Environmental & Community Stewardship
All of AMS’s programs are firmly dedicated to environmental stewardship and the ongoing reduction of our impact on our environment. By advancing the sustainability of our day-to-day operations, we continually find ways to conserve and offset. AMS improves its environmental performance through consistent, periodic evaluations, and each year we make improvements in how energy-smart, water-wise, and climate- and emissions-friendly we are. Through training programs, we ensure that our employees teach and model this mindset, both at our headquarters in Talkeetna, Alaska and in all of our backcountry courses.
EDUCATION
We at AMS deeply value the protection and sustainability of the wild places we visit, and make it a priority to help all of our climbers and participants to return from the mountains with a better understanding and appreciation of wilderness. AMS designates time on all of our programs to discuss local natural history, resource management, and environmental protection techniques.
RECYCLING
Talkeetna, Alaska is a rural community that prides itself in its proximity to the natural environment. Here, with the Alaska Range and Denali rising over our skyline, minimal-impact living is a priority. AMS helped inaugurate an all-volunteer community recycling program in 2015. We house recycling bins throughout our facility, and built a recycling consolidation site dedicated to cleaning and sorting. AMS harbors a broader ambition than zero landfill: We are aiming for zero waste. We put large, easily identifiable “Zero Landfill Initiative” signs on all our municipal waste containers. We offer one-quart, wide-mouth Nalgene bottles instead of plastic water bottles.
WASTE REDUCTION
Before departing for the backcountry, AMS repackages expedition food to decrease garbage and micro-waste in the mountains. Garbage is separated, compressed in the field, and anything possible is recycled back in Talkeetna. We encourage everyone who uses the backcountry to pick up discarded garbage. The AMS office emphasizes minimal use of paper and printing. By 2020, AMS will view and store 100 percent of client forms in our firewalled database. Thanks for submitting your application materials by email to help us in our efforts!
BULK PACKAGING AND “GREEN” PRODUCTS
AMS purchases field ration food supplies in bulk to reduce packaging. We resupply our own containers for: soap dispensers, hand disinfectant, and household cleaners. We make our own green-friendly cleaners and use washable cleaning rags instead of paper towels. We purchase a pallet of lighter gauge plastic food storage bags instead of Ziplocs to use in the mountains for repackaging food. AMS purchases organic and responsibly sourced foods, paper products, health products, and cleaning supplies. In 2017, we designed and manufactured kitchen snow-collecting bags made of black, non-slip fabric that use solar radiation to melt snow. We estimate that we save a gallon of fuel per expedition.
FOOD AND COMPOST
AMS employees consume vegetables, berries, wild proteins and eggs that we, or local food cooperatives, grow, catch, or harvest. We donate time and labor to our local farms, and work to sustain the farms with volunteer labor. AMS recycles most of its food waste. There are buckets marked for chicken scraps and compost. The chicken coop and compost pile is located at our farm area nearby, which has an electric bear fence. It is essential, however, to keep bears and other wildlife away from human garbage. AMS designated a truck with a bear-proof cap that holds 5 cubic yards of municipal waste, to ensure that bears and other wild animals can’t get into our garbage.
HUMAN WASTE
AMS uses Clean Mountain Cans for our solid human waste during mountaineering programs. This waste is transported to a treatment facility in Anchorage. AMS CEO Colby Coombs is a member of the Talkeetna Water and Sewer advisory board and meets regularly with National Park Service staff and scientists.
COLIFORM TESTING
Preserving our Park resources requires active and informed management based on sound science. Starting in 2018, AMS will provide all trips that travel off-glacier with Coliform bacterial field-testing kits. Coliform is relatively easy and inexpensive to test for. While it is not the most harmful bacteria in human waste, it is an indicator. By mapping the presence of Coliform in the lakes and rivers we visit, AMS will advance the NPS understanding of Coliform present in the ecosystem.
EMISSIONS
In 2017, AMS decreased Type 1 and 2 emissions by replacing all the office windows with high-efficiency triple-panes, all the office lights with LED bulbs, and by doubling the amount of ceiling insulation. Flying into the mountains makes for AMS’s biggest Type 3 emissions. We calculate the amount to be 0.15 metric ton per person to fly into Denali National Park and Preserve. AMS is a contributing member of the Alaska Nature Conservancy, a science-based conservation organization. We purchase 1 metric ton of offsets per expedition via the Nature Conservancy’s offset calculator. AMS also decreases Type 3 emissions by designating a downtown location where staff and clients can walk. We provide financial incentives for our staff to carpool and provide bicycles for staff, including one with a flatbed trailer for picking up bulky items from other locations.
