Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center

As I said when I started this series of posts about our adventures in Alaska, not every post is going to be about hiking or camping, as has been the case in cataloging many of my other adventures.  The fact that I haven’t sold the rest of my family on backpacking, despite writing a blog on the topic, probably doesn’t do wonders for my credibility, but the brand of vacation we undertook in Alaska did have the advantage of allowing us to see much more of the state than we otherwise might have been able to see.  As much as it would have been amazing to spend ten days backpacking Denali National Park, that would have inhibited the amazing experiences that we had in Seward, Whittier, Girdwood, Anchorage, and the other cities and towns through which we passed.  Even the way we did it, we saw only a tiny portion of Alaska.

The point of all that is to say that, if you’re bored by posts like this one, which is going to walk through the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center, you can feel free to pass over them.  Don’t worry: once I’ve finished regaling you with all of the stories from Alaska, the blog will be getting back to instructional posts, and descriptions of more focused explorations.  For now, though, I hope that you’ll continue to enjoy reading about the plethora of unique sights and experiences in Alaska.

Our next stop was the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center.  It’s a sort of weird cross between a zoo and a farm, though neither of those descriptors really achieves encapsulation of the objectives of the AWCC.  Unlike either of those institutions, the AWCC collects native Alaska animals that are injured or cannot survive in their natural habitats, and gives them a place to live at the center.  North American porcupines, moose, black bears, brown bears, various deer, elk, caribou, musk oxen, and wood bison all have a place at the AWCC.

It’s certainly not the same as seeing wildlife in its natural environment.  Coming across a bear, moose, or other animal on the trail, on equal footing, if you will, is a very unique and special experience that cannot be replicated in a forced manner.  However, a conversation center like this one does present the opportunity to get a view of these animals that you’ll likely never get on the trail, and since you can never be certain of a “free-form” wildlife encounter, you can be sure that you’ll get to see the creatures you’re hoping to see.

Let’s talk a little bit about wood bison.  It turns out that there were once herds of wood bison roaming the northern forests of Alaska and Canada.  They grew slightly larger than their plains brethren, and tended to roam in smaller herds.  However, they were driven extinct, and for many years, were known only in memory.  The AWCC helped lead an effort to resurrect this ancient creatures.  By importing plains bison and breeding them in the Alaska environment, they were able to slowly form a herd of wood bison at the conservation center (plains bison and wood bison are not genetically different species).  When it was deemed sufficiently large and genetically diverse, the herd was flown by bush plane to a remote part of Alaska – hundreds of these animals, weighing hundreds of pounds each – and released.  Several herds of wood bison continue to thrive in Alaska, thanks to the daunting task undertaken by the AWCC and its partners.

We didn’t spend long at the AWCC, and after that, it was time to make our next move.  Our next destination was Sutton, Alaska, but we had a very important stop to make first, in Anchorage.  This next activity was probably the highlight of the entire trip, so I hope that you’ll come read about that.

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Bridges? How Dull.

For our second day of operations out of Girdwood, we made use of a trail located mere steps from our temporary place of residence. Although the Winner Creek Trail does not directly connect to where we were, we were able to take an easily accessible spur to join up with the trail proper. There was some initial confusion, since part of the spur had the appearance of a sidewalk, but once that was resolved, the trail was straightforward (figuratively, not literally).

This was another trail in a temperate rain forest sort of environment. Mostly, it was composed of black, granite gravel. Where this coating was not present, boardwalks had usually been erected, since these regions tended to be exceedingly muddy. Although there is some up and down, Winner Creek Trail is pretty easy: I would be very comfortable running it at speed.

Besides being so local, which is always a benefit, Winner Creek Trail offers views of some impressive burl (you can read more about burl in the Redwoods post, although these trees were not redwoods), enormous granite boulders, and a rushing river. The water of this river is so aerated that it has a brilliant blue color that you don’t commonly see. If you don’t feel the terrestrial perspective is sufficient for your view of the river, you can take advantage of one of the more unique parts of this trail: the hand tram.

When I was told that the Winner Creek Trail had a hand tram, I was envisioning one of those old fashioned railway cars, where one person stands on one side of the lever, and another person stands on the other side of the lever, and with a sort of sea-saw motion, you propel the vehicle along the track. In reality, the hand tram was more like a slow motion zip line. You step into a green cage, which is suspended from a wire, and draw yourself along by a rope (you can also have your companions on the platform haul for you). It’s the only way to get to the other side from that location (though you don’t have to cross in order to complete the trail), and offers some unique views of the gorge. I wouldn’t say the hand tram is reason enough to do the trail, but it is a rather unique feature.

