When choosing a rucksack one observation will serve you well: ‘Buy a bigger rucksack and you’ll only take more gear’, something Andrew Skurka knows well. Read more to find out how Andrew Skurka trekked Alaska and become Mr Lightfoot.
Andrew is one of a generation of trekkers who travel on foot, travel light, and travel fast. So when it came to planning his epic circumnavigation of Alaska, every gram counted.
How Andrew Skurka trekked Alaska
Alaska, for all its state parks and picnic places, is a testing place: tundra-carpeted plateaus, massive mountain ranges, and waterways and rivers flowing full with glacial water. And it’s cold, real cold. Temperatures tumble and islets freeze – as do fingertips…
Leaving Kotzebue, his aim was to be the first person to trek around Alaska, self propelled. The first section was on skis, and he unclipped to walk or canoe where the terrain demanded.
The distances he covered are vast, but still shorter than on earlier exploits – previous wanderings saw him complete 7,778 miles from the US Atlantic to Pacific coast!
Choosing to travel alone rarely leaves you alone – eventually, there’s always someone around to share the trials and trails. Still, on foot Alaska can seem boundless, so part of the test for Andrew was to remain motivated, focused and determined to see his journey through.
Mr Lightfoot
He prepared well –always vital no matter what adventure you are planning – taking first place in the 2009 Alaska Mountain Wilderness Classic adventure race must have helped him, but clearly he wasn’t prepared for the emotional impact…
In one moment he ignored his map, preferring to follow caribou along a route they’d proved for hundreds of years, and it was here, tears flowing, that he found his place…
Andrew’s trekking around Alaska is covered in more detail in a National Geographic piece by Dan Koeppel. For more images of this incredible journey, please look at the National Geographic photo gallery or look in the March 2011 issue of National Geographic magazine, on newsstands February 22.
