Skurka Finished!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow. Congratulations Andy, well done indeed!
Now, go eat dinner—twelve dinners.

Cheers,

Rick

The guy's an animal. Friggin' amazing.

http://ngadventure.typepad.com/blog/andrew-skurka/

Roman Dial maid a excellent video of him on Face book….Skurka is more like a migrating animal..Much respect for that guy!!!!

Literally. From NG's website

"Number of bears that I scared the crap out of, literally: 1. Quick story: It charged from across a braided river, I saw it last-minute and threw my trekking poles at it because I didn’t have time to reach for my bear spray, it was so rattled by the throwing and the yelling that it took a 90-degree turn and ran away. It pooped itself as it went."

Did any of you see his Twitter comment the other day after he got back about going for a 10 mile run, feeling like a superhero, and two days later having very sore legs, and feeling like a fool? So that's proof that 4,700 miles of wilderness walking does not prepare you for a run!

168 Days
4720 miles
7552 km

44.95 km per day unsupported bar a resupply cache or 2…

Man… boggles the mind.

"Did any of you see his Twitter comment the other day after he got back about going for a 10 mile run, feeling like a superhero, and two days later having very sore legs, and feeling like a fool? So that's proof that 4,700 miles of wilderness walking does not prepare you for a run!"
I saw that too. I've gone into week long trips in pretty good running shape in the past and when i got back from the trip (having done 20-25 mile days) my running was complete crap. I ruined what was promising to be a good marathon performance by doing a 5 day trip a couple years ago. I guess there are different muscles used when you're running.

"unsupported bar a resupply cache or two…."

How could he have only 2 resupply caches? Noway thats true. What did he eat, dirt?

I think he stopped in towns along the way. That wouldn't count as a cache.

"unsupported bar a resupply cache or two…."

I believe the writer of that comment made an understatement. I believe that food packages had been mailed out to hit every 5-7 days. Maybe the hero of the saga will comment.

–B.G.–

From http://www.andrewskurka.com

"During the AYE I will need to frequently resupply so that I stay sufficiently nourished while avoiding onerous food loads, and there are surprisingly few stretches where this will be a challenge. For the first two-thirds of the route, at least once a week I will receive a self-addressed supply box. The boxes will be shipped via the US Postal Service and will be picked up in towns and villages through which I have intentionally routed the AYE. There is one exception, in Denali National Park, where I will need to have a dogsledder cache supplies for me. The final one-third of the AYE, through the northern Yukon and across the Brooks Range, is more logistically challenging. In this section I will have five pick-ups in remote native villages (two of which I will need to hitch to) and 2-3 caches flown in by bush plane to popular landing strips. I will be skinny and hungry when I return to Kotzebue, but no skinnier or hungrier than most adventurers are when they finish epic trips."

Rather than nitpick about the number of food drops, resupplies, etc., let's appreciate the overall achievement. I followed his posts on NG and my favorite was "Wilderness Redefined" in which Skurka tried to come to grips with the enormity of the wilderness he was traveling through. I think that was a 600+ mile leg with one food cache or something like that. I hope he writes a book! His thoughts and observations could be very valuable.

Twenty-four days without seeing another human. Impossible for me to grasp having never spent more than about 48 hours without seeing anyone else.

24 days without see a human, i personally would love to do that. All the tendencies of the mind start to manifest themselves when they are outside of normal conditioning. You start to get down to the lowest level of things. I become more perceptive in that kind of situation, both of the internal and external. Its always nice to note the contrast between things i notice around me when i enter the wilderness, to things i notice around me when i leave. Longest i've done was 7.

@james

We're not nitpicking, its important so that someone doesn't get the wrong idea and think they can "live off the land, along the way" or "hope for the best" in regards to food, as we have had several posters recently make assertions. People need accurate info, especially if their new.

"We're not nitpicking, its important so that someone doesn't get the wrong idea and think they can "live off the land, along the way" or "hope for the best" in regards to food, as we have had several posters recently make assertions. People need accurate info, especially if their new."

Christopher McCandless tried to live off the land, and that got him an early grave.

–B.G.–

It is absolutely amazing what he has accomplished. To be able to physically handle that many miles and the various terrain he covered is astonishing.

I think the most amazing thing is the mental endurance of the trip. Knowing your in the middle of freakin no where, you haven't seen a road or person for a week and you still have a 1,000 miles to go… now thats tough.

Congrats Andy!! You are the man, beers are on me when you get back to Denver!

Seeing the route map on his website is mind boggling, what a great achievement! Congrats!

Wow! 24 days of not having 30 people daily sit in front of me & complain about the common cold or "fibromyalgia" or having to deal with metro Atlanta's idiot drivers! Now I know why the solitude of backpacking is so alluring. Skurka is truly a man to be envied.

> I think the most amazing thing is the mental endurance of the trip. Knowing your in the middle of freakin no where, you haven't seen a road or person for a week and you still have a 1,000 miles to go… now thats tough.

Agreed – hard to imagine even for an introvert like me.

Unsupported to the South Pole wearing only shorts and a T-shirt (GoLite, of course)?

He's going to traverse the circumference of the moon. Unsupported. No space suit.

Here’s a Fairbanks radio station’s piece about Andrews latest little hike.

I’m still chuckling over Roman Dial’s comment that Andrew’d “make a really good sled dog”

Regarding Robert’s quip: “Unsupported to the South Pole wearing only shorts and a T-shirt” … Andrew’s already test driven that concept late in his Ultralight in the Nation’s Icebox trek … documented in the last photo on this page.

Andrew's wrapup AYE blog entry … why can't I get a hyperlink to work here, here's the less convenient form:

http://ngadventure.typepad.com/blog/2010/09/alaska-yukon-expedition-three-ways-the-expedition-changed-me-both-as-a-wilderness-traveler-and-human.html