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Ground Truth Trekking: Expeditions to explore environmental issues.
Journey on the Wild Coast - 4000 miles on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, by foot, raft, and skis.
Seattle, Washington - on June 9, 2007, Erin McKittrick and Bretwood (Hig) Higman will begin a 4000 mile human-powered expedition through some of North America's most rugged and wild terrain.


Route map Their journey will take place over nine months, taking the two explorers from the Puget Souund to the Bering Sea. No road or trail follows this steep and fragmented coastline. No one has done this before. The primary goal of their expedition is to explore and communicate the broad environmental issues facing this region.

Expedition Goals. This expedition is a project of Ground Truth Trekking, an organization founded to raise awareness of environmental issues through on-the-ground journeys in threatened landscapes. Throughout their unprecedented journey, Erin and Hig will be focusing on the key environmental issues that touch this coast: forests, salmon, resource extraction, and global warming.

Through their photos and writing they will be documenting the state of this vibrant but threatened ecosystem. By walking through cities as well as remote wilderness, and passing through landscapes both developed and wild, the adventurers hope that their unique journey will provide a view as broad as the four-thousand-mile coast, with a depth that can only be achieved by traveling through it step-by-step.

• Read more about the environmental goals - and the expedition's plans to achieve them

About The Route. This journey will begin at the adventurers' home in the center of Seattle's urban University District. Their route will traverse the mix of urban and semi-wild lands between Seattle and Vancouver, the scattered islands and mossy trees of B.C.'s Great Bear Rainforest and Alaska's Tongass National Forest, the great glaciers and open coast of the Gulf of Alaska, and the wind-swept winter tundra of the Alaska Peninsula. The journey will end in March 2008 on Unimak Island, the first isle in the Aleutian chain, 9 months and 4000 miles (6400 km) after its Seattle start.

• Read more about the expedition route

Packraft Challenges. This expedition takes place in one of the world's wettest climates. The adventurers will travel through rainforests thick with brushy undergrowth, and make their way around some of the largest glaciers outside Antarctica and Greenland. This region has more brown (grizzly) bears than anywhere else on the planet. In their four-pound packrafts, Erin and Hig will be making fjord crossings in the wind and surf. During the long dark nights of the Alaskan winter they may face temperatures that could dip to -40 degrees Farenheit. For the last few months of the trip they will be up against the legendary winds of the Alaska Peninsula. And most importantly, they must keep body and mind intact for over nine months of travel.

Expedition Style. The adventurers will be traveling primarily by foot and packraft (a four pound boat that is carried in a backpack). Walking through trailless wilderness, and using the packrafts to cross fjords and paddle between islands, they will be able to travel on foot through a fragmented coastline - a new type of route that has never before been attempted. In the winter, they will switch to skis for the frozen windy tundra of the Alaska Peninsula, retaining the packrafts for travel across bays and to the expedition's end point on the first Aleutian Island.

They'll be buying most of their food in towns and villages along the way, and using mail drops to receive a small amount of gear. In the most remote regions of their route, they may have to travel for more than two weeks at a time between resupplies. To accomplish this feat, their gear must be lightweight, tough, and able to handle a large variety of conditions. In the summer, their total gear weight will be under 25 pounds each, including rafts and 3 pounds of camera gear. In the winter, the addition of skis and warmer clothing will bring this up to about 35 pounds each. To cut weight, Erin and Hig make some of their own gear, including modifying sleeping pads to serve as life vests.

• Read more about the gear

Erin McKittrick
Hig (Bretwood Higman) The People. Erin (27) and Hig (30) met as students at Carleton College in 1998. Since then, they have traveled over 3000 miles together through the remote wilderness of Alaska. Their first trip was a spur of the moment hike down the Yucutan peninsula in Mexico, with almost no camping gear, fueled by coconuts and generic-brand wonderbread. When Erin graduated in 2001, they took off on their first major expedition - 800+ miles down the remote Alaska Peninsula. After their marriage in 2003, they chose a 3-week journey in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for a honeymoon. Over the past few years, they have turned their expeditions to the service of preserving the wilderness they love, most recently fighting against the proposed Pebble Mine project in Alaska's Bristol Bay.

• Read more about Erin, Hig, and Ground Truth Trekking

Expedition Sponsors. Equipment sponsors: Alpacka Raft, Montrail, Backpacking Light, Mountain Laurel Designs, and Teko Socks. Environmental sponsors: Renewable Resources Coalition, Alaska Conservation Foundation, Tom Campion, Bob Christensen of SEAWEAD.org. Other grants: GoreTex Shipton-Tilman Grant, and the Timmissartok Foundation.

• Read more about our sponsors and collaborators

Updates. Follow the journey on their expedition blog at www.groundtruthtrekking.org/blog/ or visit the main trip web page at www.groundtruthtrekking.org for the latest on the journey, including photographs, anecdotes, and more information. The blog will be updated roughly weekly, as the adventurers reach villages and towns en route.

• Read trip upates in the blog

Photos. Download high resolution photos for publication. Photos are free for use in articles about the expedition, or for non-profit use. For other commercial use, contact me.

Media Contact. Erin and Hig will be reachable approximately weekly during the journey - see Schedule for dates.

• Email: mckittre@gmail.com
• Phone: Before the journey's start on June 9, 2007 - call 206-695-2164. During the journey, Erin and Hig are happy to take phone interviews during their weekly to biweekly resupply stops. Send an email with your phone number and they'll call you from their next stop. See Schedule for approximate dates.
• Seattle-Based Contact: Faith Conlon. Email or call for information while Erin and Hig are in the field. Email: faithconlon at comcast.net Phone number: 285-7479. Area code 206.
• Snail Mail: 811 W Armour Street, Seattle WA, 98119