, like one year into it, the the former president Steve Cleary asked me to come and speak. And I was like, what am I gonna talk about? And then I like remembered the first three days on the job of learning how to guide, because like I had never got it before. I was just going to go and make it happen the best way that I thought.

SPEAKER_02 17:22

Just do it.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Uh so the the first day was kind of like uh it was more of like an eye-opener of like maybe we shouldn't do something here, right? Like the guests got really upset that we took them to we went to the turning and arm and everything like that. And he was like, Let me let me talk to you for a minute. Like, and he he he really just it was very assertive the way he spoke to me about the tour or whatever. And I was like, fine, I'm expecting that, you know. Like the first day, sure, uh maybe you could expect that. Now, the second day, that's where things started getting a little bit interesting. I took this Dana and Gail, I still remember their names. This is like six years ago, right? And we did another section of the turning an arm. And uh we were going from McHugh Creek to Rainbow. And I don't know if like you know anything about it, but the last mile, the audience might yeah, go to the last mile or so going from McHugh Creek, you go into Rainbow, it's down a thousand feet in elevation.

SPEAKER_01 18:24

Nice. And you have to walk down that?

SPEAKER_00 18:26

Yeah, yeah. If you're doing it from that direction, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:28

They just fall down it.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

Like that was one of those moments where I should not have taken her down there, but I did, anyways. So, like on the way back, about two miles from the vehicle, she started throwing up, right? And I'm like, oh my god, I like worked this lady to death, right? So she starts throwing up, she's getting cramped and can't walk and everything. And it took me everything to like she was in her 50s, okay. You know, and I was like, Well, just gonna motivate her to get her back and everything, you know, just get her a little bit of water here and there, and she did. And it was so it was so cool when she was done. She left me this really nice testimonial and everything about like the motivation aspect of it, everything like that, even though she just like was just like, I know, right? It was just like college. And then the third, the third day, I'll make this kind of short so you can get in other questions or whatever, but I had two people they wanted to go on a strenuous hike, so I took them up Bird Ridge, right? And Bird Ridge is a three 3,500 foot climb. And a lot of the people who live in Alaska are like, oh, those are those are you know, we can do those hikes or whatever. And I had this uh this guy who was in his 60s, and he was a he was a competent hiker. Like he actually he made it up the he made it like 90% of the climb, but Alaska, what it uh uh what it does in its finest with its weather, right? Like a turn on a dime.

SPEAKER_01 19:51

Yeah, it's 65, 70 degrees, and then suddenly it's 55.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

Dude, we saw the I saw the black cloud coming in across a turning in arm, and I'm like, we got to get down. And we start heading down, and it's pouring rain on us. And the his name was Terry. He went head over heels on that mountain. Just I saw him doing summer. I was like, oh Lord.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

So he's falling down a mountain.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

He's just falling, he's falling down and he stops or whatever. And I'm just like, oh, and I'm thinking, like, I had the flashback. This is my third day. I'm like, am I really doing the right thing?

SPEAKER_01 20:22

Third day of business. Yes, I can see where I'm killing people. I need to uh revisit uh my business plan.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

Yeah, dude, it was so funny though, because like I got we got him down. He was like, okay, they didn't break any bones they ain't got or anything like that. And he was like, Well, I guess that's just how hiking Alaska is. I gotta get used to it. And I'm just like, oh my God. No, that's not like not always.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

But you've changed that too, obviously, because a lot of the tourists here are people that are in their 50s, 60s, and 70s, and there's you know, obviously there's things that they can do, or just people in general, things they can do and can't do. So how do you how do you set it? Yeah, people some people are in better shape than others, you know.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

I made a shift, right? So at the beginning, we were doing these hikes based on where where you go, the location, everything. So we were marketing it as like turning in uh rainbow to windy, and that really never made sense because if you're looking at it, you're like, really, what is this trail? Like you could look it up already or something like that. Yeah, but it really made no sense. So about a year into it, we decided to like I decided I need to define these tours as like a type. I don't know the word to describe it, like a nature walk, right? Yeah, rather than like a different levels, right? Rather than like half day hike or Glen Alps hike, it was like let's just call it a nature walk and set the experience levels that you would want to see out here, and you go into depth and just talk about what it is that you're doing on the tour. I think I think It sounds a little bit common sense, but when you're working your way through your entrepreneurship journey, not all these things like happen right at the beginning. Like you got to go through it to kind of figure it out.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

That's with a lot of businesses who have to unfortunately go through the the horribleness to go, yeah, we got to change that around.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

Yeah. So we you know, we made a nature walk, we made an alpine trek, a valiant forest hike, and those those three tours right there were core. Like that's all I did. And they each were partitioned out like perfectly in in terms of the pie. Like Valiant Forest Hike, I guess, does a little bit better than the other two, but nature walks and alpine are pretty much split. So I found that like those three tours had the traction that we needed to carry on doing them as they are, and we found that it it like we were getting the right type of people onto those tours, right?

