Mount Katmai Crater Lake at sunset, looking N towards the true peak of Mount Katmai.
Eight years after my last attempt, I finally returned to the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes and reached the caldera of Mount Katmai. I might be the first photographer to ever camp on the caldera rim and capture this amazing place in prime sunrise and sunset conditions due to its remoteness and the inhospitable environment on the rim. I even caught the aurora over the crater lake one night!
My adventure buddy Ryan accompanied me on the trip. We met up in King Salmon in late August and flew into the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes with Sam Egli, who operates Egli Air Haul. While circling over Baked Mountain, we saw the Baked Mountain Huts had indeed been completely destroyed after my last visit, though the outhouse is still standing. Sam dropped us off near the base of Baked Mountain, placing us about 9 miles from the caldera rim as the crow flies, though our actual route would push closer to 14 miles. The first half of the route was straightforward as we paralleled Baked Mountain and wound around Novarupta, the site of the cataclysmic volcanic eruption that buried the valley in volcanic debris in 1912. We sank in the ash with every step, like walking in sand on the beach, but on fresh legs the hiking felt easy. Near Novarupta we spotted a caribou cow & calf crossing a snowfield, the only sign of life in the valley we had seen up to that point. The steep final ridge we’d need to climb to reach the caldera rim loomed in the distance beyond Novarupta.
Novarupta (foreground) with the west subpeak of Mount Katmai in the background. We ascended the lefthand ridge and camped on the peak.
As we approached the edge of one of the Knife Creek Glaciers, routefinding became much more difficult. Attempting a direct route across the middle of the glacier was impossible due to the steep canyons carved by meltwater running down the glacier. The upper glacier was much smoother and looked easier to navigate but there were crevassed areas to avoid and some obstacles we couldn’t clearly see around from our perspective, so we opted to drop about 1000 feet of elevation and climb up the toe of the glacier following a route that I had roughly followed the last time, which avoided crevasse danger and ensured no insurmountable obstacles, though it added significant distance and elevation gain. Ryan and I had to cross one deep and fast flowing glacier stream to access the toe, and we succeeded by rolling a giant pumice boulder into the creek and jumping onto it to cross to the other side. If it had been a normal boulder, it probably would have weighed over 1000lbs and we’d never have gotten it to budge, but all the volcanic rocks in the valley are deceptively light.
Once on the glacier, we labored up steep hills with the loose ash sliding beneath our feet. It almost felt like snowshoeing in deep powder. Ryan ran out of gas somewhere on the glacier but continued on fumes until we hit solid névé where the hiking became significantly easier, though no less steep. We ascended to the pass between Mount Katmai and Trident Volcano just after sunset, settling on a campsite near the base of the ridge leading to the west peak of the Mount Katmai caldera.
Ryan hiking up one of the ash-covered Knife Creek Glaciers with Mount Griggs in the background.
The next morning we packed up camp and wound our way across a maze of snow-filled runnels to the base of the summit ridge. Trident Volcano towered majestically in the morning sun behind us, looming over the head of one of the Wishbone Glaciers. Mountains, snow, ice, and ash deposits merge together here to form the most alien landscape I’ve ever seen.
View of Trident Volcano. Our first campsite was near the base of the runnels at right just below the pass between Trident Volcano and Mount Katmai.
The ridge was easy to navigate without any scrambling required or major obstructions to circumvent, but the soft footing made hiking extra difficult on our tired legs. The volcanic rocks embedded in the ash looked like stable footing, but they would sink deeper or slide down the mountain when we put our weight on them unless they were very large. We struggled up the 1700-foot ridge for over two hours, about twice as long as I would normally take to ascend a ridge with more solid footing while carrying a heavy pack.
Climbing the steep ridge to the western peak of the Mount Katmai caldera.
As we neared the summit, we caught our first glimpse of the crater lake as we rose above the saddle to our left. Even just this partial glimpse of the lake was so astounding I forgot how tired my legs were. I sped up to reach the top and as the ridge rounded over the entire turquoise lake suddenly emerged before me, the centerpiece of a marvelous 360-degree view including Mount Griggs, Trident Volcano, a sea of smaller mountains and sprawling icefields, and the Pacific Ocean. The rim of the caldera reflected in the still lake as chunks of ice from the glaciers inside the crater drifted slowly across the water.
Our campsite on the Mount Katmai caldera rim.
Ryan and I dropped our packs on the peak and ate lunch before scouting the nearby rim for a bit. We collected snow in our water bladders to melt in the afternoon sun and rested most of the afternoon, waiting on the sunset light for photos. Despite my reluctance, we pitched our tents right on the peak in a scenic but very exposed location. To be fair, it would have been difficult to find a less exposed spot anywhere on the rim. But the glorious sunny weather didn’t portend any problems in the near future.
