Alaska: That First Daunting Step

Let me give you a word problem. I am not a math teacher, but I think you will get the point of this lesson nonetheless. How do you get 4 men to travel 4,500 miles across the North American continent, backpack in untamed wilderness, and back another 4500 miles safely and under budget? Like most word problems, this one is difficult to solve. While I am sure Seningen (an actual math teacher) might be able to make a y=mx+b argument, this seems to be a heavy lift for any equation. It is a problem that requires long term planning, commitment, and A LOT of logistics.

For those who have been following along, you know usually Sundays we try to go for some sort of hike. Well mid-Atlantic weather had other plans. So, not to waste the day, we decided to use this time as a first meeting for Alaska. On one hand it was a bummer not to be able to get out there and do some hiking. On the other hand, when nature gives you the opportunity to start your story with the classic “It was a dark and stormy night” you simply don’t turn that down.

There is an old cliché that goes: “The first step is the hardest.” Sometimes clichés are just true things that people don’t want to hear, but have to be said a lot. We started our planning process with figuring out the dates for the trip. We knew summer of 2030 was our year, but settling on the 21 days to take us to Denali National Park and back again. was the first question we had to answer. After that, out came the map, the compass, the orientation videos, vehicle specs, budget options, permit requirements, and good old fashion dry erase markers.

Rather quickly my Livingroom became the birthplace of a kind of agreement. An Alaska Pact. Is it finished? Nope. Are we close? Nope. Are there more questions to answer? Hell yes! But it was a start. We agreed on a framework that will get us on the right track. We committed to spending time working on it and meeting in order to hammer out the details. That’s a big deal. Ideas die in the dark and taking risks demands work. While there is a long way to go in the logistics, there is one big thing I got from this meeting. I have no doubt-come what may, we have each other’s backs. And that is a bigger deal than any word problem.

2 responses to “Alaska: That First Daunting Step”

Falker

December 10, 2023 at 6:11 pm

3 weeks for the whole trip, door to door? Or is that just Denali?

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1. Andrew Carlson
  
  December 10, 2023 at 6:23 pm
  
  Door to door at the moment. Seningen and I might be able to push for additional time, but non-teachers are using as much PTO as they can. We will see haha very early in the process!
  
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