This is an out and back trail, not a loop, so after we ventured forth on the hand tram, we ventured back the way we had come, along the boardwalks, past the avalanche scar, and back to our Girdwood base of operations. Winner Creek Trail would be a great hike for less experienced hikers to get a glimpse of Alaska’s natural grandeur, and offers a pleasant morning stroll for more experienced adventurers. If you’re in the area, consider checking out Winner Creek Trail.

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Selene in the Land of the Midnight Sun

It never actually got dark while we were in Alaska.  Oh, there were sunset and sunrise times: officially, the sun set at about 0030 (12:30 at night), and rose around 0330, but it never actually got dark, even when the sun was “down.”  (Of course, this situation is reversed in the winter, with a mere three to four hours of “light”).  The effect was a little disorienting, but after a few days, I mostly grew accustomed to it.  There was something peculiarly thrilling about being able to check the weather on a cloudy day and say “hey, the sun is going to come out at 2300.”

Despite the decided dearth of night, we were still able to observe some interesting lunar effects (the moon is called Selene in certain astronomical circles), particularly in the form of bore tides up Turnagain Arm (part of the Cook Inlet).  We had some difficulty finding, and then identifying, the bore tide, but once we had positive confirmation that what we were seeing was, in fact, the bore tide, it was an interesting sight.  Not so interesting, however, that we felt the need to do as we saw one soul doing – he was attempting to surf the bore tide (this is apparently a bit of a Thing in Alaska).

Put simply, a bore tide is when the incoming tide runs counter to the typical direction of current in a certain region, creating one or more, sometimes significant, waves.  Bore tides are not uncommon, but bores significant enough to be visible are: there are only a few locations in the world where bores are consistently large enough to be clearly visible.  The more extreme the tides, the more pronounced will be the bore tide, so the size of a bore tidal wave will vary depending on the spread between the high and low tides.

We estimated that the bore tide we viewed was about eight inches high – a sign mentioned that the bore tides for that place could range from six inches to six feet in total height.  Apparently, the bore tides in Turnagain Arm used to be more impressive, before the 1964 earthquake altered the seafloor.  After spotting it at the first viewing location, we drove along to see it from another location at a narrower point, where the tide would be more pronounced.  You can time the bore tide viewing: they usually roll in about fifteen to twenty minutes after low tide.  The magnitude of the tidal differential affects the extent of the bore tide, which can move at almost twenty miles an hour down Turnagain Arm.  There’s a whole science around predicting when the largest bore tides will be, but even a normal one is interesting in its own right.

Maybe bore tides aren’t the most exciting thing in the world – I certainly wouldn’t say that it’s a prime reason for you to make your way to Alaska – but it was an interesting phenomenon to observe, and more significant than we expected it to be.  As more for the adventure of finding and identifying the tie, this was a worthwhile experience, and I would encourage you to find a chance to see the bore tide if you’re in the Turnagain Arm area.

Through the Portal…

Our stay in Seward was an amazing start to the trip, thanks to the spectacular wildlife encounters of our first day’s boat tour, and the dramatic vistas offered by our Harding Ice Field and Exit Glacier hikes, but since Alaska is such an enormous state, in order to see even a tiny portion of it we had to move on after those two days.  For the next part of our trip, we stayed in Girdwood, which during the winter is a ski resort town, but during the summer becomes quiet (and discounted).  From our base in Girdwood, we proceeded to the little town of Whittier for a boat tour of local glaciers.

The tunnel into Whittier

Positioned as it is, Whittier can only be accessed by land through a narrow tunnel bored through the solid granite of the mountain.  It is only one lane, and serves the train, as well, so it is only open to vehicular traffic from a given direction every half an hour or so.  There is a small fee to use the tunnel as you go towards Whittier, but you won’t have to pay again on the way back.  As with many accomplishments, this tunnel was originally constructed for the US Army.

While the Army maintained its base in Whittier, through World War II and much of the Cold War, Whittier had a population of about 1,600.  Today, it has a population of about 250, all of who live in one of two apartment buildings that look very much like they were built in the fifties and sixties, which they were.  The only other major edifice in the town is the former Army building, a sprawling, unpainted, reinforced concrete structure that no one has done anything with; between the asbestos and the building’s bomb-proof nature, it would cost millions of dollars to demolish or re-purpose.  It looms in eerie fashion from the far end of the little town of Whittier.

