From Outback Mexico to Alaska – The Trek

The inner path

Measure a year differently

Most people measure a year in months. I’m measuring mine in miles: 4,720 of them, largely dominated by winter and darkness.

On January 1, 2026, I entered the Guadalupe Peak trail in West Texas (the highest point in the state at 8,751 feet) and began hiking north.

Not for a section.

Not for a season.

But to Healy, Alaska, just south of Fairbanks, where winter dominates the calendar and the cold sets the conditions.

A simple and slightly crazy idea

The idea is simple and slightly crazy: walk in a continuous line through the center of North America. The route follows the Great Plains Trail, takes the Continental Divide Trail in Montana, continues along Canada’s Great Divide Trail, and then turns northwest to follow the Alaska Highway from Yukon to Alaska.

That continuous line, what I call the Outback Trail, had never been traveled before. It’s not an official trail per se but rather a corridor stitched together: existing trails, back roads, and wild gaps connected with enough care to keep me moving north through the winter without doing anything too reckless.

It will probably take a full year.

That means prairie winds, long dirt roads, steep mountains, and finally, snow and sub-zero cold that no matter how prepared you think you are. There will be winter, more than once. There will be empty miles where progress is the only thing that counts.

What this ride is and what it is not

This hike is not about speed. It’s about attention: moving slowly through places you normally pass at highway speed and letting time, distance, and discomfort do their silent work.

As I turned away from Guadalupe Peak and began moving north, I knew I was walking toward the Great Unknown. There was no ceremony planned, but the moment still mattered. A walk like this doesn’t announce itself: it simply begins and then asks to be taken seriously. Just a backpack on your back, Altra trail shoes on your feet and a direction that won’t change for a long time.

How ‘Outback’ Became a Name and a Trail

The route I will follow does not exist as a named trail. I’ve been calling it the Outback Trail partly because the name has followed me for years and partly because it fits. It is a line drawn through places where most people move quickly, or not at all.

«Outback» is the name of my trail. I picked it up on the Bibbulmun Track in Western Australia, my first walk. Long days. Red earth. Enough silence to notice your thinking slowing down. When that walk ended, I didn’t stop long enough to restart. I flew directly to San Diego and hit the Pacific Crest Trail. At some point, while explaining my Australian long-distance hike to other hikers, the nickname stuck. I wasn’t from Australia, I’m from Colorado, but trail names don’t care where you’re from. They care how you move.

Without precedents, without shortcuts

What I’m attempting now (a continuous hike from Mexico to Alaska) has no precedent that I can find. I looked for it. There is no GPX file to follow. No attempts archived. There are no pedestrian walkways on the grounds. For years, the idea existed only as a sketch that kept failing for the same reasons: snow, weather and darkness.

To get to Alaska in a single year, you have to start in winter. A winter start aimed directly at the Rockies via the CDT means arriving too early, when altitude and avalanche season overlap in a way that even experienced mountaineers treat with caution. Going through that isn’t bold, it’s careless. I explored lower routes, split season schemes and clever solutions. Each version broke the schedule or broke the walk itself.

Geography as an answer

The solution was not speed.

It was geography.

Staying east of the Rocky Mountains avoids the worst altitude early in the season while keeping the line continuous. I began sketching a route, starting on sections of the Great Plains Trail from Guadalupe Peak, linking backroads, gravel lanes, working lands, and forgotten corridors across the eastern high plains. After Mount Rushmore, the line turns west toward Montana. From there, it joins familiar terrain: the Continental Divide Trail near the glacier, the full length of the Great Divide Trail through Alberta, then north through the Yukon along the Alaska Highway corridor to Healy, Alaska.

Approximately 4,720 miles. A continuous walk. Two winters.

Just by design

This is not a trail with a built-in community. There is no bubble moving north or south. There are no shelters every few kilometers. There are no shared campsites where stories are exchanged at night. Much of this route passes through places that are effectively out of season: closed campsites, closed services, long stretches where the only reliable thing is the weather.

In the south, winter means wind. Strong desert wind that takes the heat away quickly and never seems to run out of breath. Water is scarce, sources are unreliable, and there is no FarOut app that silently marks every tank, faucet, or trickle. Water planning here is old school: maps, notes, judgment, and a willingness to carry more than you’d like.