As the light turned golden I started photographing around the rim, hiking up and down a rib leading into the crater with my sore legs complaining every uphill step. Ryan took some cool telephoto shots of me overlooking the lake below. We kept shooting into blue hour, then crawled in our tents and cooked dinner as the light slowly faded. I waited patiently for darkness to set in, hoping the aurora would cooperate later that night.
When I emerged from my tent later I couldn’t believe my eyes. Lights. Several of them. Visible all the way from Kodiak Island & Afognak Island to the east. I shouldn’t have been surprised to see them considering I was on top of a mountain with a direct line of sight to the islands, but in all the planning, mapping and visualizing I did before the trip I never imagined I’d have to avoid photographing artificial lights in such a remote location. But a dull glow over the true peak of Mount Katmai to the north signaled a developing aurora, so I forgot about the light pollution and descended with Ryan down the rib with my camera gear and a headlamp. Because we were so far south I was hoping we’d reach geomagnetic storm levels so the aurora would reach high enough in the sky for some incredible reflection shots, but we received a more modest display that reached just above the peak of Mount Katmai. I might have caught a slightly better reflection from the south rim, but I’ll just have to try again one day for the spectacular crater lake aurora photo I have in mind.
Aurora with a meteor over the Mount Katmai Crater Lake.
After the aurora faded I went to sleep. Clouds encapsulated Mount Katmai overnight and in the morning the conditions were near freezing with zero visibility and a light drizzle. I thought the clouds would burn off later in the day, and they did start to part for about five minutes later in the morning, just long enough to glimpse the crater lake and a few patches of blue sky. But the clouds quickly enshrouded the rim again and a steady light rain fell for the rest of the day. I talked Ryan into staying on the rim for one more night rather than camping lower since the next day was supposed to be sunny again and we could easily hike all the way back to our pickup spot in one day heading downhill. To combat boredom, we hiked counterclockwise around the rim across the snowfield between our camp and the sister peak next to us. The visibility didn’t improve at all on the other side and we couldn’t see anything more than 100 feet away, which was a shame because I wanted to scout the south side of the rim for good vantage points or a potential route to the water below. After we returned to our camp the rain finally subsided and the clouds retreated away from the caldera back down the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, but the prospect of clear skies for the aurora seemed low so I went to sleep.
I awoke in the middle of the night to a gentle slap on the head. After a brief moment of confusion in the darkness, I realized strong wind gusts were whipping my tent and threatening to collapse it. I braced my tent wall with one arm and held down the fly that had come loose with my other. I shouted to Ryan to ask if he was OK and he shouted back his tent was holding up so far but he was also bracing his against the wind. The gusts had to be 35mph or stronger. A dull light flickered as Ryan turned on his headlamp and pointed it around. He yelled, “Should we pack up and head down?” I shuddered at the thought of stepping outside into the cold wind and trying to take my tent apart in the dark without anything blowing away. But if the wind worsened or stayed like this much longer we would have to. “Let’s wait 10 minutes and see if it dies down!”
After what seemed like an eternity of awkwardly holding onto my tent, though it was probably only 15 minutes or less, the wind gusts steadily became noticeably weaker. We cautiously held onto our tents until they stopped shaking violently and the sound of the wind rushing over the rim faded. As suddenly as the wind arrived, it disappeared and we both jumped out of our tents to tighten the stakes. Luckily, no tent poles snapped and the fly remained intact. Stars twinkled in the darkness but there was no glow from the aurora. We considered if we should pack up and head down the mountain in the dark, and agreed to do so if the wind returned. I crawled back in my sleeping bag and nervously perked up my ears every time a gentle breeze rustled my tent until I passed out.
Mount Katmai Crater Lake at sunrise.
I awoke just before sunrise. I could hear Ryan walking around outside and when I asked what the weather looked like he simply said I should come outside with my camera. When I unzipped the flap on my tent the entirety of the crater lake was visible below and the clouds had disappeared. The sight felt strange after spending the previous day in a cloud and nearly being blown off the mountain just a few hours earlier. I scampered around the rim with my camera to catch the sun as it crested Mount Katmai and the snow on the glacier below turned pink.
After eating breakfast, we packed up and began descending the mountain. We practically ran down the ridge on the soft ash. The mountains cast dramatic shadows over the valley in the early morning light while the fog in the lower valley slowly crept away downhill.
Descending from the Mount Katmai caldera. Mount Griggs is on the upper right and Whiskey Ridge is in the sun at center left.
View of the icefall on the NE flank of Trident Volcano as Ryan crosses one of the Knife Creek Glaciers.