SPEAKER_01 22:54

Like the people that can handle that type of stuff, and yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

Yeah, so that's kind of how we broke it down. Uh, and now we you know we got foraging tours and we have some three, I have a three-day and a five-day backpacking tour. While everyone's camping. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

So that sounds like fun and scary for me. Um, as you can tell, I'm not much of a hiker, you know. Uh, but so but you do have stuff for all different levels of of folks, right? I mean, or do you sometimes say maybe hiking isn't the best for you, or is there something pretty much for everybody?

SPEAKER_00 23:28

That's a great question, and kind of a good segue into Alaska Trail Guides, right? Where uh Alaska Trail Guides, I bought this year, and that company is known for bike tours. Oh, cool. The Coastal Trail, we all love the Coastal Trail. The gals who built that tour, who I took over from, uh really did a good job in working with the cruise lines and setting up a tour that's really just good for anyone. So they're cruiser style bikes. We're probably doing an e-bike option next year, but it's just it's cruiser style separate. And uh, you know, it's not uncommon for us to see 60 through 70 year olds on that tour. We're going on an average of about five miles per hour. So somebody would run faster than your you're pedaling, right? And uh what we do is we go to Kincaid Park and we ride the Westchester Lagoon. Oh nice. Okay. Simple. Yeah, nice little tour. Yes, to answer your question. We got something a little bit. A little something for everybody.

SPEAKER_03 24:32

So what's next in the summer? Actually, what do you do in the winter?

SPEAKER_00 24:36

Snowshoeing.

SPEAKER_03 24:37

Oh, yeah, snowshoeing for the biggest.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

For go like Alaska, it's snowshoeing and we still have some biking tours that we can do. Yeah, and then with Alaska Trail Guys, we have fat tire biking.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

Oh, that's nice.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

Yeah. I just like to have a lot of fun, really.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

Well, that's a lot of work too, though. I mean, that's you know, that a lot of tourism, you know, they're starting May or early or late April and they're done by the beginning of October. But you're you're basically uh, you know, 365 then.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

Yeah. Yeah. I I see with Go Hike Alaska that about 25% of my business comes through the months of October through April. So it's substantial. And I don't know what this winter's gonna bring. It looks a little light right now, but that's what it always usually turns out to be is about 25%. We see a lot of people over the holidays, and I did around in Fur Randy.

SPEAKER_03 25:29

Oh, yeah, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 25:31

Yeah, we don't know how much snow we're gonna get if we get any. We usually get some, but sometimes we get dumped on and sometimes we don't. It's Alaska, because you don't know, right? That's the way we call it it's Alaska. What about wildlife? That's a big question people have. It's like, okay, Alaska's like no other place. Because there's bears, there's moose, there's wolves. Is there any other animals that people need to watch out for too? Which one do you think? Bees, moose, bears, and wolves. I'd say lynx, but those are usually they're pretty timid. Or do you have so much of them?

SPEAKER_00 26:06

But I think that there's actually only been one recorded wolf attack in all of North America. Those guys like to really stay clear of us. But moose, definitely I don't like with wildlife in general, this is kind of just a good time to break it down. Like next to the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center, I think we're your next best options if you're trying to see wildlife when you're coming to Anchorage. You know, we go to the places we go to because of the wildlife viewing opportunities. Eagle River Nature Center, the coastal trail. The coastal trail. Uh we saw the most that we saw on one day on the coastal trail was 12 moose.

SPEAKER_02 26:40

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

So we we go to these places for a reason. And we're kind of we're constantly constantly seeing black bear out there. Uh Klutina Valley where Lifetime Adventures is at, always has black bear out there. You want to talk about crazy stories and everything like that.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

I've actually seen place do, yeah. What's your wild, crazy wildlife story?

SPEAKER_00 26:57

Well, I I've seen a moose swim across a Klutena lake. Side to side, he was swim, he swam a mile across that thing. That was wild. Uh I've also seen Did it have horns?

SPEAKER_01 27:07

Were the horns sticking out too, or was it not hornless? Did it have horns?

