"Chilkoot Charlie's - where we cheat the other guy and pass the savings on to you" This admirable slogan hangs above the door as the bouncer checks that you're not carrying anything too subversive, say an Uzi or some anti oil industry literature. Chilkoot Charlie's is the most schizophrenic bar I know: it's a rustic Alaskan saloon, complete with the sawdust on the floor and goldrush prospector lookalikes, in from the bush for a good time in Anchorage. But in keeping with the dual personality of this frontier city turned sprawling metropolis (some refer to it, not so kindly, as Los Anchorage), there is another unexpected side. As I enter at 2am, it's still daylight outside; in the dark neon interior I'm hit by a wall of industrial strength rock and roll as the lead singer of "France" sways precariously atop the stage railing; strange place to find the best rock dance club on the west coast of America. And that's not to even mention the giant country western floor, the horseshoes games and the custom Chilkoot Charlie's beer; it makes the Clachaig on a Saturday night seem just marginally less strange.

It's almost more than I can cope with after ten days exploring the mountains and passes of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This is the strip of land near the Canadian border on the Arctic ocean; President Bush wants to sacrifice it to his oil industry friends, using Iraq as a convenient scapegoat; and the Sierra Club is equally determined to defend it as astonishing wilderness and home to the giant caribou herds.

Getting there can be quite a pantomime. First you have to get to Anchorage and Fairbanks, which to most people are already the back of beyond, but in fact are easily accessible by scheduled jet from Europe or the rest of the United States. Then the fun begins. We flew on Audi Air amid rumours that they might go bankrupt at any minute. We had been told to show up to be weighed (passengers plus baggage) bright and early, ready for our whole group to board the elderly DC-3. After several hours of Alaska's favourite travel pastime - hanging around airstrips waiting for non-existent flights, we had talked to enough other unhappy customers to figure out that the DC-3 was a myth. But there was a chance that we could be shuttled over to the north slope on a small Piper Navaho.

All the stories about Alaska bush pilots are true - and then some; it's like a bigger and better version of Caledonian Macbrayne folklore: everybody loves them and hates them and needs them to get to bizarre places. Everything seemed to be going fine as we wound up the Chandalar River valley. I had always laughed at tales of wartime flyers following the railway lines so as not to get lost; well, in Alaska they follow the rivers - if they can see them. We banked suddenly and shot over a pass with great rock walls on every side. A fellow passenger began swearing loudly at the pilot to "get the **** out of here" and instead of swooping into the Hulahula River valley on the other side of the pass we screamed up into the thick clouds. "This is much more dangerous", confided the pilot. "Mt. Isto is over 9000 ft and I've no idea where it is in this muck. But he's the mayor of Kaktovik so I have to humour him".

I was quite relieved when we emerged across the coastal plain, the native village of Kaktovik on Barter Island gleaming in a frigid sun and the rusting "Dew Line" radars an incongruous reminder of mis-spent cold war

millions. Gradually the second snag of the shuttle flights dawned on me. Our trusty leader was still in Fairbanks waiting for the next round. I was approached by a pilot who looked barely out of primary school. "This was the only place in the world where I could fly all day every day", he said by way of introduction. He pilots one of the tiny Cessna "taildraggers" which land in absurd spots on the tundra and on gravel bars in the middle of rivers; these are the legendary "air taxis" which deliver hunters, climbers and other lunatics to their chosen spot in the wilderness. Sometimes they bring them back.

"Your landing area was under water last time I flew over. Want to go someplace else ?" But we agreed to go check it out. "There it is: that strip of peat bog beside the river. Let's see if it's firm enough to land. Wheee......." We made it. Maybe he was young, but he could land that plane in half the space it took everyone else. The rest of the group made it too. So finally we were ready to explore: ten days backpacking through the Romanzof mountains of the northern Brooks range and the giant river drainages, the Aichilik and the Kongakut.

The difficulties reminded me of my early "Feich Trips" in Scotland, New Year backpacks with St. Andrews University Mountaineering Club where the last thing you wanted to do was leave the relative calm of a Knoydart glen for the exposed summits. We had to ford raging arctic torrents - again and again; Paul toppled over with his pack and floated off down the river, zoom lens bobbing by his side. We barely got him wrung out before it started snowing. This was August. After twenty four hours of nonstop downpour we could no longer make the necessary river crossings. Two timber wolves howled mournfully at us from the other side of the river, "Go back, go back".

