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These trips are for women, trans and nonbinary people who are experienced backpackers and want to spend seven days backpacking in Alaska’s Brooks Range and also want to learn to create cross-country routes in caltopo. It’s going to be an epic time!

There are two sessions, with five spots available in each session. Each session is seven days of backpacking plus a day in Fairbanks on either end. We’ll hike 8-10 miles each day.

Dates:

• July 1-9, 2024
• July 12-20, 2024

The Brooks Range is a mountain range that runs 600 miles east-west across the Alaskan Arctic, from Canada to the Chukchi sea. It’s bisected by only one road, the Haul Road aka the Dalton Highway, that carries supplies north to oil drilling on the arctic ocean. The Brooks Range is one of the least developed places left on Earth. It is also the traditional home of Inupiaq and Athabanscan peoples; these people still live there, have autonomy and practice their subsistence lifestyles, and some non-native people live in villages in the Brooks Range as well. The villages in the Brooks Range that are not on the Haul Road are only accessible by plane, boat, dogsled or snowmachine. The Brooks Range is also home to thousands of caribou, as well as grizzlies, wolves, wolverines, etc. Much of the Brooks Range is north of treeline; the mountains are rolling and green, the walking is along braided riverbeds or across boggy, squishy tundra. There are fewer bears in this part of Alaska than more southern parts of the state, and the relative lack of brush makes the bears easier to avoid. Summer is short and summer weather is random, even moreso now with climate change; it might be 80 degrees Fahrenheit one day, and snowing the next.

The Brooks Range has no established trails or routes. This is intentional- to travel via foot or packraft in the Alaskan Arctic one must create one’s own route- both to ensure that the traveler is experienced enough and familiar enough with the terrain to stay safe, and for the sheer fun of it- there aren’t many places left in north America without established trails or routes, and so it’s cool to have a place where you still have to do the legwork yourself. Those who do create routes in the Alaskan Arctic are discouraged from sharing those routes online.

The Brooks Range may be remote, but it’s also a fairly straightforward place to create a cross-country route, once you have some understanding of the terrain and also know how to create routes. (You don’t need to pay for a guided trip to learn to make routes- some free resources are here, here and here.) In this course/backpacking trip combo, I’ll teach you how to create a route using caltopo, we’ll work together to create a seven day trip in the Brooks Range (that fits certain parameters), and then, we’ll hike it!

This trip is for women, trans and nonbinary people who are already experienced backpackers- maybe you’ve thru-hiked a five month trail (like the PCT, CDT or AT) and/or a shorter cross-country route (or mostly cross-country) like the Hayduke, Sierra High Route or L2H. (What I mean by cross-country is that there’s not a footpath or road to follow.)

A note: I keep talking about “creating one’s own route” but no route exists in a vacuum; in North America, how to get from point A to point B is knowledge that has been held for generations by the indigenous people of any given area (the best ways over certain passes, which valleys are the least boggy for walking, etc) and so any information we gather about how to walk over the land is information that originated, at some point, from those people, even if we get it from non-native sources. For this reason, “creating one’s own route” is not about doing-it-yourself but rather about being in relationship- with the communities that know and live in an area, as well as with the area itself.

More deets!

There are two sessions, with five spots available in each session. Each session is seven days of backpacking plus a day in Fairbanks on either end. We’ll hike 8-10 miles each day.

Dates:

• July 1-9, 2024
• July 12-20, 2024

Cost: $2500 (a payment plan is available), plus the cost of your flight from Fairbanks to the village in the Brooks Range where we’ll begin our hike (around $200 each way, and you’ll book these tickets yourself). This includes four hours of one-on-one zoom coaching beforehand, where I teach you how to create a cross-country route on the caltopo website and help you work through aspects of the trip you may have questions about (gear, bears, weather etc), as well as group meetups online where we’ll plan our route together. It also includes lodging and meals while we’re in Fairbanks, and rides to and from the Fairbanks airport.

Itinerary: We’ll meet in Fairbanks on the first day of the trip. I ask that hikers arrive by 2pm the first day to allow us time to run any errands we need. I’ll pick everyone up from the airport and we’ll stay at a rental house, and dinner and snacks will be provided (with food for everyone’s dietary restrictions and preferences). On day two we’ll fly from Fairbanks to the remote village where we’ll begin our hike, and our trip will begin. On day eight (day seven of hiking) we’ll arrive back in the village, and fly back to Fairbanks, where we’ll spend another night at the rental house, and eat dinner together again. On day nine we’ll have breakfast and check out by 11 am, and I’ll provide rides back to the airport.

What’s not included in this trip: your flights, your meals while backpacking, your gear, your paid subscription to caltpopo ($20).

Pre-trip course dates: Most of the zoom coaching, route planning and online group meetups will happen in March, April and May, and I’ll work with you to find times that work for your schedule.

Gear: This trip will require just normal three-season gear, similar to what you would bring on the High Sierra section of the PCT, with a few tweaks. We’ll be bringing ursacks (bear resistant food bags), bear spray, waterproof socks, mosquito headnets, and I ask that each person have a garmin inreach. We won’t be doing any packrafting.

Terrain: We’ll be walking along braided gravel riverbeds and green, boggy tundra slopes, with the occasional scree-covered mountain pass. Sometimes there will be stretches of tussocks, which are like hairy basketballs on springs, but we’ll do our best to avoid them. Our feet will be wet all day every day. Slogging is the word that comes to mind when I think about walking in the Brooks.

Mileage: We’ll hike eight to ten miles a day, with about 3,000 feet of elevation gain per day. This is a full day of hiking: due to the boggy nature of things, the going is fairly slow.

Mosquitoes: The mosquitoes may or may not be bad, depending on the day. We’ll bring mosquito headnets just in case.

Bears: There are fewer bears in the Brooks than elsewhere in the state, as there isn’t as much access to salmon. The bears are grizzlies. Our route will do its best to avoid brush- since the Brooks is mostly north of treeline, this isn’t hard to do. The general open nature of the terrain makes the Brooks a relatively safe environment in which to share space with grizzlies. If we do see a bear it’ll likely be from far away, and we can give it a wide berth. The bears in the Brooks are very wild, and tend to be terrified of people. We’ll be bringing ursacks for our food, as well as bear spray. There has never been a recorded fatal bear attack in the Brooks range, and it’s very unlikely that bears will be an issue.

Weather: Summer weather in the Alaskan arctic is unpredictable. We might have hot, sunny days, and we might have cold rain or even light snow.

Application process: The application for these trips is here. The application is free. After your application is approved, we’ll set up a zoom call to talk more about the trip and answer any questions you might have, and then you’ll have the opportunity to register.

(Again, you don’t have to pay for a trip like this to learn to make routes- Luc Mehl has great free resources here and here, and Andrew Skurka has free resources here.)

About me: I’ve long-distance hiked eleven thousand miles, including the Pacific Crest Trail (twice, the Washington section four times), the Continental Divide Trail, the Hayduke Route, the Lowest to Highest Route (2.5 times), the Mogollon Rim Trail, the Kings Canyon High Basin Route, the Tahoe Rim Trail, the Arizona Trail, the Wind River High Route, as well as 32 days walking in the Brooks Range on routes I created myself. I have my Wilderness First Responder certification. I LOVE sharing my love of long-distance hiking with others.

Feel free to email me with any questions at carrotquinn4@gmail.com !