Journey on the Wild Coast, Part 1

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Six years ago, clad in duct tape and a few tattered fragments of raingear, my husband Hig and I paddled leaking Sevylor rafts through a maze of nets and fishing boats to land in the remote village of Chignik. We were desperately thin, despite having subsisted for the past week on jars of Betty Crocker frosting. We had been trekking along the Alaska Peninsula, through a remote wilderness of tundra and volcanoes, for two months and over eight hundred miles. Outside of the few towns we passed through, we'd seen zero people and eighty-five grizzly bears. But I was happier than I ever had been. And what was originally planned to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience would eventually become a way of life.

Since then we've walked and rafted over three thousand miles in the Alaskan wilderness, traveling through thickets of alder and devil's club, down roiling rivers and past angry bears to some of the most amazing places I've ever seen.

On June 9, 2007, we will hand our keys to the landlord, shoulder our backpacks, step off our Seattle front porch, and head for the mountains. Our plan is to walk, packraft and ski four thousand miles from the heart of urban Seattle to the first Aleutian Island. We estimate the journey will take nine months, finishing in March 2008.

ARTICLE OUTLINE

Introduction
Environmental mission
- Salmon
- Forests
- Resource Extraction
- Global Climate Change
Logistics
Route
- Cities, suburbs, and the Cascade Mountains - June 2007
- Vancouver Island Coast - July 2007
- Great Bear Rainforest - July-August 2007
- Tongass National Forest - October 2007
- Gulf of Alaska - November 2007
- Prince William Sound to Cook Inlet - December 2007
- Bristol Bay Uplands - January 2008
- Alaska Peninsula - February 2008
- Unimak Island - March 2008
Conclusion

# WORDS: 4240
# PHOTOS: 20

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Jun 5, 2007 at 9:15 pm #1223545

Benjamin Smith
BPL Member

@bugbomb
Locale: South Texas

Companion forum thread to articles:

EXPEDITION: Journey on the Wild Coast (Erin McKittrick and Bretwood Higman)

Journey on the Wild Coast, Part 1

Podcast: Journey on the Wild Coast, Part 1

Journey on the Wild Coast, Part 2 – the Gear

Podcast: Journey on the Wild Coast – Packrafting Gear and Clothing

Journey on the Wild Coast – Survival of the Fittest?

Podcast: Journey on the Wild Coast – Should a Non-Coastal Curmudgeon Care About Shrinking Old Growth Forests?

Podcast: Journey on the Wild Coast – Food Choices and Preparation

Jun 6, 2007 at 7:52 am #1391363

Sarah Kirkconnell
BPL Member

@sarbar
Locale: Homesteading On An Island In The PNW

I will be following this :-)

Jun 6, 2007 at 9:27 am #1391374

George Matthews
BPL Member

@gmatthews

You're two brave souls!

Excellent pre-trip ad. I am gladly hooked.

Jun 6, 2007 at 1:06 pm #1391395

Kevin Sawchuk
BPL Member

@ksawchuk
Locale: Northern California

Thank-you for sharing your trip with us. I look forward to getting regular updates during your trip. I really appreciate the sense of place you've conveyed and the environmental mission.

Jun 7, 2007 at 6:38 pm #1391573

Sam Haraldson
BPL Member

@sharalds
Locale: Gallatin Range

> Are you walking back?

Ha! I love it! Best of luck day after tomorrow as you head off on a great and important journey, Erin and Hig.

Jun 10, 2007 at 8:10 am #1391814

Mike Maurer
Member

@maurer
Locale: Oregon

Is there a gear list posted anywhere? Couldn't see one in the text, and there wasn't any sort of link to a dedicated website.

Thanks.

Jun 10, 2007 at 8:53 am #1391819

Ken Helwig
BPL Member

@kennyhel77
Locale: Scotts Valley CA via San Jose, CA

Kevin I keep looking at your photo. Was that taken in the Mammoth area.

Jun 10, 2007 at 5:35 pm #1391857

Don Wilson
BPL Member

@don-1-2-2
Locale: Koyukuk River, Alaska

Mike –

We will have a full gear and techniques article in a week or two (maybe this week). Erin and Hig have a lot of interesting homemade gear, and their journey will definitely push the limits of lots of their gear. They also have a lot of gear challenges associated with the large amount of packrafting they plan to do.