SPEAKER_00 27:11

Oh my god, I don't remember now. I just remember seeing the moose out in the water and watching him swim across. But uh I it and this is kind of just making me think about like where all of this is kind of taking me, right? Where like I've seen so many different natural natural phenomena during my time of doing this.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

Sasquatch, like Bigfoot?

SPEAKER_00 27:32

I guess that's what the bear on the glacier that I saw could have been defined as. I just saw this black thing. Okay, this big black, right? Like seeing a seeing a black bear crossing a glacier was another one of those moments where it was like, oh my god, what is actually happening right here? And when he saw, see how he took off. I guess he felt really vulnerable and everything like that. Uh seeing a like um young doll sheep nursing from its mom. Uh seeing uh just some weird things like there was one day where we came across a couple of moose up in the Glen Alps walking around blueberry knoll, and they headed up to the top of the knoll. And we were out there for a good four hours, and we would just check in with them, and I would just see the two moose just standing on top of that knoll. And uh I've seen moose get in so many different locations, so now I'm thoroughly convinced that there's nowhere that a moose won't go from where I've seen evidence of them, seeing them up on top of these mountains, and just that just it's kind of crazy, right?

SPEAKER_01 28:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:35

Um how do you protect your group? Because I know I I don't know, I get nervous sometimes. That's a good question, yeah. What'll happen?

SPEAKER_01 28:45

Do you have a little tutorial of what to do too, you know?

SPEAKER_00 28:48

Yeah, that's well, we like to start off every tour with a safety briefing, right? No matter what it is that we're doing. Uh but there's strength in numbers there, right? You know, even with two, like you're gonna be talking and the noise is gonna act as a deterrent. So like 99.5% of the time you're encountering animals at a range that is acceptable. Yeah. There's been a couple times where we've had guides out there that got into encounters that weren't ideal. Like how so?

SPEAKER_01 29:22

Like what?

SPEAKER_00 29:23

Yeah, so I had this one gal, her name is Britt, and she was guiding a group. And yeah, you hear you like you hear this in your safety briefing. And does she have anything on her? Do not run, but when you're in the moment, something like that your brain says fight or flight, and yeah, a lot of times, yeah. So we actually tell people if you can't fight that urge, then run to me. That's what we start we started telling them, right? But on that day, she was out at Eagle River Nature Center walking around the Albert Loop, and it was during a period of time where grizzlies are a little bit more active, like around the August time frame.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

They're feeding for their they're trying to consume as much food for the winter, right?

SPEAKER_00 30:02

Albert Loop will actually get shut down from April 15th through Nov November 1st every single year because of high grizzly activity looking for salmon in the area.

SPEAKER_01 30:10

So if you want some hot grizzly action, that's where you go. That's where you go.

SPEAKER_00 30:13

That's where you go. Hot grizzly. We love seeing grizzlies like I love bears. I really do. That one was really just not good, though. She she was walking by and uh any cubs with her?

SPEAKER_01 30:26

That's usually the issue, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

And she was right in the sedges, and they she she spooked them. So you and then you had the combo effect of the lady trying to run away, and the Brit was able to grab her hand and like she said, Stop, you know, like just like hold your ground. Stay put, and she managed to like slowly back them out of the area without incident. Uh I've also had uh another uh person run away during a grizzly incident uh out at Barbara Falls, and it's like so we've had two people try to run both during grizzly incidents, and it's like uh and you tell them at a time don't run, but obviously they something happened. So uh going back to what you were asking, you you have the strength and numbers, we offer the safety briefing, uh all the times we will be in front, you know. Like some somebody told me one time that when you're when you're guiding the tour, maybe you should uh if the time comes when it's right, let your people go and experience a trail for themselves, right? And be out in front and everything like that, right? And I love that. I don't like being in front the whole time.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Like them walk at their own pace and kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 31:38

Uh if you guys have fun, I'm gonna have fun with the camera. If we get into some sort of encounter situation in the area that maybe I should be in front and I'm gonna take the lead. But go ahead, go explore. Like this is where we're going. If you're going the wrong way, I'll tell you where to go.

SPEAKER_01 31:50

And do you have any you know, bear spray with you? Or are some people see some tours where they're they've got a gun with them. If it, you know, if what what do you guys have with you when you guys go out on these uh bear spray.