As we reached the head of one of the Knife Creek Glaciers, Ryan and I decided to take a shortcut across the upper glacier to avoid navigating the messy ash-covered lower glacier and losing significant elevation. From our high elevation we could see a reasonably clear path across the glacier but we still anticipated hitting a few obstacles. We traversed across the névé on the steep upper glacier to a gentle slope beneath an impressive icefall where we had to circle around the tails of a few rocky moraines. Just when we thought we were going to cruise the rest of the way across the glacier back to Novarupta, we encountered the telltale linear sag in the snow of a crevasse intersecting our path. When I hiked near this area in 2017 most of the snow had melted off the ice of the glacier so it was easy to spy any problem areas from a distance and avoid them, and the problem areas were quite few and isolated. This crevasse and a few others running parallel beyond it were still obvious, but they had been hidden from view by the moraines on the glacier until we reached them. Only two of them were still completely bridged by snow, while the others were melted enough to find easy crossing spots. Each crack seemed to extend quite far upstream and they continued over a steep dip in the glacier downstream, so it wasn’t practical to walk around them. After some consideration, we decided to cross the snow bridges since they were narrow and still solidly frozen. I tested the integrity of each snow bridge with my poles and then spread my weight out on my poles and legs as I hopped across with Ryan following behind me. Ryan had tied a piece of thin rope around me (only slightly better than paracord) with the idea that he could tug me backwards if I started to fall in, but luckily we didn’t have to test its tensile strength.
After passing the crevasses, we climbed over a couple of rocky moraines before we reached the edge of the glacier. The bottom of the slope bordering the glacier was quite steep and difficult to climb as it was covered in loose ash on top of firm snow. (Wind tends to pile ash in the same places it piles snow in winter.) A few steps up and the ash would give way and down we’d go. After a few tries we finally reached solid ground and the hard part of our trek was over.
Once off the glacier, we began climbing over a small hill when a bull caribou appeared on top just a few dozen yards ahead of us. The caribou posed long enough for us to capture some nice shots before it disappeared over the other side of the hill. When we crested the hill we spotted the caribou again ambling away toward Novarupta, already a significant distance from us. As we continued, the stunning Mount Mageik came into view, heavily draped in snow and glacier ice. Our caribou friend was kind enough to pose in front of Mageik on a saddle before disappearing for good.
View of Mount Mageik with a bull caribou in the foreground.
We paused to rest on the upstream side of Novarupta. There’s a nice flat spot here with a stream running through it, one of few places in the entire valley where you can find clear running water late into the summer or any significant vegetation. Caribou tracks crisscrossed the ash and mud here. I went for a short walk sans backpack while Ryan tried to contact our pilot to see if he could pick us up that afternoon. I marveled at some of the colorful rocks scattered around the area and studied nearby Falling Mountain, which I had half-planned on climbing for a photo if the opportunity arose. When I returned to our rest spot, Ryan told me the pilot couldn’t pick us up until the next day, so after some consideration we decided to leisurely walk the rest of the way to the pickup spot and camp nearby so we could leave as early as possible in the morning. I didn’t have anywhere to be, but Ryan had to get back to his out-of-state job and was a bit anxious about missing his flight out of King Salmon.
The early evening sun cast Baked Mountain in a golden glow as we hiked steadily downhill beside it toward the pickup spot. I had memorized some of the features on the mountains along the edges of the valley near the landing site to help triangulate it on the return because the local terrain was as featureless as a flat desert, but I still needed to rely on GPS to find it. We camped close by along the edge of River Lethe, where I was surprised to see a vole scurrying along the bank. There were more caribou tracks here as well, and some bugs flying around. There were also some old footprints from two other people who had crossed the river nearby before we arrived. Suddenly, the valley seemed much less lifeless.
In the morning, King Salmon was fogged in so we had to wait until it cleared for our pilot to pick us up. We waited, and waited, and waited. A couple small planes flew up the valley and each time we became excited only to be disappointed when they turned out to be the wrong plane. Ryan paced anxiously while I lounged on the ash, alternately taking off and putting on my jacket as the sun poked in and out of the clouds. We walked along River Lethe to kill some time, but I left my camera behind so I don’t have any shots of the river or the canyon it flows through to share. There were very few spots along the canyon where escape looked possible for anyone stuck in the water, and several locations where death looked certain. Our pilot told us it’s easier to sink in the water due to the suspended volcanic ash lowering the density. Not sure if that’s true, but I don’t think I’ll ever take a plunge to find out.
At last, our pilot arrived and we returned to King Salmon where we celebrated with some obligatory post-adventure burgers. I flew back to Fairbanks that evening and I brought plenty of volcanic ash home with me in my hiking boots and backpack. I even found some ash in my Jetboil the next time I used it months later. The Mount Katmai Crater Lake has officially been crossed off my Alaska bucket list, but I still plan to go back again someday, preferably sooner rather than later.
View of Mount Griggs from high on one of the Knife Creek Glaciers.
