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This was one of the most satisfying outdoor experiences I've had. Take my favorite aspects of backpacking and magnify them three/fourfold. The planning and packing for 8 days of gear and food. The incredible variance in landscape and terrain. The borderline delirious humor that comes from days of compounded fatigue and growing hunger (I quite enjoyed Julesâ rendition of Michelle Obamaâs Becoming). The main appeal of backpacking for me has always been the feeling of self-sufficiency (or at least a temporary and contained mimicry of it) and the longer duration of this trip enhanced that.
An Austrian was traveling in the opposite direction (sounds like the start of a math riddle) and his reports of snow/ice and chest-high river crossings on the last couple segments propagated throughout the trail and scared a lot of people into turning around. Itâs easy to get anxious about conditions and rations on a longer trip - turning around on the 7th day of an 8-day expedition when youâve only packed 8 days of rations is a pretty brutal if not dangerous endeavor. Despite the ominous warnings, we decided to forge ahead.
The first of many river crossings.
Weather and conditions ended up being great. The slight drizzling in the last couple days didnât hamper the groupâs mood or pace. The icy river crossings and squelchy bog hopping ended up being my favorite parts - I donât love hiking (lol at me planning a trip with 104 miles of it) so any break in that activity was very welcome. Thinking of mosquitoes as baby mosquitoes made them slightly less annoying (violent mosquito genocide fantasies still dominated my thoughts on Day 4: Swamp Valleyâ˘). Wee babes that need a wee drop of blood to live their wee lives.
Canoeing through the clearest waters Iâve ever seen.
We adopted a Dutch guy (Harwin) midway through the trip - he was backpacking alone and wasnât comfortable going through the final segments by himself. Harwin was wonderful for morale. Even though he hated Julesâ feet. He was unfailingly upbeat and his sincere wonder for our surroundings (he would often ask for breaks to take photos) made me appreciate the changing landscape more. It also helped that he carried an significant amount of excess calories (his starting pack weight was over 35kg!) that he slowly distributed to us over games of high stakes poker.
The 5 Americans and The Dutch Guy. We were our own little sitcom traipsing through the Arctic wilderness. Harwin, his ludicrously large pack, boisterous laugh, and screaming night terrors; Maddy and Alex and their trading of riddles for spoonfuls of peanut butter; Jules and his unhinged food insecurity (I was worried he was going to shit himself from eating too much milk powder on the second day); Xinlu, a stoic presence leading with her backpack a fifth the size of Harwinâs; and me in the back anxiously checking GPS and counting sheets of remaining toilet paper.
The crew looking pretty good on the final day of the trek.
I planned for 2k calories a day. My RMR from the last DEXA scan was around 1.3k and I estimated an additional 1.2k of daily average caloric expenditure from activity (10-14 miles of hiking). This put me at a 500 calorie deficit per day which would result in me losing about 1.14 pounds of weight (4k calories) over a 8 day trip.