SPEAKER_00 32:02

We we don't carry any sort of uh firearm in the true gas shape park. Uh if I don't know, there might be some places where I would be more tempted to carry a shotgun, maybe, but you know, a Kodiak.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

I was on a bear, uh, a bear uh thingy, and uh yeah, they had a shotgun, which was good because we did get charged by a Kodiak Chris. I was with Dennis Quaid, name drop. Uh yeah, and I'm like, should I push him up? Yeah, should I push him out of the way of the bear? Or well, Dennis Quaid, he's in great shape. Not me. I would not have outran that bear. So I'm like, oh, should I push him out of the way or push him in the way and I'll get out? So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:39

So, you know, like uh I I don't feel I feel like firearms present more of a hazard than bear spray. That makes sense. Uh especially with what we do. And you're around the city as well.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

A lot of those trails are, you know, around you know Anchorage and things like that, too. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:58

Now, people always ask me, have you ever had to use the bear spray? And we did actually. We actually had some really good training with our bear spray. And it was the perfect, it was actually the perfect scenario. This is kind of a fun little uh story.

SPEAKER_01 33:11

Uh except for the bear, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:13

Well, luckily we were dealing with a juvenile, like a little one-year-old. Couldn't have been very old, but out at a Cluton Lake at Lifetime, we had one run into our cabin one day. Just like, oh my God, how are you? Like uh one of my our operations manager Chelsea managed to go in there and like clap and get it out, but he didn't want to leave. So a day later he came around and I had a group of about 30 out there, I want to say. And he went to the backside of the cabin, and everybody obviously wanted to take pictures and it was a horse. Oh, look at that. So cute. It's like, okay. Well, and this is where people are gonna start being like, Really, Matt, you did that, right? Uh, but we couldn't deter it with our voices by clapping her in the city. So I started throwing rocks at it to try to get it out of there, right? And it's just bouncing off the bear, and it's he's looking at me like, what are you doing? Right.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

Is that all you got?

SPEAKER_00 34:11

So I get this big long 15-foot piece of alder that I have there, and I'm like trying to push him away, like, get out of here, right? He's not moving. So, yeah, I'm the guy who poked the bear with the with the stick, right? I had my bear, I had my bear spray on the book. If he was any bigger, I would have just sprayed him, but it's like this dude was small. He wasn't gonna spray him anybody, yeah. But he was just he was large enough where I couldn't get him to move, so I was like, I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to spray him now. And it's so funny. I worked with this gal named Joanne out there, and she was like, You're gonna spray him? No, and you know, uh I was like, Joanne, we gotta get rid of him. I'm sorry, man. So I uh pulled out the bear spray and I sprayed him, and it like it worked perfectly. Like he ran off and everything like that, but the guy he didn't learn and he kept coming back.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

So the bear spray, I mean, how does that work? Is it blind the bear? What is it, what does it, you know, what does it do when you okay irritates, okay?

SPEAKER_00 35:11

It irritates them, yeah. It's just it's pepper spray and it irritates them, it gets in their nose, it gets them in their eyes, and they're disoriented and right. So uh the funny the funniest thing about this though was like we were all joking about we were all kind of joking about what happened and some laughs, and I hear the bear's on the grill. And I was like, the bear's on the grill, and I turned around and he's eating a reindeer sausage, and he's on top of this. Like burning hot, still on grill. Yogi the bear. The bear didn't know it was on or anything. So he ran off again, and by the end of the day, he came back so often that every single one of our guides had an opportunity to go and mace the the bear. So it was a perfect training opportunity. Uh I found hair in the grill for a wow. I don't know, a week afterwards, I was still finding hair, and I'm like, I should be cooking burgers on this thing.

unknown 36:08

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 36:09

Well, this burger is hairy. Furry burger.

SPEAKER_00 36:12

So the fur burger. Yeah, that was it, that was an interesting event. But I thought yeah, you would like to. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 36:18

That is a great story. No, that's you actually poked a poked a bear with the stick. Um talk about your website, goalaska.com. What can they see on there when they when they go there? Can you see some of the some of the paths? Because I'm I would think that some people are like, man, I'd like to go hiking. I just don't know if I can, you know, physically, especially if somebody's, you know, maybe a little bit bigger or a little bit older, going, I just I don't know if I can do it or not.

SPEAKER_00 36:46

Sure. Sure. Gohikealaska.com. We've got all of our tours on there, really, really well organized, very easy to kind of click into and see all the pictures of where you're gonna be going in a short two to three, like most of them are about two paragraphs long about the route you're gonna take, the trail name, all that stuff, what you're gonna see, what you're gonna hear, and a simple little experience suggestion block for each tour. So I'd like to think it's pretty well organized and defined. Like I've gotten good feedback on it and everything like that. So it was already great. Yeah, it wasn't really good. Um, it's due for some upgrades, but uh it's worked for me for like five years now.

