The Unique Natural Environment of Thompson Pass

Jeffery Scott Fraser is an accomplished executive who led the National Information Consortium (NIC) for several years working with internet applications that could connect businesses with government bodies. Jeffery S. Fraser now focuses on owning and running the Tsaina Lodge near Valdez on the Thompson Pass in Alaska. 

Thompson Pass is known for its beauty and for its winter sports, especially skiing. It represents a gap in the Chugach mountain range whose unique climate produces more snow than anywhere else in the world. The average annual snowfall is more than 700 inches, and this past December, the region saw a storm that dumped 15 inches of snow in an hour and a half. The region also holds the highest concentration of Alaska’s glacial ice. 

In addition to its extreme snowfalls, Thompson Pass is often bright and sunny, avoiding a marine effect that can make other snowy mountainous regions too overcast for heli-skiing. The Chugach snow also tends to stick to the steep mountain sides, which is why Thompson Pass is known as a place where extreme skiers practice and show off their skills. Snowboarders also enjoy these slopes, but even individuals who are not into extreme downhill sports can enjoy heli-hiking, glacier trekking, and many other ways of experiencing the unique natural environment of Thompson Pass.

Thompson Pass - Destination for Generations of Sports Enthusiasts

Since their purchase in 2011, Jeffery S. Fraser and his wife have enjoyed rebuilding a luxury winter sports lodge in the spirit of the historic Tsaina Lodge near Valdez, Alaska. The old Tsaina Lodge had served as a popular low-key roadhouse for generations of sportsmen. Jeffery Fraser and his wife preserved as many components of the historic structure as possible, incorporating them into an upscale, contemporary Tsaina Lodge designed to welcome today’s adventure travelers.

The lodge is situated in an avalanche-safe area in the north shadow of Thompson Pass, the snowiest location in the state. On average, more than 550 feet of snow falls in the pass annually.

Thompson Pass is also the gathering point each spring for many of the world’s most accomplished and daring helicopter pilots, skiers, snowboarders, and other lovers of extreme winter sports. The 2,800-foot-high pass serves as their only land entree to the rugged glories of the Chugach Mountains beyond.

For generations, Thompson Pass has drawn legions of anglers to the lakes, rivers, and streams that crisscross the lands around it. The Tsaina River is particularly known for its wild rapids.

In 1899, Army Captain William Abercrombie named the area in honor of Frank Thomson, a native of Pennsylvania. While Thomson spelled his name without a “p,” Abercrombie’s map gave it the added letter, and this is the spelling currently in use by the United States Geological Survey. The pass had already been long known to the native Ahtna people.