Where risks change shape

Further north, the risks change. On the Great Divide Trail, I’ll hike through grizzly bear and moose country in the height of summer—remote terrain where isolation can be a common feature. Later still, darkness returns. When I arrive in Alaska, daylight reduces and temperatures drop to ranges where -30°F and -40°F are not uncommon, but expected.

This is not an ultralight hike. Winter demands weight. In Whitehorse, Yukon, you’ll be waiting for a box of specialized cold-weather gear: expedition-grade insulation and systems designed for the real cold. When I carry that load and turn north again, my mileage will decrease. That’s the business. I don’t deal with winter. I plan it and accept the cost.

Prepared, not tested

I’m not guessing what this will require. In 2022, I hiked the Eastern Continental Trail, 5,700 miles from Key West, Florida, to Newfoundland, Canada. That hike changed the way I think about distance, endurance, and what it means to keep moving when the days are no longer special. I later put words to that experience in my hiking memoir. Interior on the Eastern Continental Trail.

Pine Creek, permits and SOS

I Ubered out of Carlsbad, New Mexico, in a newer four-door Jeep. The driver, Jamie, was a local and during the hour-long drive south he talked about geography, weather warnings and bits of lore dating back to cowboys, Indians and men who learned the land the hard way.

We arrived at Guadalupe Mountains National Park and stopped at the Pine Creek Visitor Center, where I got my permit to camp at Guadalupe Peak. The rangers were friendly in that quiet desert park way: pleasant, professional, and quietly curious once they realized I wasn’t there for a quick summit and a photo.

As I approached the counter, a ranger stood out: unusually young, handsome, long dark hair, calling me «honey» and «dear» as he worked on the paperwork. I thought it was just a Texas term of endearment. After handing me my permit, he looked up and asked if I would be okay alone in the wild.

“Well,” I said, “if I need it, I have my life preserver,” pointing to my Garmin GPS tracker.

In a sweet and playful voice, she replied, «You know, if you press that SOS button, my cell phone rings. And then I’ll have to go up the mountain to rescue you.»

Given that information, it occurred to me (briefly, unhelpfully) that I might have to press him.

Of course, he knew better. I waved goodbye and she gave me a smile that lasted long enough to be remembered.

New Year’s Eve, above all

I shook Jamie’s hand and started climbing Guadalupe Peak. I had never spent New Year’s Eve on a mountainside before, and the mountain seemed determined to celebrate the occasion. The wind whipped over the ridge, pushing me to one side and making my pack squeak like a tired ship. I put my tent in its place, prepared dinner with already stiff fingers and poured myself a cup of hot cider.

I put on my booties, climbed into my sleeping bag, and listened to the wind move outside the thin fabric walls, constant and relentless.

Yes, I was out of shape. Yes, my pack complained with every movement. Yes, the wind never stops. But I was smiling in the dark, amused and strangely content, alive in that sharp, unmistakable way that only comes when you’ve chosen difficulty on purpose.

Marking the year the hard way

I set my alarm for 11:59 pm If I was going to ring in the New Year alone on a mountain, I wasn’t going to miss it. When the time came, I marked it the only way I could: three gentle blasts of my orange emergency whistle and a clumsy drumroll on my pot with a titanium spoon. No crowd. No fireworks. Only wind, darkness and the thin metallic sound of stubborn celebration.

The new year has arrived.

Lying there, I knew what I was getting into. This year it would hurt. I would get naked. It would be asking for more than he had ever asked for comfort. But it would also take me north, mile by mile, day by day, toward Healy, Alaska. Towards something vast, demanding and worth asking for.

With that thought, with that dream, too big to be sensible and too real to ignore, I let the dream take over me.

In the morning I would climb another mile to the top.

From there I would turn north and begin.

Everything is within walking distance

Steven Wright once said, «Everything is within walking distance if you have the time.»

I took it personally.

So yes, this includes Alaska.

I’m putting one foot in front of the other, letting time do its work and watching the map slowly surrender. No shortcuts. Without assembly. Just windburn, sore calves, questionable calories, and a front-row seat to landscapes carved by God.

It’s a long walk. Stupidly long walk. But apparently I have time, and Alaska is waiting at the end of the walking distance, daring me to prove Steven Wright right.