Alaska Guides for River, Backpacking, and Wilderness Trips- Arctic Wild

Professional Guides for Alaska's Wilderness

Remote wilderness travel demands professional guides with exceptional technical skills. Our clients demand personable, knowledgeable, and hard working guides. Arctic Wild is fortunate to have an astoundingly skilled, informed and passionate group of guides working with us. Some guides only work one trip a year while some hike and paddle with us all summer long for decades.

Our guides’ skills are born of both experience and solid training. In addition to completing our annual in-house training all of our lead guides carry a Wilderness First Responder medical certificate and many of them have Swiftwater Rescue training. Some guides also work as biologists or mountaineers, professional conservationists, and photographers. All of our guides have the experience and knowledge to make your trip safe, fun, and educational. All of our guides love their work!

Arctic Wild Guides:

Bill Mohrwinkel, Co-owner/Guide

Bill is an exceptional guide and educator who has been leading trips since 1989. He has worked as an instructor, guide and program supervisor for both Outward Bound and The National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) in Alaska and across the US and Mexico. Bill is an accomplished mountaineer, exceptional paddler and an efficient, graceful and skilled outdoorsman. In addition to his technical skills and training Bill is a well rounded naturalist and birder. Bill has been active in protecting the Arcitc Refuge coastal plain from oil and gas development by touring the country with a slide show. He currently works on conservation issues near his home in Palmer, Alaska. He lives with his wife Carrie and daughter Halley, and works winters as a concert promoter for Whistling Swan Productions; bringing folk, blues and Indie music to south-central Alaska.

 

Michael Wald, Co-owner/Guide
Michael loves sharing his knowledge and passion for wild places. It is this love of teaching that has led Michael to work as a wilderness guide, educator and researcher. Michael has been leading wilderness trips since 1991, helping others understand and enjoy wildlands from Alaska to Labrador to the Antarctic in all seasons. Additionally, Michael has taught science courses at the high school and the undergraduate level, and has participated in research projects ranging from marine mammal studies to songbird habitat characterizations. Michael is able to draw on these diverse experiences to help others understand the intricate and fascinating ecology of polar regions. When not guiding or exploring Alaska's rivers with his wife Sally and sons Leo and Nolan, Michael enjoys carpentry and wooden boat building. In the winter Michael does the scheduling, booking, and logistics for Arctic Wild.

 

Sally Andersen, Office Manager
Sally keeps Arctic Wild on-track and efficient. Being married to long-time guide and co-owner Michael Wald, she is no stranger to the business. And as a lifelong resident of Fairbanks and a field research biologist with a Master’s Degree in Botany, she is no stranger to the arctic. But, as mother to 5 year old Leo and 3 year old Nolan, she is keeping a little closer to home these days, In addition to Arctic Wild, she works for the Interior Alaska Land Trust. Sally and Michael spend winters in the relative warmth of Haines, Alaska.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ron Yarnell
Ron started exploring Alaska’s Brooks Range in the early 1980's, long before other guiding companies, as owner of the guide business Wilderness Alaska-Mexico. Ron's company eventually grew into Arctic Wild when David van den Berg bought the business in 1999. Freed from Administrative duties, Ron can concentrate on what he likes most, showing participants the magnificence of the arctic wilderness. Ron enjoys helping people experience the wilderness and sharing his knowledge of animals, plants, geology, and local history. When any of us at Arctic Wild need information about a river or backpacking route, Ron invariably knows the answer. Ron's depth of experience is part of what make Arctic Wild special. In addition to leading trips for Arctic Wild, Ron guides trips in Mexico, Belize, Nepal, and Thailand through his business, All About Adventures.  Additionally, Ron is fulfilling a lifelong dream of building a log cabin on a lake 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle in the central Brooks Range.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dan Ritzman
After many academic fits and starts (due to a fondness for wilderness and
travel) Dan found his way to Alaska after finally receiving a Graduate
Degree from the School of Forestry at the University of Idaho. One of his
first jobs in Alaska was with the Northern Alaska Environmental Center in
Interior Alaska as the State Lands Coordinator. Dan and David van den Berg shared an office in the old Northern Center house and met Ron Yarnell on a "lobby" trip to Washington, DC. This proved to be very fortuitous for Dan who found himself guiding a trip on the Hulahula the next summer. Dan feels very fortunate to still be friends with David and Ron and to have returned to the Brooks Range and North Slope every year since. When not introducing people to the beauty and wildness of Alaska's Arctic Dan spends his time advocating for its protection as the Sierra Club's Alaska Program Director working in Alaska and Washington DC to protect wild public lands. "Chill the Drills" Dan lives with his wife Cindy and son Brody in Seattle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dori MacDannold
Dori is a long time wilderness enthusiast who has kayaked, mountaineered, and hiked through the wilds of Alaska, Wyoming, and Mexico, and now makes her home in Palmer, Alaska. She has been an instructor with the National Outdoor Leadership School and with the University of Alaska Wilderness Studies Program and has guided wilderness trips with several Alaska companies, including Arctic Wild since 2000. Dori is currently a yoga instructor, massage therapist, and sole proprietor of Hoop-n-Hula Milk-n-Cookies.