Stay tuned!

Don

Jun 27, 2007 at 8:33 pm #1393694

Robert A Cornah
Member

@rcornah

Hey, can you eskimo roll one of those packrafts??, if not how do you get back in?

Jun 27, 2007 at 10:29 pm #1393710

Dale Wambaugh
BPL Member

@dwambaugh
Locale: Pacific Northwest

I a Seattlite and a kayaker. I've looked at the charts for the Inside Passage many times, wanting to make that trip. The overland/water combination is a great idea. There is so much wild country on the way— all the inlets and bays, streams and rivers and the wildlife.

There is nothing like paddling along and having eagles soar overhead, or floating down the mouth of a river into a bay with the tide and having a seal poke it's head out of the water a few feet away, floating along with you. Then there are the Orcas, the Gray whales, Great Blue herons, puffins, otters, sea lions— it's awesome, in the true meaning of the word. I wanna go too!

Jun 28, 2007 at 12:04 am #1393717

Erin McKittrick
BPL Member

@mckittre
Locale: Seldovia, Alaska

Erin here

Infrequently on the internet on this expedition, but I stopped by on my Vancouver B.C. rest day, and thought I'd reply…

Packrafts are quite stable. Nearly impossible (I've heard rumors someone has done it) to eskimo roll, for the same reason they're hard to flip in the first place. Getting in is really easy, though. We set up a clip system to quickly release the pack from the front (the weight makes the raft harder to flip upright) doable while in the water. Then I just flip it back over and climb in – I've ended up back in the boat almost before I noticed I was out of it. No water stays in the boat after flipping, and I can pull the pack back with an attached string.

Looking forward to heading into the mountains tomorrow, and then up the B.C. coast…

Jul 2, 2007 at 12:58 am #1394126

Jason Brinkman
BPL Member

@jbrinkmanboi
Locale: Idaho

I'm loving this series. Hig & Erin are WAY more adventurous than I will ever be. I particularly liked the bear deterrent flare! Unfortunately, if I were to deploy said flare (spitting mess of acrid smoke and fire) in Idaho this year, I would have a bear deterrent forest fire on my hands!!

I'm also getting more and more interested in packrafts. And BPL should look into those new drysuits for us – maybe a review in the future?

Keep it coming!

Jul 15, 2007 at 12:04 pm #1395452

Jon Rhoderick
BPL Member

@hotrhoddudeguy
Locale: New England

Hi guys

I just read the article again after grazing through it a couple of weeks ago, and I'm amazed I've never heard of the no brainer bear flare idea. I don't live in a bear rich environment, but when you put your mind to it, them old cavemen didn't use pepper spray, it was the acrid smoke and fire that took us off largely off the food chain. I bet the cavemen sure wish for an MLD spinn pyramid.

Jul 15, 2007 at 5:08 pm #1395474

Mike Barney
Member

@eaglemb
Locale: AZ, the Great Southwest!

Does that mean a Roman Candle would work too ;)

Aug 3, 2007 at 8:19 am #1397313

Kenneth Knight
BPL Member

@kenknight
Locale: SE Michigan

I have just posted a handful of new photos to the portal page. Many of them have appeared on Erin and Hig's blog already, but not this large.

Also the page now is completely current as far as podcasts go so if your preferred method of listening to Erin and Hig is through the website you have plenty more to listen too.

Aug 27, 2007 at 1:54 pm #1400127

Kenneth Knight
BPL Member

@kenknight
Locale: SE Michigan

Another handful of photos has been posted.

Yes, I realize the blog has more. We hope to add a large number of photos and videos within the next couople of weeks.

Sep 5, 2007 at 4:08 am #1401100

Kenneth Knight
BPL Member

@kenknight
Locale: SE Michigan

From time to time, and especially as the data track lengthens, you may get a message from your browser about the script being unresponsive along with a "Continue" and "Cancel" button. This is because the map now supports narly 700 data points including the pink line route which is some 630 points long. We are coming to a point where we may decide to make the track of their route somewhat less precise (though we have all the data) so this happens less often.

