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Notes -
Alright, I'm going to stop you right there. Sagwon is not a town. Sagwon is an abandoned airstrip that was built to service the construction of the Alaska pipeline. The best you can hope to find there is a passing truck on the Dalton Highway you can flag down for an awkward six-hour-plus ride to Wiseman. It would make more sense to start at Sagwon since at least you'd have a real town to aim for. This is relative, though. When you first talked about this you kept mentioning a trek through the forest so I though you were talking about the lowlands in the vicinity of the southern entrance to Gates of the Arctic National Park. What you have proposed is crossing the Brooks Range in an area where I'm not sure anyone crosses it. Do you have avalanche training? What ski setup are you using? Are you going backcountry xc, tele, or full backcountry touring? Do you have an ice axe, crampons, and screws? How's your downhill skiing ability? Can you at least drop into an easy bowl without more than a cursory look? If so, can you still do it with open heels? How many passes will you have to cross? I could go on but I think you get the point. On second thought, start from Arctic Village; at least then you aren't committed and can turn back.
No, but I've read some stuff online, does that count? Going to read some books on that.
Backcountry touring.
Yes, or I will have these.
In high school, I was a mediocre ski racer; I can ski black terrain but not glades or moguls, at least not well at all. Hopefully that means something.
I hope not to find out.
One, hopefully.
Thing is: if I started around Sagwon, and missed Arctic Village by ten miles due to a navigation error, I could potentially be fucked. If I start at Arctic Village, I just need to head in the general direction of the Dalton Highway, and I should be able to, as you said, flag down a passing truck. The plan is to hitchhike from wherever I finish the Hock (assuming I survive) back to Fairbanks.
I'll walk back my earlier comments in part, in that skis are indeed a reasonable pick for this area -- you will however need boots that fit, and the plastic ones you have are not what I would choose.
People use something like this: https://www.alpinasports.com/en/nordic/backcountry/alaska-75-50082
They are even called "Alaska"!
You can get neoprene booties to go over them, but if you are making enough miles to get where you are going before running out of supplies, cold feet will not be your problem.
I would worry quite a lot about avalanche danger as a solo traveller there -- not sure what the Brooks looks like on the ground, but based on Google Earth everything resembling a pass is quite exposed -- and when you are by yourself even a small slough could trap you enough that you will die through no fault of your own. (other than engaging in solo travel through exposed avvie terrain in the first place, ofc)
The fact that you think navigation errors are even on the table makes me think that you should do some better planning -- the original '100 miles through the forest' plan actually seemed pretty survivable with appropriate gear, but mountain travel is a thing where small mistakes kill even experienced people quickly.
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DM me your real name before you leave so I can pray for your soul.
From "Catholic Tumblr Gothic":
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