About
Ultima Thule Lodge sits inside Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve — the largest national park in the United States, larger than Switzerland, with no road access to the lodge. Accessible only by the lodge's own aircraft from Chitina, this is the most remote continuously-operated luxury lodge in Alaska. The wood-fired sauna on the Chitina River bank is the thermal centerpiece of a wilderness experience that includes glacier hiking, bush plane excursions, and wildlife viewing (bears, wolves, Dall sheep) in a protected ecosystem that has been virtually unchanged since the last Ice Age. Paul Claus, the pilot and founder who established the lodge in 1985, has developed a philosophy of wilderness immersion that the wood-fired sauna ritual physically anchors.
