Day 64: June 5, 2026
Will pieces his way through an obstacle course of slush and ice on the high plateau as the hike out to Paulatuk enters its first full day.
-
Hello, Will here. June 5th, Day 63. This is the first, actually the first day of the hike. Hauled I got up to the higher level yesterday. A bit of a grueling day today. It's 10:30. I just got in the tent.
The weather was the usual. Real cold, below freezing all day. I see ice on the little ponds and that and north wind. A bitter day. Not an optimistic day. The headwind. I was heading pretty much due north. As I gained elevation, I got a little bit into the snow. At first, I could dodge the snow drifts. Then, as I got to ... I'm at the higher land right now. In fact, I mentioned the other day, four years ago, I was looking for a place for an expedition. A higher area in the remote area. And that's why I chose this area. I'm in that spot right now. It's a pretty miserable spot. It's like a plateau here. It's really pretty strange.
The snow got so I couldn't dodge it. Then, there was a crust and I was going through the crust. Which is pretty hard with an 80-pound pack. Then, I got into another situation I haven't seen yet. In real fog up here, it's much more delayed. It's kind of like real ready to flow. There's a lot of water under this snow, this crusted snow in this area. But, it's not like pond up in the [...]. It's all over. It's basically an area that has flooded tundra. Again, foot deep. Some of it's pretty deep. It's hard to read. It's just waiting for a big thaw so it can flow down to the lower elevation.
This has been a real delay. This area I'm in here, it's a plateau on the top, but it's hard to describe. There's low, rocky, muddy areas that are just almost the same level as the tundra itself. It's kind of like a 20% of it. It's like that. And then the tundra is around that, the snow. And the place I'm in now, it took me 20 minutes in this... I mean, first of all, to find anywhere decent. I found a little island in all this slush. And I poked around for 20 minutes just to find a spot for my little tent that didn't have water underneath it. Again, this is spring, and so this is not unexpected. You know, you're exploring. You never know. You always think, "oh, hey, plateau, views all over." The views are incredible, but it's pretty busy hauling.
And the hiking itself is not too bad. I mean, it's definitely not a walk in a park. Like, there's the usual lower level where there wasn't so much snow. There's usually snow or the bigger tundra and, you know, water between the tundra. The little streams are flowing. And then there's limestone. At first, there was some good walking and then muddy as you would expect.
And ... but it was just ... and I didn't... I couldn't read the time on my GPS. I was going to quit like by 7 o'clock, 8 o'clock, and I was just so worn out. And when I quit, I just looked at the clock here. And when I look at the GPS for my time, I usually don't watch the time. It was 10:30, so I was really surprised. No wonder I was dragging.
But my body's holding out. I'll know more in the morning. But it's amazing because when you're post-toeing in the snow with this heavy load, and sometimes you fall forward. It's just like I'm cutting a cross all the time uphill.
And so, but, I'm tired and ... just part of exploring. I'll know more. You know, as I start traveling, I'll be eating up my food. Probably a third of my weight in my pack is food. I have real heavier foods. You can't do dehydrated in this country and survive on it when you're working hard. But eventually my pack will get much lighter. But right now it's dangerously heavy. And so, but I'll see where it goes here. And I'm going to try to read this country so I can get through it okay.
I've been studying the GPS. And it's pretty fun to navigate through this area because every step I can save, every incline I can bypass... So, I'm trying to be real accurate. At the beginning, actually, I got really confused and almost went the wrong way on a plateau. And it was cloudy and I thought that was the direction I looked down and thought okay, let's get with it here. And, but anyways, I'm starting to read the country better. And so, okay, I'll check in tomorrow. Will here, over and out June 5th, day 63 on the hike out to Palatuk. Over and out.
Will ascended up the river cliff and traversed a high, snow-filled tundra plateau on Day 64. Visit Will’s interactive map for complete control of magnification and orientation.
“Stretching out” the gear to get it dried out on the 2023 solo expedition. In today’s dispatch Will mentions that he is currently hiking with about 80 pounds of food and gear in his pack, which makes for arduous hiking that will ease as his food consumption lowers the pack weight.