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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   2700 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for May 5, 2023

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Fifty miles isn't that far? If you are wearing proper clothing and have snowshoes/skis + trail food, you should be able to just, like -- keep walking until you get to civilization?

If you want to do some winter camping that can be fun too, but I'd choose somewhere more interesting than a northern forest -- they're kind of featureless in many ways.

Maybe you should get into mountaineering? Those guys risk death in ridiculous ways all the time ( here's an 'interesting' story I read recently ), but at least they end up with a more interesting story than "one time I walked around Alaska for a couple of days for no good reason".

(The first two paragraphs of that article, for flavour:

MOUNT THOR is located 16 miles above the Arctic Circle in the Weasel Valley on Baffin Island. Our goal was to climb the 4,500-foot west face, tackling the 1,600-foot overhanging headwall.

Previous attempts on Mount Thor’s west face had ended at the base of the headwall. In 1979, a large Japanese expedition attempted the face, but retreated after the death of a climber. Later that summer, after 32 days on the face, three American climbers were driven from the wall by winds in excess of 100 miles per hour. In 1984, a second Japanese team reached the summit via the west face and north ridge. Their climb avoided the headwall, but unfortunately ended with the tragic death of a climber during a stream crossing.

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I will most definitely be wearing proper clothing and carrying food with me as well. The plan is to make a sled by reshaping the plastic from 55 gallon barrels. I have seen canoes made this way. I’ve got a winter jacket that’s damn near Everest grade, down pants, merino wool base layers. I’ll grab some skis, some expedition weight mittens and boots that can handle 40 below, test it in the mountains next winter when it’s like 0 or 20 below, then have myself dumped in the Alaskan forest north of the Arctic Circle and see if I can make it out alive. I’ll take a map, compass, and perhaps a rescue beacon.

You have never lived, ‘till you have almost died, and after life has a flavor that the protected will never know.

The thing here is the extreme remoteness plus the fact that temperatures can dip as low as 40, even 50 below zero. This is cold as fuck and is something I feel might harden the hell out of my soft ass.

What do you need a sled for? Just pack a bunch of beef jerky and trail mix, you'll be fine.

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