Sustainability Spotlight: Wrangell Mountain Air
Our Sustainability Spotlight series is aimed at broadening the conversation surrounding sustainable tourism for visitors and businesses by sharing the stories of our Adventure Green Alaska certified businesses. To learn more about Adventure Green Alaska certification please visit our about page.
About Wrangell Mountain Air
Wrangell Mountain Air was founded by Kelly and Natalie Bay in 1992 as a small but ambitious air taxi service in McCarthy, Alaska—one of the most remote towns in the country, nestled deep inside Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. This is no ordinary park; it’s the largest in the United States, dwarfing Yellowstone, Yosemite, and the entire country of Switzerland combined! From the beginning, our mission has been simple: connect people to this vast and wild landscape in a way that’s safe, responsible, and awe-inspiring.
Our services range from daily flights between Chitina and McCarthy—helping visitors skip the notorious McCarthy Road—to private charters, backcountry drop-offs, and flightseeing tours over some of the tallest peaks and largest glaciers in North America. In fact Wrangell – St. Elias NP has over 3,100 glaciers, making it the park with the most glaciers in Alaska as well! Over the years, our fleet has grown to include a mix of aircraft suited for both front-country and deep wilderness operations, including Cessna 172, 185, and 206s, a Piper Super Cub, and a DeHavilland Beaver. The original owners have since passed the torch to a new generation of pilots, but they’re still here, still flying, and still very much a part of our community.
How long has your business been implementing sustainable practices?
Sustainability isn’t an afterthought for us—it’s baked into the reality of operating in McCarthy. This has always been an off-the-grid community, which means every watt of electricity we use, we have to generate ourselves. Solar panels power much of our operation, but on cloudy days, we’re hyper-aware of how much energy we’re consuming, so as not to rely heavily on generators. Water is another limited resource; we pump and haul it from Clear Creek, which makes conservation a daily habit rather than an abstract goal. Waste management is another challenge. We’re responsible for hauling all of our organization’s waste on an eight-hour drive back to Anchorage for proper disposal. That makes waste reduction a necessity. We prioritize composting, recycling, and eliminating excess wherever possible. Our staff not only work here, but most live on site, so we organize bulk grocery runs in combination with our trash hauls to reduce long drives to Anchorage to just once a month. Living communally as we do, we practice sharing resources whenever we can to keep waste minimal. Beyond infrastructure, sustainability informs how we operate in the park itself. We work to minimize environmental impact in our flightseeing and backcountry services, ensuring that visitors experience the grandeur of Wrangell-St. Elias without leaving a lasting footprint.
What advice do you have for businesses that are beginning their sustainable journey?
“Reduce, reuse, recycle” isn’t just a catchy phrase—it’s an order of operations. Start with reduction. Where can you use less? Less energy, less waste, fewer single-use materials? Small changes—switching to LED lighting, cutting unnecessary packaging, going paperless, encouraging carpooling—add up fast. Only once you’ve minimized waste should you focus on reuse: repurposing materials, finding second (or third) lives for equipment, and encouraging sustainable habits within your team. Recycling is last on the list for a reason—it’s important, but it’s a last resort, not the first step. Sustainability doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Start small, track your progress, and always ask how we can do more and build from there.
What sustainable practice is your business most proud of?
A few years ago, one of our pilots, Bill McKinney, posed a challenge: Could we make our flight operations carbon-neutral? It was an ambitious idea, and we started small. First, we crunched the numbers—calculating our carbon emissions per flight hour. The result? Offsetting our flights would cost between $1.75 and $2.75 per hour. Not a huge sum, but a meaningful one.
We began with a tip jar in the office, labeled as a kind of “thank-you to the Earth” fund. Bill, ever dedicated, often donated much of his own tips. Our company matched contributions up to $1,500. Then we expanded—offering credit card donations, adding offset contributions to invoices, and this year partnering with travel agents to integrate carbon offsets directly into bookings.
The results have exceeded our expectations. In previous summers, we hustled to meet our fundraising goals. Now, with these new partnerships, we’ve already surpassed our target—and summer is still months away. Even as the average individual donation shrinks, the number of people participating is growing, which is exactly the kind of broad-based engagement we hoped to inspire. We hope that getting more people involved will lead to more discussions about what else one can do to make their vacation to Alaska more sustainable.
Which pillar of the Adventure Green Alaska program aligns most with your business?
While we value every pillar — it’s the environment that defines our work. Our entire business exists because of the natural beauty of Wrangell – St. Elias National Park, and we take that responsibility seriously. We know that flying burns fossil fuels, and we don’t pretend otherwise. We chose to do something about that. Through our carbon offset program, we’ve kept our air operations carbon-neutral. Every flight we operate is an opportunity to educate passengers—not just about the grandeur of the park, but about the very real changes happening here, from retreating glaciers to shifting ecosystems.
To ensure we’re sharing accurate information, our pilots receive annual training from National Park geologists. And because Wrangell-St. Elias doesn’t require backcountry users to attend ranger-led briefings, we step up—educating our clients on Leave No Trace principles and implementing our own internal system to prevent overuse of sensitive areas. We’re not just flying over this land; we’re working to protect it.
Collaboration with the Adventure Green Alaska program
Being part of Adventure Green Alaska means more than just a certification—it connects us to a network of businesses that share our values. We’ve built partnerships with like-minded operators across the state, helping travelers move through Alaska in ways that align with their environmental commitments.
Sustainable tourism isn’t just about minimizing harm; it’s about actively doing good—supporting local economies, educating visitors, and making sure that the landscapes we cherish remain intact for future generations. We’re grateful to be part of a program that prioritizes exactly that.
To learn more about Wrangell Mountain Air, visit their Green Business profile and their website.
