Published September 4, 2025 04:05AM
A Swampy Hike In Alaska Taught Me to Embrace Life's Worst Moments
On a backpacking trip in Alaska’s ultra-remote Gates of the Arctic, one writer learns to embrace discomfort, even if it means soggy feet for eight straight days.
(Photo: Emily Pennington)
The mosquitoes were biblical. I looked down at my ankles and counted 17 of the buzzy-bodied bloodsuckers calmly resting on the muddy seams of my hiking trousers, not counting the disembodied guts of at least a dozen of their brethren that I had already smashed. Taking a sip of herbal tea, I noticed that two more had entered into some sort of bizarre insect suicide pact and met their maker in my aluminum mug. My glutes and thighs ached. I’d been clinging to my bug net like the godsend that it was, wearing it morning to night just to keep my sanity as I hiked along the trail-free expanse of Alaska’s Brooks Range. I hadn’t had dry feet in seven days, and the sleeves of my sun shirt were covered in snot. I was having the time of my life.
Just a week earlier, I had been cruising around Fairbanks like a relatively normal person, perusing Indigenous artwork at the Museum of the North and plopping into the steamy waters of Chena Hot Springs. From Alaska’s second-largest city, it takes a full day of bumpy flights in bush planes to get to far-flung Gates of the Arctic, a national park and preserve of over 8.4 million acres that sits entirely above the Arctic Circle. A float plane dropped me and my hiking group from Alaska Alpine Adventures off at shimmering Summit Lake with a pickup scheduled down Oolah Valley eight days later. I had no idea just how feral things could get in that short amount of time.
July in the high Arctic is warm, buggy, and sunny 24 hours a day. Shouldering enormous packs that were crammed full with extra food and layers in case we got stranded, my group began our slow waddle through the squishy tundra. Not even 2 miles into our hike, we reached a decision point: to bog or not to bog?
“You’re going to have wet feet pretty much every day of this trip, so you might as well jump in and embrace it,” said Colleen, our senior guide and the only person on the trip who had completed the Oolah Valley High Route before.
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Not one to turn down a challenge, I rolled up my trekking pants and sloshed through the spongy ooze of a shallow creek bed. My boots and socks instantly soaked through. I want to be the kind of person who embraces the bog, I thought to myself as we stomped our way through lumpy tussocks and head-high willow branches on the way to make camp.
Alaska’s the kind of place that pushes even the most experienced backpackers to their limit. If you’re afraid of bears or wet gear, it will find your edges and gnaw away at them until you either break or learn to live with (and love) the unique discomfort that only true wilderness can provide. Though this was my fifth trip to the Great North, I’d never visited during the month of July. So, in true Alaska fashion, I was served up a hearty dose of humble pie our very first night at camp.
The mosquitoes were everywhere. It was hard enough to snap an iPhone photo without getting a winged, gray blob in the skyline, let alone take a bite of delicious stroganoff dinner without the added protein of a few bugs. Grateful for my head net and my picaridin spray, I resigned myself to the fact that my week might include a never-ending soundtrack of buzzing.
It didn’t end there. On the second morning of our trip, I woke up with a mild sinus infection and dutifully sprayed Afrin into my nostrils like it was my job. I AM the bog, I thought patiently as I tried to laugh it off and pack down my tent. The intense wildfire smoke blowing north from Denali wasn’t helping.
The group ascended an alpine pass to a sturdy, scree-covered ridgeline and spent our third day high enough to escape the throngs of insects. There are no roads or trails in Gates of the Arctic, and we wandered at will, cresting a rocky saddle that opened up into what felt like endless mountaintops. Then, the rain came.
We hunkered down inside our nylon tents for most of a day as the temperature plummeted and precipitation pelted our tundra campsite. True to form, Alaska gave us a much-needed break at the ripe hour of 8 p.m., and our group took a vote to take advantage of the constant daylight and climb up and over the Continental Divide at midnight. Cranky and underslept, I tried to hold true to my mantra. Embrace the bog, I kept repeating to myself.
The phrase played on a steady loop in my mind as I continued my slow meandering across the soggy Brooks Range. I embraced the bog of two grizzly bears wandering into camp after breakfast one morning, taking deep breaths as our group banged on pots and pans to scare off the apex predators. I embraced the bog of my glutes screaming in pain as we ascended yet another uber-steep scree slope, my legs straining under a cumbersome 40-pound pack. I did my best to embrace plenty of literal bogs, too, though I’m sure an errant curse word was uttered here and there.
On the second-to-last day of our trip, the group spent all day stomping across the braided strands of a glacial river, skirting moose poop, and shoving low-lying willow branches out of the way of our sweaty faces. The view opened up to a sweeping panorama of sapphire Oolah Lake, and my heart did a backflip thinking that we’d soon pitch our tents. But Alaska had one last challenge in store for me—a mile-long bog stomp before our final camp.
Achy, hungry, and irritable, I did my best to soak up the stunning scenery of the emerald green tundra cutting across the craggy Brooks Range. The bog would not let up. It sucked at my boots like it had octopus tentacles, slowing my hiking to a crawl as I huffed and puffed across the swampy landscape.
Sitting on the bank of the lake at dinner that night, I was finally able to pat myself on the back for getting through a hard thing with (relative) grace. Coming face to face with the “just accept it” mentality was tough for me as a type-A hiker who loves to plan out her exact mileage and know every detail of a trip in advance. I can only hope that my mantra of embracing the bog sticks with me as I return to my city life and desk obligations. Maybe that Monday morning slog of emails won’t feel so bad if I just take a deep breath and tackle it one step at a time.