One of the apartment buildings. You can see most of the town in this image.

If it weren’t for the cruise ships that stop by Whittier’s port, I am convinced that the town would have no knowledge of 21st century happenings, like the internet.  Passing through the tunnel and emerging on the Whittier side was like passing through a portal, a wormhole back through time.  It isn’t so much that time stands still in Whittier – it’s more that time simply forgot about the little town.  Even the weather was different when we passed through the tunnel, going from a brightening sky to gloom and rain and brooding clouds.

There is a little museum connected to a motel and general store in Whittier, and when I say little, I mean that unless you live in a cardboard box, your bedroom is probably bigger than this museum.  Despite its diminutive size, however, it did have some interesting history to convey, history that has generally been neglected, overlooked, or perhaps intentionally ignored by most textbooks, museums, and historians.  It turns out that in the early days of World War II, several of the Alaskan islands were occupied by the Japanese, their occupants imprisoned, with many of them being sent to Japan.  Only after months and several, very bloody battles were these islands reclaimed by American forces.  These tales were a sobering reminder of just how dark and uncertain things looked for the Allies in the opening days of the second world war.

Those are seagulls.  When threatened, they all swarm off the cliff in a swirling mass to try to protect their young.

However, we didn’t come to Whittier exclusively for their one-room history museum.  The main reason for our visit was a glacier tour, courtesy of Major Marine Tours.  There were wildlife viewing opportunities as well, such as seagull (I’m sorry, black-legged kitty wakes) tornadoes, and the glaciers were certainly impressive, but the whole experience was, through no fault of the tour, somewhat anticlimactic.  After our previous experience with our boat tour in Seward, this much larger, more impersonal voyage simply couldn’t compete.

Our Major Marine tour took most of the afternoon, but we decided to have our dinner in Whittier before heading for the tunnel and making our way back to Girdwood.  We ate at the Swiftwater Seafood Cafe, (called Swiftwater Seafoods Restaurant on TripAdvisor).  It might be the most expensive “fast food” you’ll ever have, but it was excellent food.  I highly recommend that red chowder, which has an unusually high concentration of seafood.

We made it safely back through the portal before it closed for the evening, and returned to our base in Girdwood.  Look for our next post, about our adventures on the Winner Creek Trail and the use of a hand tram.

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Exit Glacier

As mentioned in out last post about the Harding Ice Field Trail, if we had done the entire trail, we would have been afforded some spectacular views of Exit Glacier.  However, we didn’t do the entire trail, so in order to see the glacier, we took a different, much shorter trail, more of a walk than a hike, to see this enormous, and ancient, pile of ice.  Although growing up we liked to call the pile of snow that the plow deposited at the base of our driveway a glacier, that is nothing compared to a real glacier.

I think it is worth taking a brief digression to discuss glacial science.  A glacier is nothing more than snow and ice that has been compressed into a much denser form.  In natural cases, this is accomplished from snow piling atop snow year after year, without melting away during the summer months.  After about ten years, there will be a sufficient mass of snow on top of the first year’s snow to compress that first year’s snow into glacial ice.  It is this process of compression that lends a glacier its blue color; when the snow is compressed to such an extent, the space between the molecules of dihydrogen monoxide (water) is reduced, so that only shorter wavelengths of light, like blue, can pass through.  This is also why icebergs, which are made of glacial ice, ride so low in the water – glacial ice is tangibly heavier than a comparable amount of regular ice, and also takes longer to melt.

There’s far more that we could talk about when it comes to glacial science, and more that we probably will talk about, since one of our activities later on in the trip involved hiking on a glacier, but for now, let’s focus on Exit Glacier and our experience with this particular, ultra-dense mountain of ice.  The trail we took leading up to Exit Glacier followed the path of the glacier’s regression, estimated back to the glacier’s peak extent during the latest “mini ice age” in the early 1800s.  That means we were walking on a moraine, which is a fancy word for what is essentially glacial dirt.  All of the measurements were estimates made based on a 2007 investigation.

We were only able to get to within a few hundred yards of the glacier, so it was difficult to get a sense of the scale of the facade with which it presented us.  It tapered off to what looked like a little tip between some boulders, but accounting for distance and the distortions of magnitude, we suspect that the “little tip,” which appeared to be about six feet tall,  probably towered somewhere between thirty five and fifty feet tall.  If you have trouble visualizing a measurement like that, call it six to ten persons tall.

