Category: health & safety

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.

Alaska Brooks Range Traverse

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)