AMS guides constantly maintained an organized camp, trash and human waste were well managed and the group moved safely up the mountain.
—National Park Service 2009
At AMS we believe that contributing to our community adds immeasurably to its strength and health. In a small town, each person can make a big impact. This means not only providing a competitive wage and positive work environment, but also giving our time and energy to our greater community of Talkeetna. As volunteers, AMS’s owners, management team, and guides/instructors contribute to a richer, more positive community in Talkeetna.
Scholarship Program
Our position as a local small business that operates within Denali National Park affords us unique opportunities to further appreciation and stewardship of the Alaska wilderness. We believe that introducing individuals, particularly locals, to conservation is the most powerful way to preserve the wild places we all enjoy. The motivation for good environmental stewardship is most powerful when it comes from a personal appreciation for the places you are protecting. As an educational organization first, even on guided expeditions, AMS tries to instill a core set of values in all of our program participants.
To support access for locals to the mountains and mountaineering skills, AMS offers a scholarship program for local area residents and students, funded by numerous private and internal sources. This type of exposure to the Alaska Range would otherwise be financially impossible for these students. The importance of making the mountains in their backyard more accessible was summed up by one of our most recent scholarship recipients in his application: “How can a child in our area be taunted by this amazing and majestic mountain and never set foot on it or try to climb to its peak?”
Scholarship students write thank-you letters to individual donors and contribute volunteer hours to local nonprofits in exchange for their award. Since 2002, AMS has funded 124 students with $137,082.00 in scholarship funding. AMS scholarship students have taken this opportunity to go far. Some have gone on to college, military service, work as outdoor guides, and world travel.
Internships
AMS offers a competitive and challenging internship program. We have enjoyed watching many first-year interns become all-star mountain guides. Alaska Pacific University, located in Anchorage, features a long-standing Outdoor Studies program that the majority of our interns have been selected from. University of Alaska: Southeast’s outdoor program also provides a solid path to an internship at AMS. If you are interested in an AMS internship, please inquire with your University outdoor program or contact us directly.
Service to Talkeetna
AMS proudly serves our local community. Since its inception in 2002 our scholarship program has supported outreach programs for younger students. Both the Talkeetna and Willow Elementary Schools visit AMS to tour our facility and learn about climbing and the basic concepts of Leave No Trace and caring for natural resources. AMS instructors also visit Talkeetna Elementary School to provide climbing and rope programs to students.
Since 2014, AMS has helped to fund our neighbors, the Northern Susitna Institute Summer Camps, to accommodate an additional group of young students in their environmental education summer camps. AMS hopes all of these students will go on to support stewardship of their local areas and to share these values and love of outdoor recreation with others.
In 2000 AMS brought intensive Wilderness First Responder (WFR) wilderness medicine classes to Talkeetna. For more than 10 years we were the sole sponsors of these programs to educate local wilderness travelers, mountain guides, and remote wilderness travelers. Demand continues to increase, and now multiple WFR classes are held in Talkeetna each spring. At the end of the climbing season, AMS donates extra useable food to the local food bank. AMS employees and their families also contribute useable non-perishable items to school food drives, which benefit local families in need.
AMS managing members and staff are active in the following local organizations: Su Valley High School PTSA, Talkeetna Water and Sewer Board, Talkeetna Skate Park, Northern Susitna Institute’s youth summer camps, Talkeetna Elementary School art programs, Talkeetna Trails Bun to Bun 25K and 5K fun runs, spring roadside cleanup, and the Talkeetna Climbers Memorial. AMS donates funds to the following community enrichment programs and organizations: Talkeetna Historical Society, Denali Arts Council, Wildwood Playground, Talkeetna Public Radio KTNA88.5 FM, Talkeetna Recycling.
While living in Talkeetna all my life I had not experienced the Alaska Range up close. While on the Pika Glacier I learned many new skills and became close friends with everyone on the trip. On day five there was a white out and I got the chance to lead the group while out on a trek with coaching from the guide and now feel more confident in my leadership skills. The whole experience, especially being lowered in a crevasse and ice climbing out, was a trip of a lifetime that I am so grateful to have experienced.
—Luke Graupmann
