Best hikes, treks, tramps in the world.
Looks pretty easy …
larger original – flickr
Right? You think?
larger original – flickr
… the second-highest mountain in the state of Washington, USA. Adams is a member of the Cascade Volcanic Arc, one of the arc’s largest volcanoes and is located in a remote wilderness approximately 31 miles (50 km) east of Mount St. Helens. …
I assume my group is climbing to bring attention to “Global Warming”. Perhaps you haven’t heard of it.
There’s no way we would go way up there for FUN.
A great video previews Todd Carmichael’s November 2008 attempt alone over the “cruelest territory on the planet”.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Expedition Earth Mission 2008 The South Pole – blog
My favourite travelogue over the past few months has been Erin McKittrick and Bretwood (Hig) Higman’s Journey on the Wild Coast:
“From the Puget Sound to the Bering Sea: Four thousand miles along the edge of the Pacific, by foot, raft, and skis.”
After 8 months, they are only half way finished. (The original plan was 9 months for the entire 4000mi.)
The text and photos are terrific. But it was this video that really brought home to me the difficulty of travelling Alaska in winter.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
It’s well worth checking out Erin’s post: Midway Reflections
Worried about global warming vis-Ã -vis our polar friends?
They’ll simply find a new source of food if they can’t get to the seals.
source – flickr
Just kidding.
Would there be any point in a major expedition outdoors unless it was intended to cool the planet?
With the saturation media coverage of late, so many people have become “aware†of global warming that it’s tough to find anyone who doesn’t have an idea of what it is… But that doesn’t mean they’re all jumping up and taking action either. In fact, a recent poll showed that while overwhelming numbers of Americans agree that global warming is both real and human caused, 58% of those who think they understand the problem said no to a potential gas tax to help stop it.
And that’s why legendary polar explorer and lifelong environmental activist Will Steger is leading a team of top explorers out across the arctic ice this spring in an amazing journey to capture the arctic trauma while highlighting the need for immediate action…
The team includes Sam Branson, son of Virgin’s Richard Branson, and …… They’ll be documenting their journey in real-time, blogging and creating podcasts from the ice throughout the trip. They’ll also be leaving time-lapse video cameras in their wake to capture the ice as it melts away. …
The Adventure Addict posted a great series of annotated photos of their trek south to the Arctic Circle.
Wow! I’ve never hiked that far North. (If only I could afford to fly to Pangnirtung. And on to Qikiqtarjuaq.)
You can’t really see from the pic, but the vertical part of the face is actually overhanging at 105°. This mountain has the longest vertical uninterrupted face on Earth, and is a mecca for climbers and B.A.S.E. jumpers. The vertical part is 1250m tall — yes, that’s 1.25 KILOMETRES tall. …
Thor Peak – flickr
Auyuittuq National Park, Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada. 6 intrepid/crazy hikers go for a 9 day hike in a remote, mountainous landscape in the Canadian arctic.
Akshayuk Pass hike, Auyuittuq National Park, Canada – a photoset on Flickr
Breadablik and Thor
Interested? Check an even better trip report with photos by Nestor and Lewycky.
More information:
Baffin Island. The Akshayuk Pass, formerly known as Pangnirtung Pass, is an extraordinary 100-km trek through a land recently vacated by glaciers – though they line the edges of the valley and send fingers of ice creeping into the edges of it. Mountains over 2000 metres high line a route through the finest scenery in North America. In 2004 Outside Magazine voted the Auyuittuq Backpacking trip one of the top “Trips Of A Lifetime”.
Friends are looking at Akshayuk for the summer of 2009. Leave a comment if you have deep pockets and might be interested in joining us. If bears scare you, we’ll need a gun. A bigger concern, actually, is drowning or death by hypothermia after river crossings.
Obviously Akshayuk is included on our list of the best hikes in North America.
Alaska wilderness guru Buck Nelson in 2006 made an incredible solo journey. Maximum pack weight was about 43 pounds.
He’s made a 90min documentary of that adventure.
My trip started June 18 at the border of the Yukon Territory and ended September 2nd at the ocean near Kotzebue.
The final mileage of my trip worked out to be an estimated 1,050 miles. 600 of those miles I covered while backpacking, with about 450 more miles covered on the Noatak River.
I made countless crossings of small streams. The vast majority of these crossings were in very shallow water where I just waded across quickly in my lightweight Goretex lined boots, which usually kept my feet dry. For slightly deeper water, I “bloused” my rain pants tightly around the tops of my boots with rubber bands and crossed the shallowest spots as quickly as possible. This was also quite successful, depending on how deep the water was and how fast I crossed. At other times I just had to get wet and waded rivers thigh deep or more. On the Alatna, I made a raft for the crossing.
I had grizzlies run towards me at least three times. In each case they ran as soon as they smelled me. (Presumably, they thought I was a caribou or moose at first.) I had bears walk into my camp at “night” about three more times. Again, each time they ran when they smelled me. I didn’t lose any sleep due to grizzly bear concerns.
The mosquitoes were thick at times, but my long-sleeved shirt and pants were both mosquito proof, and along with repellant as necessary it wasn’t too bad. A lot of the time when it was breezy or cool there were few or no mosquitos around.
The toughest unexpected part of the trip was perhaps the unusual amount of rain during the summer of 2006. The toughest part of the hike that I’d anticipated was the rough walking along many stretches.
I followed river and creek drainages that ran east-west along the Continental Divide as much as possible.
A video preview featuring many of the animals encountered:
Alone Across Alaska from bucktrack.com on Vimeo.
Alone Across Alaska: 1,000 Miles of Wilderness – (DVD) $24.95
(via American Hiking Society)
Istvan Hernadi has travelled over 30,000 kilometers in Northern BC, Yukon, NWT and Alaska during the last 3 years to the most remote and desolate places of the Far North in search of the Masters, in order to meet them and to learn their teachings.
He sought out mountains, trails, rivers and lakes for hiking, biking, and paddling his small Alpacka packraft. He met strange characters during his wild adventures, people who live amazing lives in these remote places.
photos – flickr
the author’s blog
Istvan’s even published a book of photos:
From some angles the King’s Throne looks like a King’s Throne, hence the name. It’s an easy climb or a tough scramble.
10km (6.2mi) in distance to the summit, about 6hrs return, moderately strenuous.
You have the choice of a 457m (1500ft) climb to rock glacier. Or — if conditions are good — continue to the top, total ascent being 1,250-metre (4,100-foot) above the lake.
The views are spectacular all the way up, so there’s no need to top out. Especially if it’s windy or you get “weather”.
You need to find transport to the Kathleen Lake campground 32km (20mi) south of Haines Junction, Yukon. We stayed there one night after our descent.
You will not feel rushed during the long days of the northern summer. It was light out until perhaps midnight when we were there.
Atop the King’s Throne you’ll be inspired to adventure deeper into this, the largest protected area of the world. But there are very few established trails. You’ll likely be bushwhacking. Or paddling.
Contributor Kelly Mock from Whitehorse suggests (instead) a spring ski tour of the most famous long trail in the park, Cottonwood.
If this happened to you, are you prepared? Take the quiz: How to survive a polar bear attack.
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