My DD2 who lives in Alaska sent me this link about a couple hiking/rafting from Seattle to the Aleutians. They are passing thru her costal fishing village this week and will be speaking at the local Forest Service office tomorrow.

Their site has some very interesting discussions about gear that y'all might find interesting. They seem to have thought their needs thru very carefully.

Andy

Color Blast jealous!

-Blast

Hand me the paintbrush when you're done with it.

Although, I might have waited for summer before doing this. *shivers*

EDIT:
On further reading of their gear list, I'm left scratching my head. They list water per person as four, 500mL retail bottles. Totaling one pound, two ounces. I'd state my assement of that here if we weren't a family friendly forum- that should be about a pound and two EACH, not for four. I can only conclude they've fibbed on their weight list- a common practice for ultralighters.

And I want to see how well they've kept those tissue thin, fairy light GoLite packs intact during this whole thing. In a couple of places they mention what they call "bushwacking", and I"ve seen super light packs fall apart when people cut cross country.

My take on the water bottles is that they discard and buy new ones at each town or village they come to. There is no lack of potable or treatable water on their route. Most of it is thru or near rain forest. It's pretty darn wet along the SE coast of Alaska. I'll have the kid ask them that question.

The weather along the coast that they are traveling isn't much worse than mine in SE PA. The killer is the reduced sunlight. Cordova is down to just 6 hours a day now and only a couple of hours of strong light, plus it's mostly overcast all the time.

It probably rains 300 days a year there. That and the dark winters drive a lot of residents south for the winter.

PS. Summers there aren't a lot warmer. Average daytime high in July was in the 50's, occasional foray's into the 60's. Lots of sun however...

Brave soles. I may have missed it, but I didn't see a PLB. The Coasties are gonna have a hard time finding their blow up boats without one. I do wish them luck tho...

They list a EPIBR. I'd rather have a PLB myself, but as I didn't find anything about models, makes or a picture of it, it might be they are using a not quite accurate description of the item.

And I to have my concerns for the Coasties- I didn't see floatation gear in their lists. I've been in a couple of inflatables, and too many of them had a "slow leak, nothing to worry about".