Glaciers have been a hugely powerful force in shaping the geography of our world, and the full range of their continued influence on the environment is still being discerned.  Whatever their role in the grand cycles of the planet, seeing a glacier like this was an awesome experience, in the oldest sense of the word.

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Harding Ice Field

I certainly hope that you weren’t disappointed by our last post about the Seward boat tour, but if you are really only interested in hikes, not close encounters with humpback whales, then you’ll be relieved to know that the next day of our Alaskan trip was dedicated to a hike.  As a result, it rained, but as a certain blog writer once said, you shouldn’t let a little precipitation deter you from enjoying the outdoors.  In our case, the grey, brooding sky made our hike through one of the northernmost rain forests especially dramatic (in a good way).

Harding Ice Field, and its associated glacier, Exit Glacier, are located in Kenai Fjords National Park.  According to AllTrails, the Harding Ice Field Trail is rated as “hard,” an assessment with which I would agree.  This was not a trail that I would recommend for inexperienced hikers.  For the first two miles or so, the trail is well defined and easy enough, though with significant elevation gain if you’re not accustomed to mountain hiking, but after ascending past Marmot Meadows, the the granite gravel is replaced by large blocks of Alaska’s distinctive black granite, which becomes quite slick when wet.

Despite the occasionally treacherous nature of the trail, due to the rain during our hike, we were afforded some spectacular views, and a really unique exposure to this temperate rain forest.  Of all the hikes we did, this one had the most distinctive scent: a very strong, clean, forest scent.  I know, most people don’t hike for the odors, but it’s worth noting.

Unfortunately, we didn’t complete the trail.  A little past Marmot Meadows, we started trekking through significant amounts of snow.  Since we hadn’t brought the appropriate gear to hike in such conditions, we decided that it would be more prudent to descend at that point.  Sadly, it meant that after five miles of hiking, we never saw Exit Glacier.  Instead, we would return by a different trail later that afternoon, to see the glacier itself, which I will discuss in my next post.

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Success in Seward’s Folly

After flying into Anchorage, our first stop was Seward, a coastal town with a mixture of commercial, tourist, and private marine activity. By going to Alaska in the very beginning of June, we were able to avoid both the swarming tourists and the colder, dreary weather of April and May. It was a relief when we saw twenty hours of sunlight our first day there, since leading up to the trip we had seen nothing but rain in the forecast. This was especially important for our first activity, a wildlife-viewing voyage out of Seward’s port.

Lunge feeding humpback whale

We took a twin-engine boat, small enough that it was just our family on this tour, bright and early in the morning: the tour was organized through Alaska Saltwater Enterprises. Before we even left the harbor, we saw a humpback whale lunge feeding about ten feet from the boat, seawater and krill stream from is baleen, so close that the captain worried that if it got any closer, it would capsize the boat. We saw several more humpbacks as we ventured forth, an auspicious beginning to our wildlife-centered day at sea.  While it proved hard to top such a view of these magnificent creatures, they did prove to be only the beginning of our wildlife success.

Bald eagle

Red-winged cormorants were the next to make an appearance, which we were told was a fairly rare sighting in that part of Alaska.  Neither I, nor any of my family members, are particularly avid birders, which slightly disappointed our boat captain.  The majestic bald eagle made frequent appearances throughout the day, both perched and swooping down to the water on a fishing trip, as did the far less majestic, but significantly more colorful, puffin.  In the avian department, black-legged kitty wakes (you probably know them as seagulls) made frequent appearances.  It was strange to see them outside of their natural habitat, the McDonald’s parking lot.

Sea lions (I think they were Stellar’s Sea Lions)

A raft of sea otters was next on this wildlife adventure (a raft is the term for a group of sea otters floating together).  Harbor seals and sea lions also made frequent appearances during the following few hours.  After the close encounter with the humpback, these creatures were exciting, but could not quite compare with that first experience.  Fortunately, a pod of fin whales surfacing nearby provided some competition for that first humpback.  Fin whales are among the very largest of baleen whales, and are known for being especially elusive.  Coming across a whole pod of them was a remarkable sighting.

Male orca dorsal fin

On the figurative tails of the fin whales came a pod of orcas: a couple males and more than half a dozen females.  You can easily tell an orca’s gender by the height of its dorsal fin.  That same fin can also communicate health, becoming floppier if the whale is distressed.  These orcas were probably in the area in pursuit of salmon.  One of the males, a large one with a dorsal fin a good three feet tall, swam underneath our boat so close to the surface that we could see him as he slid underneath and came up on the other side.