So we tried a different fork, winding up to a desolate pass on Bathtop Ridge. One of the early explorers clearly had a plumbing fetish. There was also Drain Creek and Plug Mountain. But in contrast there was a splendidly patriotic view towards the British Mountains and the Canadian border. We passed a group stalking Dall sheep, and exchanged mutual incomprehension of our activities. We staggered up interminable scree slopes with our huge packs wobbling from boulder to boulder. We wallowed in peat bogs that would not be out of place in Jura. And of course we had the Arctic traveler's constant nightmare: the dense willow scrub clinging to the steep banks of each rushing stream.

But it was good too. There was the morning frost clinging to all those seven thousand foot summits which didn't even have a name on the map. We could have spent weeks ridgewalking and climbing above the willow line. But we didn't. We were exploring and just soaking in the country. There's an overwhelming sense of wilderness that you just don't experience in Scotland when you can almost always make it back to the pub by closing time. There's a vast expanse of mountains and river valleys with only you and the grizzly bears and a few million caribou. But still there's such an invigorating feeling of emptiness. You could have a profound religious experience out there. Or you could just flop down and graze on the berries for a while.

And then there's the question about whether you'll make it back: perhaps the next grizzly will be the problem one; or you'll stumble in one too many river; or the crazy bush pilot will just forget to pick you up; or Audi Air will finally go bankrupt. But the clouds eventually lift down the river and the tiny Cessna bounces from rock to rock in the river bed. We wing back out to civilization: a beer in the Arctic Hotel in Kaktovik; lots of beer at Chilkoot Charlie's; and more of the clever slogans that make Alaska such an experience: " Alaska, where men are real men, and women win the Iditarod"; "Alaska, home of beautiful dogs and fast women"; or this year's favourite on the T shirts, "Unless you're the lead dog, the view's always the same".

Next I was off to south east Alaska, to Glacier Bay and the "Greenland experience" If you're a rich, armchair explorer you can go on a Princess love boat cruise and see video whales without ever leaving your stateroom. But the only real way to get there is by sea kayak. You can't easily walk because the southeast is very wet, which means impenetrable brush - much worse than up on the north slope.. But you can pack your food and tent and climbing gear into an impossibly tiny space and paddle off into the rain and the navigational nightmare of the Beardslee Islands. The land in Glacier Bay is rising as the glaciers recede, which means that what you see doesn't in the slightest way match what shows on your map. And that godsend channel you're heading for probably no longer exists. But the bald eagles are unlikely to eat you anytime soon.

It's very easy to get seduced by the kayaks and spend your entire trip exploring the numerous side fjords or floating in front of the tidewater glaciers just waiting for the next huge pillar of blue ice to calve into the milky water. You can sit a quarter mile off the eight hundred foot face of the glacier and you'll never have felt so tiny. And you'll be completely out of film before you realize it.

But there are wonderful hills, mountains and of course glaciers in Glacier Bay. Most of them were "discovered" by that itinerant Scot, John Muir. And the kayak is the perfect way to approach them. I spent a day climbing Red Mountain which is shaped a bit like Ben Nevis - except that the tourist route is covered with dense alder. I had to crawl on my hands and knees for over an hour before emerging into an alpine flower wonderland of lupin and fireweed. The summit shoulder had a teal blue pool with its very own iceberg And from the top you get a fabulous panoramic view: all the way down the bay to Icy Strait, across to the west arm glaciers of Lamplugh and Johns Hopkins and up to the 15000 foot summit of Mt. Fairweather and its satellites, and last, straight down on the braided fan of the Casement Glacier terminal morraine - mile upon mile of devastation in rock and mud.

If you're really adventurous you can arrange transportation to the outer coast and make an attempt on Mount Fairweather (surely the least appropriately named mountain in north America). But there are more accessible delights, even though there is only one trail in all of the park. Shapely Mt Wright guards the entrance to Adams inlet and can be reached up a steep scree run direct from the beach opposite Garforth Island, with no intervening scrub. And towering above Riggs Glacier is the daunting Black Mountain with its fine alpine ridgeline and serious glacier approach. You can get a fine view of it from across Muir Inlet by scrambling up on White Thunder ridge and returning by Remnant Glacier. I was glad that someone else volunteered to pose for the photographs inside the ice caves of the beached glacier For the most part you can explore and climb never knowing if anyone has been there before. At the outer end of the Bay you have to cope with mature trees, dense rainforest undergrowth and bears. As you head north to the recently exposed areas of land you move into glaciers and bare rocks.

And the whole time you should feel right at home because the weather is just like Scotland. One last slogan (this one the favourite of the Bartlett Cove rangers): "If the barometer falls, predict rain; if the barometer rises predict rain; and if the barometer is steady, then it's already raining".