Skurka finished the Great Western Loop on November 3, 2007, after 208 days of hiking.Here he talks about the most indispensible gear he used (it involves a can of cat food), how he put back 11 energy bars a day, and where he’s off to next.Outside Online: replica Breitling Windrider Starliner Green Mothe watch How did you prepare for the hike? Physically, the best way to prepare for a long-distance hike is to go hiking. But prior to this hike I was still working and was very busy planning. So instead I ran in the foothills of Boulder for one hour on weekdays and two or three hours on weekends. I also commuted 35 minutes each way to work and lifted weights five days a week.
Mentally, I had to recognize that the Great Western Loop would be the most difficult thing I had ever done—my most intense, sustained effort—but that the experience would be worthwhile, partly because of this adversity.You have also talked a lot about another motivating factor for the hike: seeking out the effects of global warming on the West Replica Breitling Blackbird (NEW) Mens Watch A4435910.B811-PIL first-hand. Were you successful in this respect?Because climate change is a long-term trend, it was unreasonable to think that every predicted effect of global warming would be observable during my hike. The only effect I could really count on was the much smaller, or all-together disappearance of, glaciers in the Cascades and northern Rockies.But many other effects were observed too, like prolonged drought in the Southwest, significantly reduced snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, a record-breaking heat wave in the Northwest, an unusually long and intense fire season in Montana, and a catastrophic outbreak of mountain pine beetles in Colorado.
While each of these events may be attributable to something else—La Ni?a, or poor forest management, for example—it is perhaps not a mere coincidence, and if nothing else provides a glimpse of the West’s future.You hiked some 33 miles a day. Can the average Joe, in reasonably good shape, also conquer the Great Western Loop?A more Replica Breitling Airwolf Mens Watch A7836323.B822-SS accessible approach might be to hike it over two years, figuring about 150 or 180 days a year, at 20 miles per day, which is a completely doable pace for someone who is reasonably fit, who carries lightweight gear, and who can resist frequent temptations to spend lots of time in civilization.