Calving glacier

Leaving the orcas behind, we passed a number of mountain goats perched on the sides of cliffs, on our way to a glacier.  Glaciers are another one of those natural features that make it difficult to gain a sense of scale, even in person.  While we ate our lunch, feeling the cold wind coming from these enormous ice cubes, we saw a little bit of the glacier breaking off, which is called calving.  At least, it looked like a little bit.  A few small chunks of ice.  From the noise that echoed across the water to us, each of those “small chunks” was probably the size of a person.

Not far from the glacier, we stopped and dragged some kelp into the boat.  None of us were quite certain what the boat captain hoped to do with it, but it soon became clear as he sliced the end off, and then sliced the bulb end in half.  By buzzing into the narrow end, the hollow kelp tube is able to produce some fairly clear tones.  My brother, the resident horn player, managed to elicit a couple of pure notes from this makeshift instrument.

After eating a very late lunch by the glacier, it was time to head back towards the harbor.  As is typical, there was much less wildlife to see on the way back, in the afternoon, than there had been in the morning.  However, we did get to see a humpback putting on a show for us.  It was too far away to get any good pictures, but it was slapping its tail and sort of dancing about in the water.  Of course, it stopped as soon as we approached it.

Although it didn’t involve hiking or canoeing or camping miles away from civilization, I think that the wildlife alone qualified this tour as an outdoor experience.  If you make your way to Alaska, I would highly recommend this sort of adventure.  When the trip was all over, we all agreed that this was number two among the many activities we did.

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The Final Frontier

No, not that one.  No, no that one either.  I’m assuming that your first two answers were probably space, and the ocean.  Really, I misled you a bit, since what I’m really talking about is called the last frontier.  America’s last frontier, to be precise.  That’s right, we’re talking about Alaska, which boldly claims to be the largest state in the Union, and plays host to an enormous amount of beautiful, protected wilderness.

I recently spent ten days exploring Alaska with my family, in which time we were able to cover…not very much of Alaska.  However, what we did see was absolutely amazing.  A lot like the Redwoods, it’s difficult to grasp the scope and scale of Alaska without experiencing it for yourself, not that I won’t make an attempt or several to communicate it.  There were times when we’d look off into the distance, and feel like it couldn’t possibly be real.

We didn’t go backpacking (though I definitely plan to return at some point to do just that), but we did do some hiking, and we did a lot of other activities that qualify as outdoor experiences: boating trips, bear viewing, glacier tours, to name a few.  Over the coming weeks, I will be sharing those experiences with you, here on the blog, complete with pictures and my humble attempts at description.  I hope that you consider making Alaska a possible destination for your future adventures.

Bear Bagging – Not Just for Bears

It’s a pretty safe assumption that we can agree on food being an important part of many outdoor experiences.  For car camping, you put your food in your car, or in a cooler with something heavy on top of it, to keep unwanted diners out of it, but when you’re backpacking, that’s not really feasible.  Fortunately, there are backcountry alternatives.  Although they’re billed as ways to keep bears out of your food, they are equally applicable to those camping in non-bear habitats, since they’ll also keep out other snacky critters.  There are three main “bear-proofing” methods:

1. Bear Bin: if you’re hiking from established campsite to established campsite, in some areas they will have some kind of locking container already at the campsite, where you can store your “smellables” (we’ll talk about what a smellable is later in the post).  These are convenient and easy to use, but they are somewhat uncommon, and obviously won’t exist if you’re not using established campsites.  I’ve only done a few trips where these were available.  Many of them can also be circumvented by particularly clever creatures.
2. Bear Canister: in the areas of the country where bears are especially prevalent – Alaska, Wyoming, Montana, and so forth – many places will require the use of bear canisters, and provide them for you to rent.  Bear canisters are light weight containers that will, as the name suggests, keep a bear out.  You put all of your smellables in them, seal them, and can sleep knowing that a bear can drop it off a small cliff without getting to your food.  Bear canisters are generally considered the easiest, most reliable way of keeping a bear out of your smellables, though they tend to be overkill for less powerful, intelligent creatures.
3. Bear Bag: this is the only method that doesn’t require specialized equipment, and thus has my support for most purposes, especially in places where bears aren’t as common, and you’re mostly looking to keep other critters out.  All you need to hang a bear bag is a rope, though a carabiner is recommended.  To hang a bear bag, ideally you’ll find a roughly horizontal limb extending a about ten feet from a tree trunk and at least ten feet off the ground.  Toss your rope (with carabiner attached) over the tree limb, and let the end all the way down, so that you can secure it to your pack or bag of smellables.  Once the pack or bag is secured, you can hoist it into the air, being sure to keep it a couple feet below the branch from which it is suspended.  Tie off the rope to a nearby tree, and you’re good to go.

