Local tour company offering outdoor sauna experience

Adventures by True North AK, an outdoor tour company based out of the Valley, now offers a unique sauna experience for their winter excursions.

Guests can book an hour-long outdoor sauna session with the opportunity to transfer between lounging in the 200 degree sauna tent and cold plunging outside only steps away from a fresh, cold Alaskan river.

“It’s really a personal, high heat/cold experience that we try to offer people as a fun way to get outdoors,” Owner Derek Van Kampen said.

The outdoor sauna session was a vision of Van Kampen’s since he and wife Heather started the company four years ago. He said he enjoyed using the sauna at The Alaska Club where he’s a member, and wanted to find a way to incorporate that into their business.

Featured in the Best of the Valley, Adventures by True North AK started by renting kayaks and outdoor equipment from their garage. It has now grown to include a variety of winter and summer tours to include ice fishing on local lakes, kayaking the Knik River, snowshoe trips and of course, the remote sauna adventures.

‘We love the outdoors and always have, and this is a great way to share out passions with people,” Van Kampen said.

Sauna sessions are $150 for the hour and can accommodate groups up to four. Guests will arrive to the sauna already setup and ready to go. The group can decide how hot they want their session to be and can adjust the sauna to their liking. Guests can choose whether or not they would like to go back and forth between the hot sauna and cold water, or just enjoy the hot tent.

“The maximum number of times that someone’s gone in and out of the cold water is six times in an hour,” Van Kampen said. He also mentioned that the longest someone has stayed in the water is two minutes.

“Some people love it for the therapy aspect of it, but personally I love it because it’s just a very fun way to get outside even in the middle of winter,” Van Kampen said.

Spending time in a hot sauna followed by plunging in cold pools provides a myriad of health benefits. According to the Kyfe website, the company that designs and sells the remote sauna packages, users can benefit from improved blood circulation, boost in metabolism, reduction in blood pressure, detoxification of the body, improved sleep and a relief from stress. This ancient technique was adopted from Slavic culture, and the hot/cold therapy has been utilized for centuries.

The remote sauna experience is new for the company this winter. They’ve already hosted around 20 different sessions this winter and are just beginning to get the word out.

“Hopefully next season it’s even bigger and better, and we have even more people,” Van Kampen said.

Their guests that have enjoyed the sauna experience have included both locals and those visiting from out of the state. The response so far has been positive.

“People that have come out have absolutely loved the experience,” Van Kampen said. ”We’ve had a whole host of different people and they’ve all had positive things to say about their experience with it.”

Each trip is monitored by a Red Cross Certified Lifeguard. Snacks are provided and wet suits can be borrowed upon request. Most guests bring along their own swimwear and a pair of shoes that can get wet moving between the sauna and the cold water.

Guests can book a sauna excursion on the Adventure By True North AK website. Van Kampen said they offer discounts for locals and U.S. military members.

Adventures By True North AK can customize each trip to best fit the individual or the group. They welcome guests, from both near and far, to try their remote sauna experience this winter.

“Winters in Alaska are absolutely some of the more incredible times of the year,” Van Kampen said. “The snow, the ice, you combine that with a high heat experience that you can literally go between the two, it makes a very unique and very fun way to get outdoors.”