SPEAKER_01 37:29

So and you asked that too. You're like, what uh what about next year? How does next year look uh when it comes to tourism? This year for a lot of businesses, 2025, because of the tariffs, Canada didn't come up. Uh a lot of those folks, and I didn't know this until somebody told me Canada's a big part of our of our tourist group of people. So we didn't get a lot of people from Canada. But you know, and sometimes it depends on the company. Sometimes, oh, we had a great, you know, we had a great year, we didn't do as well. Um, how does 2026 look?

SPEAKER_00 38:00

Yeah, uh well before 2026 too, like Q2 for this from this past year is where we really saw a drop off, and that's where I think everybody kind of vo spoke up a little bit about what was going on, just like you kind of were talking to, but then it rebounded, right? Yeah. And uh you're you're familiar with Visit Anchorage, obviously. Obviously.

SPEAKER_01 38:20

And uh I may or may not be running for board, man.

SPEAKER_00 38:23

So yeah, that was a plug for you right there, buddy.

SPEAKER_01 38:25

That was a plug.

SPEAKER_00 38:27

So yeah, vote for bread, visit Anchorage board. Congratulations, by the way, uh, on your uh nomination there.

SPEAKER_01 38:33

So oh, that's right, yeah. Yeah, I'm the only probably the only one who has a chance to get jelly roll up here. So if you want jelly roll in Alaska, vote for Brad. Listen, I'm not promising anything, I'm just saying.

SPEAKER_00 38:46

So we had a uh report come out in September where Jack Bonnie, their communications director, uh was speaking to the amount of traffic that we saw here and and the economic output. And it was the third best uh season on record, despite Q2 being as low as it was, right? Oh, good, okay. And I could say that each one of the brands that we have saw small increments of growth where I didn't really because at the beginning of the season, I was like, oh my God, I'm gonna bad stuff are gonna happen. And uh I was in here with Tom, and I'm like, I don't know what's gonna happen, Tom. And uh it turned out good, and that's where I'm kind of like looking for 2026. And with the inquiries that we've received already, I'm I'm okay right now. I think my mentality will change as March and April start to pass. But right now it it seems that it's gonna be good again.

SPEAKER_01 39:48

Um because Alaska's one of those trips, I mean, people plan months, sometimes a year or even longer ahead of time. I mean, this really isn't, hey, let's head down to Florida for the weekend. I mean, Alaska for most people, this is a bucketless trip, and it's something that they've planned uh ahead of time, or is some of that changing, or is some of it, you know, hey, they're only planning a month or two months out. Have you seen any of that?

SPEAKER_00 40:11

I think the the whole Canadian and international thing is definitely there's a point to that. Yeah. You know, like the numbers that I saw maybe be a little bit smaller for those two demographics, but then again, I just responded to an Australian travel advisor today who's coming up with her family of six. So it it's I have to have a little bit more data, especially for the winter, because that's when I see a lot of internationals come over here. But uh just without even studying my data, it seemed like a little less international traffic this summer.

SPEAKER_01 40:49

Um that makes sense, yeah. No, and that makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. Well, Matt Warden, gohikealaska.com. Uh, you got a Facebook page too, or uh MySpace? You have MySpace? We do. I know. I'm just kidding. I'm kidding.

SPEAKER_00 41:04

I haven't made a post in so long. It might as well be called MySpace.

SPEAKER_01 41:08

Who is in your top eight? No. Um Do you have like a Facebook page too where people can see pictures and things like that?

SPEAKER_00 41:14

We do, yeah. I'm getting ready to I'll probably go make my first post in a substantial period of time, either today or tomorrow, but such as the life of a hiking. Yeah, you've been working, yeah. It's kind of tough, you know. Yeah. I don't know. Tom's gonna probably want to we'll chat a little bit after this.

SPEAKER_01 41:35

Tom is a guy that owns number one studios, and he wants to chat about everything. Uh yeah we make fun of Tom. Brevity is not his friend. So, yes, he will want to talk to you. We love you, Tom. Love you. Brevity, remember that. Brevity. Awesome. And the website again?

SPEAKER_00 41:51

Gohikealaska.com, and then you have lifetimeadventures.net and you have Alaska Trailguides.com.

SPEAKER_01 41:59

Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 42:00

Oh, great. Thank you so much for being on the show. Yeah, I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me here.

SPEAKER_03 42:05

Woohoo!

unknown 42:06

Woop.

SPEAKER_00 42:07

Is that it? I think that's it.