Los Alamos Mountaineers to hear Alaska White Mountains adventure talk

The Los Alamos Mountaineers turned to Alaska for their latest outdoor program, but the appeal was close to home for anyone who hikes, skis or plans trips in Northern New Mexico. Michelle Gavel and Jordan Bishop spoke on “Remarkably Close, Shockingly Remote: Six years of Adventures in the White Mountains of Interior Alaska,” a talk built around the White Mountains National Recreation Area, a vast backcountry landscape that sits about an hour’s drive from Fairbanks.

Gavel and Bishop lived in Fairbanks from 2017 to 2024, and their work and recreation took them across Alaska. For this presentation, they focused on one place that combines easy access with serious remoteness: the one-million-acre White Mountains National Recreation Area, managed by the Bureau of Land Management and described by the agency as its only National Recreation Area in Alaska. The area was designated in 1980 under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act for outdoor recreation use.

That mix of reach and solitude is part of what made the talk resonate with Los Alamos outdoor users. The White Mountains offer 13 public-use cabins, two trail shelters and roughly 250 miles of groomed winter trails, along with the first 127 miles of the Beaver Creek Wild and Scenic River. BLM materials also note that summer motorized access is limited from May 1 through October 14 to protect sensitive resources, while non-motorized travel remains open.

Those details matter to mountain and trail users in Los Alamos County, where access, conditions and seasonal rules shape almost every outing. The White Mountains are a reminder that a place can be near a city and still demand careful planning, whether the trip involves skiing, snowshoeing, hiking or wildlife viewing. BLM describes year-round recreation there as including hiking, snowmobiling, snowshoeing, skiing, wildlife viewing and scenic viewing.

The Mountaineers scheduled the program for Tuesday from 7 to 8:30 p.m., continuing a pattern of adventure-focused talks that keep the county’s outdoor community connected to larger landscapes. For Los Alamos, a story about Interior Alaska carried a familiar lesson: remote terrain rewards preparation, respect for conditions and an eye for how public land is used and protected.