How Remote is Remote?

On April 19, Roman emailed Jason and I with some interesting commentary about the Arctic trek:

"If the remotest place we are walking to (i.e., a bench overlooking the Ipnavuk River) is more than 119 miles from the nearest town (i.e., Umiat, Ambler, and Atqasuk) or road (i.e., AK haul road) in every direction, then we will be in the heart of a wilderness that is bigger than a dozen Yellowstone National Parks. To surround a point with wilderness 119 miles in every direction requires 28.5 million acres, and that is actually just a piece of what the wilderness is where we are headed..."

No doubt Ryan you have been to Yellowstone’s remotest corner, the Thorofare region, 30 miles or so from the road. That requires a wilderness of 1.8 million acres to surround it, so in some sense the place we are going is more than 15 times wilder.

See the graphic: the little circle is the Thorofare wilderness (2 million acres). The middle circle is the wilderness surrounding the remotest spot in America (radius = 119 miles). The outermost circle has diameter equal to distance we hope to walk. I hope we are not biting off more than we can chew — or rather, knowing that we are biting off more than we can chew,  I just hope we can swallow it."

Comments

[Mule]

The graphic really does a fine job of putting perspective on this feat.