 

 

 

 

 

Dave Shaw
Dave Shaw first came to Alaska in 1998 after graduating from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. His first summer in the great land was spent working as a bird bander in Denali National Park. He fell in love with the state and moved up full time in 1999 to work as a field biologist.  Dave attended graduate school at the University of Alaska Fairbanks where he received his Masters in wildlife biology in 2006.  He has a love of extremes, which has taken him from the Himalayas of Bhutan to Antarctica and the Amazon. He has worked as a naturalist guide in Antarctica, the rainforests of Central America, the Rockies of Colorado, and in Alaska.  While at home and depending on the season, Dave can be found skiing the trails, slopes and mountains around Fairbanks and the Alaska Range, fly-fishing Alaska’s rivers, backpacking along remote ridgelines, poking under mossy rocks, or waiting for the perfect light with his camera. He makes his living as a wildlife biologist and freelance photographer/writer/wilderness guide. Check out his website at www.wildimagephoto.com.

 

 

 

Moe Witschard
Moe first visited the Brooks Range in 1988 when he ran the Noatak River in a couple of ancient Folbots with three college friends. Hooked on the north, Moe has returned to Alaska most of the summers since then to teach courses for the National Outdoor Leadership School, do many personal trips, and now to guide for Arctic Wild. Moe has explored rivers throughout Alaska, the Yukon, NW Territories, and Baffin Island. His current craft of choice for his personal trips is the packraft. He is an accomplished mountaineer, avid mountain biker, expert boater, photography instructor and a pleasure to travel with. Moe lives in Bozeman, Montana and while we normally don't hire guides from outside Alaska, we made an exception for this man of many talents. He also works as an editorial and commercial photographer. See some of his work at www.moephotography.com.

 

 

Cameron Baird
Raised in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah, Cameron Baird grew up playing in the wilderness.  He has since been guiding trips in Alaska for a dozen years from the Alsek River in Southeast Alaska, to the Arctic Coast.  With a formal education in Environmental Studies from the University of Alaska Fairbanks he holds a deep love of the land, inspiring those around him to experience the natural world with renewed wonder. He is also an excellent nature photographer. Cameron, his wife Becky, and their daughter Skyler call Fairbanks their home.

 

 

 

 

 

Allie Barker
Allie Barker is a mountaineer, homesteader, climbing instructor and top-knotch wilderness guide. With numerous technical ascents across Alaska and 10 years of guiding for Alaska Mountaineering School she is perfectly at home in places most people would dare not go.

When not climbing and skiing in Alaska's high-country she is often found raising a mammoth garden, picking berries or working on her beautiful homestead with her partner Jed. Allie has been guiding for Arctic Wild since 2009.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Garrett Jones
Garrett came to Alaska in 2005 expressly to experience the Brooks Range. He has a Bachelors of Science degree in Recreation, Parks and Tourism from Radford University Virginia and an Associates Degree in Environmental Science from Mendocino College in California. His eleven years of guiding experience range from working as a fishing guide in Montana and Wyoming, as a wilderness instructor in Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Puerto Rico and Alaska, and now as a guide with Arctic Wild since 2006. Experiencing Alaska and the arctic is a life changing event and he loves sharing this amazing journey with others. Garrett is a top notch boater and an enthusiastic naturalist. When not cooking in the arctic, Garrett builds custom homes in Fairbanks.

 

 

 

Jeb Timm

Jeb Timm grew up in a cabin near the Robertson River and has been boating and hiking since the day he could walk. He has logged many miles on rivers throughout Alaska, Northern Canada, and the Southwestern Desert area of the U.S. In '97 and '98 Jeb competed in the 600 mile Dyea to Dawson backpack & canoe race with his father, Hank. They finished in the top 8 both years. Jeb came to Fairbanks in '98 for school in wildlife biology and fell into the building trades, eventually becoming his own building contractor. Nowadays his day job involves designing and installing residential and small commercial Renewable Energy systems, which thankfully involves some time out of the office. Jeb is also part owner in Canoe Alaska. The business provides ACA certified canoe instruction from beginners to advanced. Once winter comes, Jeb and his wife, Christine, put away the boats and get out the snowmachines and skis and log many miles of winter expeditions. Although generally a quiet person, Jeb has many stories, tips, and adventures to share and considers any day on the water or in the mountains a good day indeed!

 

 

Steve Springer

Steve is an avid outdoorsman and boater who enjoys sharing wilderness experiences with fellow outdoor enthusiasts. Steve is an excellent birder, has worked as a biologist for the Alaska Bird Observatory and enthusiastically guides birders from all around the globe whenever he has the chance. Come fall, Steve trades his river boats in for a dog sled or skis and goes mushing or skijoring with his huskies under the aurora. Its ironic that his bio is so short- he is never at a loss for words. His stories of adventures and natural history always delight and amuse his companions.