6/21/18 Mileage: 9 91 miles hiked I wake at 5 a.m. because I'm anxious; what if we can't make it across the Sheenjek? What if it's too fast and deep to cross where we reach it and we have to hike ten miles upstream towards its headwaters, then back down the other side? I have … Continue reading ANWR day 8: Sheenjek

6/20/18 Mileage: 12 82 miles hiked I wake in the hot tent at 7:30 a.m. and tear off all my layers. This 2pm sun always seems clearest in the morning. I make tea naked, basking in the warm greenhouse effect of my shelter in the cloudless light. "Wolves!" I hear Bunny say quietely, outside. I … Continue reading ANWR day 7: Bunny’s ankle is f*cked

6/19/18 Mileage: 15 70 miles hiked I sleep amazing in the patter of rain and wake with the most intense pain in the arch of my left foot. Oh, the damage you can do when your feet are numb bricks the first two days of a hike and you wrench them for hours through tussock … Continue reading ANWR day 6: stuck on the wrong side of the river

6/18/18 Mileage: 13 55 miles hiked It's bright sunshine all night and I wake at 6 a.m. feeling suffocated to a hot greenhouse of a shelter and tear off my hat and puffy layer and make tea and the vega protein drank that Muffy gave me- Muffy is sponsored by vega bc she's a hotttt … Continue reading ANWR day 5: Kongakut

6/17/18 Mileage: 13 42 miles hiked It's marginally warmer in the night and the gentle patter of sleet on the tent puts me right out and when I wake in the "morning" (same 2pm light as always) my feet, which are nestled in all the trash compactor bags I stuffed into my footbox, are truly … Continue reading ANWR day 4: foot pain and an enchanted rockslide

6/16/18 Mileage: 12 29 miles hiked It's so cold overnight- I stuff my trash compactor bags and my extra shirt into the footbox of my sleeping bag for more insulation and still, my feet stay icy. I feel like they've been icy for the last 24 hours. I curl into a ball and cinch my … Continue reading ANWR day 3: tussock town, USA

6/15/18 Mileage: 9 17 miles hiked total After the 50 mph winds pass and I get my tent re-staked I pull my hat down and sleep amazingly in the cold 2pm night, waking now and then to smack to sides of my tent to rid them of accumulating ice. I wake in the morning (feels … Continue reading ANWR day 2: the fourth season

6/14/18 Mileage: 8 We fly into Fort Yukon the morning of June 14th via Wright Air, a tiny airport near the larger Fairbanks airport that operates flights to several Alaskan villages. Fort Yukon is not on any road system; you have to fly in or come a long distance by boat or otherwise. My friend … Continue reading ANWR day 1: Storm

Bunny and I are in Fairbanks. We just got off of our Brooks Range Traverse. The Brooks Range has been having the wettest spring they've had in a long time (“The worst June weather I've seen in my 35 years of flying here,” is what our bush pilot, Kirk, said, when he picked me up) … Continue reading Change of Plans

We flew out of Seattle at 9pm on Sunday in the pitch dark and by the time we reached Alaska four hours later the sun had come back up and the mountain ranges far below the plane were cast in an ethereal blue light and I pressed my face against the window, trying to see … Continue reading We start the Brooks Range Traverse tomorrow/how my blog posts will go up on the trail