Stampede Trail

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The Stampede Trail in Alaska was a mining trail blazed in the 1930s by a legendary Alaska miner named Earl Pilgrim, to access his claims on Stampede Creek, above the Clearwater Fork of the Toklat River.

In 1961, Yutan Construction won a contract from the new state of Alaska to upgrade the trail, building a road on which trucks could haul ore from the mines year-round. The project was halted in 1963 after some fifty miles of roads were built, but no bridges were ever constructed over the several rivers it crossed, and the route was shortly rendered impassable by thawing permafrost and floods. The trail has since been used by backcountry travelers on foot, bicycle, snowmobile and motorcycle.

The trail gained notoriety in 1992 with the death of Christopher McCandless, who had lived in a bus that had been left behind by the Yutan Construction Company during the road building to serve as a backcountry shelter for hunters and trappers. In recent years, the trail has seen a pilgrimage of visitors wanting to see the bus where Chris perished.