Heritage

Mat founded the Chugach Mountain Institute late 2021 in the heart of the Chugach Mountains (the area traditionally used by Sugpiaq, Eyak and Ahtna indigenous peoples for fishing and trading but known more recently as Valdez, Alaska). Based in one of the most environmentally extreme but sublimely beautiful areas in the world, a community that struggles with its socio-ecological heritage from an economy based on resource extraction that culminated in the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, the Chugach Mountain Institute is dedicated to improving relationships between people and planet through outdoor education and guided mountain adventures.

Prior to relocating to Suacit (the Sugpiaq name for Valdez meaning “the people of the place that rises into view”), Mat lived in the diverse community of Dgheyey Kaq’ (traditional Dena’ina land known more recently as Anchorage, AK) for 16 years. During that time, he began developing an intimate relationship with the Chugach Mountains and wild lands throughout Alaska. Mat’s original connection to Nature was formed on traditional lands of the Myaamia, Shawnee, and Kickapoo near the central Indiana-Ohio border. He is deeply grateful for time as a child in the fields and forests of the Midwest and as an adult in the mountains of Alaska.

Experience

Mat has spent more than a thousand days skiing the backcountry of North America (primarily Alaska but also the Alberta, Montana, Wyoming, and Utah Rockies and California Sierras). He has spent at least another thousand days climbing, backpacking, packrafting, mountain biking, hunting, and fishing in the mountains of Alaska, Yukon Territory, and British Columbia. Along the way he established countless first descents on skis and first ascents of prominent peaks, ice and rock climbing routes.

As a graduate student, Mat’s thesis was on piloting an avalanche advisory program for Alaska’s most accessible avalanche terrain: the Western Chugach Mountains near Anchorage (primarily the most popular areas of Chugach State Park) where backcountry avalanche accidents have claimed the lives of 19 individuals. The project became the Anchorage Avalanche Center, which provided a grassroots and pro bono avalanche safety and snow-season backcountry travel information and education program from 2012-2021, and was presented at the 2014 International Snow Science Workshop in Banff, AB.

With an undergraduate degree in Psychology, extensive graduate coursework in Counseling Psychology, and Master of Science in Outdoor & Environmental Education; Mat has done outdoor-adventure therapy work in multiple behavioral health settings and worn many different hats as an outdoor-environmental educator through which he’s shared the Alaskan backcountry experience with countless youth in treatment and educational settings.

Mat has worked as adjunct faculty for the University of Alaska and Alaska Pacific University teaching avalanche safety and forecasting, snow science, backcountry skiing, ice climbing, backpacking, natural history and interpretation, safety and risk management for outdoor programs, and fitness courses. He has spent hundreds of days successfully guiding clients on skiing, climbing, hiking, and backpacking routes throughout Alaska.

Mat looks forward to sharing the powerfully rejuvenative and transformative Alaskan wilderness experience with you.