Now then, what is a smellable?  It’s exactly what it sounds like: anything that a bear, or another animal, could smell and find interesting.  Note the use of the word interest, rather than edible.  That grizzly might not actually want to eat your scented soap, but it will be quite curious about it, especially if it’s young.  Smellables include any food items, obviously, as well as everything that touched or interacted with the food, but also things like deodorant, soap, toothpaste, sunscreen, and bug spray (this is by no means an exhaustive list).  If you think an animal could smell it, put it in the bear bag/canister/bin.  With these matters, it’s generally better to be safe than sorry.

At this point, you may be thinking that all of this is a little over-zealous.  After all, you ate the food, so if a bear’s sense of smell is as good as all this, then won’t it smell the food on your breath?  Or if you brush your teeth, or take a shower with soap, or put on sunscreen, won’t it smell that, and be just as curious?  The answer is yes, but bears will generally choose not to bother a human being unless the human being bothers them (look for a post to come about proper behavior in the presence of potentially dangerous wildlife).  In my opinion, some guidance really is a little over-zealous – when I did Philmont, we were told that we couldn’t wear deodorant at all, and couldn’t take a shower with soap if it was after 1800 (6:00 PM) – but you’re not going to go wrong by being too cautious.

*I do have to make a disclaimer here.  As I’ve maintained all along, ultimate responsibility for your safety and enjoyment in the wilderness lies solely with you.  This is merely advice, compiled from advice given to me and from my own experiences.  I certainly hope that it’s helpful to you, but make sure that you check with a local expert, like a park ranger, before heading out on your adventure.

 

Training – The Less Fun Part

Maybe you want to do the Appalachian Trail, or backpack a series of fourteeners, or even just enjoy a long weekend out in the wilderness.  Unfortunately, most people can’t just jump into something like that, at least not and expect to have a good time.  If you really want to be able to enjoy a challenging backpacking trip, even something like McCurdy, you’re going to need to put in some work ahead of time.

Simply put, backpacking is very different from what most of us do on a day to day basis.  With few exceptions, daily life does not involve hiking for eight hours with fifty pounds on your back.  There’s no way around that, so no matter how much training you do, your backpacking trip will probably still be challenging, but that’s okay.  I run marathons, and I still get winded hiking up a steep ridge with a pack on.  That’s part of what makes backpacking so satisfying, though – the feeling of conquering that kind of a challenge.

We don’t want backpacking to be so challenging that it stops being enjoyable, though, which is why we train.  Depending on the length and difficulty of your trip, you should plan to start training anywhere from a couple of weeks in advance (for something like McCurdy) to months in advance (for something like Philmont or the Appalachian Trail).  Regardless of how long you plan to train, the format of the training will be fairly straightforward.  You’ll need to walk with a pack, and you’ll need to do stairs or hills with a pack.

This doesn’t have to be extensive.  Walk a few miles each evening, and do a few flights of stairs.  On weekends, try to do a longer hike.  If you’re training for something more extensive, try to go for a few weekend backpacking trips, so you can get used to carrying and using the gear – you don’t want to be experimenting with brand new gear on an extended backpacking trip.  This training is also a great way to break in a new pair of boots.

I’m going to be brutally honest with you: the older you are, the longer this will take.  That’s just a physiological fact.  Due to how cellular regeneration changes with age, it takes longer to build new muscle as we put more years behind us.  By no means should this keep you or deter you from tackling these kinds of trips; it’s merely something for which you should account.

Here’s a sample training plan:

This is just a brief introduction to training for backpacking.  Remember, you want to be carrying a weight comparable to what you’ll be carrying on your trip (except for the running part of the training, which is technically optional – it’s just helpful for aerobic fitness, especially if you’ll be going up to altitude).  Before you start a training program, I suggest you do further research into what others have done for your specific trip.  Of course, the usual disclaimers about checking with your doctor and not doing something if it’s painful apply.  Hopefully this has helped to show that the adventure trip you’ve always wanted to do is within your reach.  Good luck.