Help Rename Skurka's Alaskan Hiking Adventure!

Uber-hiker Andrew Skurka plans a 4,500-mile Alaskan wilderness route for 2010, but he needs you to rename it.

Wilderness adventurer, extreme hiker, and former BACKPACKER Person of the Year Andrew Skurka has his next adventure all lined up: The Great Alaskan-Yukon Loop (GAYL) is a 4,500-mile trek that'll lead him through the Alaska Range, Wrangell's, Lost Coast, Coast Range, Yukon River, Richardson Mountains, and the Brooks Range. All the while, he'll race against the storied hardships, limited chances for food caches, and quick onset of winter that only the Last Frontier can offer.

There's only one problem. Even Skurka knows "The Great Alaskan-Yukon Loop" is a pretty un-sexy name, so he's reaching out to you to help rename this next big adventure.

"There is a working title, "The Great Alaskan-Yukon Loop" but I'm not impressed by it -- it's too similar to another trip of mine, the Great Western Loop, and it's also just not very catchy. Have an idea? Submit it using the form below. If I settle on your name suggestion I'll send you a free Sierra High Route mapset."

If you need inspiration, here's some more background: The solo trip will start in March in Kotzebue on the Chukchi Sea, join the Iditarod Trail, cross into the Alaska Range, where he'll packraft down the Copper River to the Lost Coast. After a few hundred miles there, he'll link up with the Chilkoot Trail, find the Inside Passage and float the Yukon River to Dawson City. He'll follow the Ogilvie and Richardson Mountains up to the Brooks Range, which he'll then have to traverse to get back to the start of the loop—all before winter comes back. He figures he's got about seven months to do it before winter sets in and, y'know, kills him.

Here's a map:



Ideas, people? How about, "The Great Alaskan Death March?" "Death Wish 9000?" "The McCandless Classic?" "The Great Grizzly Chomp?" Stop me, folks, I'm a machine...

—Ted Alvarez

My BIG 2010 Project (Andrew Skurka.com)