Do click Continue to get the complete map.

I've had to reduce the map resolution somewhat. As you can now see the pink line plots every 30 points with a wider minimum separation. You'll still have a great feel for their travels.

Sep 21, 2007 at 4:02 pm #1403050

Kenneth Knight
BPL Member

@kenknight
Locale: SE Michigan

It's taken a while but I think you'll enjoy the 70 new photos that have just been uploaded. Some you may have seen on Erin and Hig's blog already, but most you haven't.

Enjoy…

Oct 12, 2007 at 8:01 am #1405292

Gary Thorne
Member

@dogman
Locale: Midwest

What a great trip report. I was wondering how easy is it to get through Customs with some of the safety gear, one needs? Like a good knife, some meds and cooking gear. I would not want to take a trip like this, with just a 1/2 inch knife or have my titanium tent pegs confiscated, because they might be used to destroy an oil tanker!

Oct 29, 2007 at 1:06 am #1406997

Kenneth Knight
BPL Member

@kenknight
Locale: SE Michigan

It's been a while but I think you'll find the wait was worth it. 90 more photos have just gone up covering Erin and Hig's travels pretty much from Ketchikan to Juneau.

** Ken **

Dec 18, 2007 at 8:45 pm #1412996

Kenneth Knight
BPL Member

@kenknight
Locale: SE Michigan

It's been a while since I've been able to add photos to this page. I've just added 48 more that take you up through the start of November.

** Ken **

Mar 18, 2008 at 12:38 pm #1424771

Brian James
Member

@bjamesd
Locale: South Coast of BC

What's up with Erin and Hig's new MLD shelter?

It's made of Silnylon and looks amazing. But what happened to their original cuben shelter? Was it a case of

-not enough ventilation?
-simple wear and tear?
-an accident with the original?
-just an upgrade?

Also, how many days/miles did they get out of their first shelter?

Does anyone know?

Mar 18, 2008 at 2:13 pm #1424776

Ron Bell / MLD
BPL Member

@mountainlaureldesigns
Locale: USA

They now have the MLD Silnylon Mid.

They have done a lot of product testing for me. They are awesome.

(Never was a Cuben version that they used.)

First Spinntex Mid:
An EARLY proto way before I put them on the website for sale…They used it about 90 nights. A zipper failure was starting- The zipper was a tiny one and with all the sand, etc. everyday it was starting to wear at the bottom and so I sent them a second Spinntex Mid before it totally failed. If you have been following them closely- you know they don't exactly baby their gear either!

Second Spinntex Mid:
They used it for about 30-40 days in some of the the worst of the storms they have seen. It had lots of small improvements over the Proto, mainly a bit taller and a much better vent plus a beefier zipper.

It was way cold and Hig tripped (or something like that) and one of the secondary tieouts point guylines got super yanked and caused a fabric rip. (I now use even beefier reinforcement patchs at the secondary tieouts too. I also suggest folks use a short loops of bungee on side panel and secondary tieouts . -It's really light Spinaker after all…) I think they were gonna sew it back up but I offered to send a Silnylon version for the rest of the trip into the harshest and more remote part of the trek.

Third Mid: The one pictured. I was out of Spinntex at the time and sent the Silnylon version. So far after about 35-45 days I've not heard of any issues. I also thought they might like a bit of Yellow in the Mid! With all the pics of the snow, I think the silnylon is better for when you have to dig it out everyday for day after day. -In that one pic the snow is freaking deep.

Apr 3, 2008 at 7:47 am #1426884

Steve .
Member

@pappekak
Locale: Tralfamadore

Playing Erin and Hig's March 18, 2008 (Illamna, AK) podcast in Fox Fire 2.0.0.13.

The undocumented feature? Scroll down to a point where the Audio Updates is no longer shown. And… the broadcast stops. Same behavior when I switch windows.

Annoying :{

Apr 3, 2008 at 12:15 pm #1426926

Jim Colten
BPL Member

@jcolten
Locale: MN

It had lots of small improvements over the Proto, mainly a bit taller

Ron, care to elaborate on reason to be taller? headroom? better snow shedding? Something else?
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