I was staying most of the times at home, cannot do any outdoor activity thanks to the pandemic and wild fire. I had booked the flight tickets to Alaska 3 months ago but I was gonna cancel them at the last minute. And finally I thought I cannot even breath here so it’s time to disappear from southern California for 10 days. So I went to Alaska looking for solitude in Alaskan wilderness, test my mental and physical strength and cry like a baby in front of glacier while having hot chocolate But…. , instead of solitude I found real human companionship all due to one major mistake I made which caused a chain of reactions which shaped and changed my life. This is my story where I learnt many life lessons.
1. Motivation
Few years ago when I was in Sri Lanka, I watched “Into the Wild”, a movie based on Jon Krakauer’s biography book. The movie was so good so I had to write down some of the conversations and later after I came to US it finally motivate me to plan a hike.
Next step is find a song (part of my rituals :D) for the hike. I have 2 songs one from the same movie.
Ok Next comes the planning …..
Alaska the largest state in US. You can fit the next 3 largest states(TX,CA,Montana) inside Alaska.
2. Choosing
As I mentioned above, how can I pick a place from a humongous state!!!. Since I don’t have much experience in camping in snow, I looked into cabins in the mountains. My requirements were
- Glaciers view
- Challenging enough(over 50 miles and remote)
- Less camping (potentially huts in the mountains)
Sooo, I decided to pick Talkeetna mountains. Why? Because it has everything I want!!!
After checking weather, I chose September 9th-19th. No snow on the roads only in the mountains, shoulder season so less tourists (way less compared to typical CA hikes). I decided to do my own version of hut to hut in Talkeetna mountains.
Well, it’s a hike in bear country, have to cross multiple glaciers and streams plus includes a hut get only less than 100 visitors per year. So how can I make this more adrenaline and remote…. By adding a lake which you cannot find a pic on google!. So here comes my modified Talkeetna hut to hut trek. In addition to that there is no track for the whole hike on any platform (All trails). Already feels like an explorer (Just in my dream world)
3.Planning
So how do you plan such a hike for a beginner like me. Have to deal with grizzly and black bears, glacier crossing, pacing for a week and think of all things that could go wrong.
First step, ask from the locals. So I joined a couple of Facebook groups and Mountaineering Club of Alaska.
- Joining Mountaineering Club of Alaska(MCA).
- Preparing for bears. (I’ll talk about it separately)
- Communication with outside world: I bought Garmin Inreach Explorer+
- Physical training
- Weather and preparing for emergencies
- Optimizing food and backpacking gears
3.1 MCA Hut system
In order to use the hut system I joined this club. It’s Annual membership $20. You can join through their website. Totally Worth it!(Mountaineering Club of Alaska )
There were 5 huts in my plan, 4 from MCA and the other (Snowbird hut:snowbird hut ) from American Alpine Club. All GPS cordinates are on their websites. These huts have propane stoves/canisters from previous hikers and a space to sleep for 8 people mostly.
3.2 Bears
I was hiking in the bear country but no need to panic if I can be prepared. I’ll explain separately my preparation. (I’m no expert on these amazing animals. But I have talked to locals, read papers and documentary videos)
3.3 Communication
I waited for a good deal and bought Garmin InReach Explorer+. Then I got the recreation plan which has 40 free texts per month. What I did was start the plan 1 week before my trip and then suspend the plan after my hike(there is an annual activation fee. So a bit expensive but totally worth)
3.4 Physical Training
I got my ankle swollen 3 months before my Alaska trip from a ultimate Frisbee game. Yes it’s a very dangerous game. I was playing with my friends and sometimes I forget everything and become this competitor. As my friend Milad said, I managed to find a way to make any activity dangerous 😀
I figured out that I have to carry 40-50 lb (18-22 kg) backpack. Now I have only 6 weeks left to train after couldn’t walk for a month. (Although in the mean time I did a small hike/walk with crutches for comet hunting). Since I’m not a pro or haven’t educated about this area, I’m gonna just say what I did as short as possible. I did jogging in the morning and climbed the stairs once in a while. During the weekend I filled up my backpack with cans of water and walk 5,6 miles.
5. Weather and emergencies
You need to know the weather in those mountains or at least at that elevation. I usually use this website to check. You have to pick a mountain and it gives you weather forecast for different elevations on that mountain.
https://www.mountain-forecast.com/
Also I got premium weather forecast a couple of times on my garmin inreach.
I saw somewhere about this helicopter rescue insurance which is like $30 per year. So I thought let’s have it just in case. But it can be only used once in your lifetime for that price and you have to ask for rescue from your registered garmin device.
Trust me you don’t wanna get rescued in the wilderness by a helicopter if you don’t have money or this type of insurance.
3.6 Food and Gear
I was looking for arithmetic and optimization fun. So I thought lets find out food with highest nutrition to mass ratio for each nutrient usually needed.
Also I wanted to prepare almost everything by myself so I bought the cheapest food dehydrator and started with high expectations of making rice,meat,pasta,fruits etc. but it took almost a day to dehydrate orange slices!!. So I only had time to prepare protein ramen and few orange slices. And then went to REI to buy backpacking food 😀
Alright, now everything ready. I got a physical map from Paxson Woelber, who has a rally awesome and informative site. He mailed me a full map of bomber traverse from Anchorage.
https://winterbear.com/maps/bomber-traverse-map/
I’ll write about what happened during my 7day Alaskan hike in another post.
