Scandinavian Arctic Traverse

My preparation for this journey was far from ideal. For months leading up to it, I was working in Antarctica at McMurdo Station and Cape Crozier, spending long, seven-day weeks swinging a heavy hand tool into the permafrost to dig foundation holes. My physical training was squeezed into the brief windows between work and cafeteria meals, mostly running on a treadmill in a tiny room called the Gerbil Gym. Right before flying to Norway in early March, I had just ten days back in the US, during which I managed to fit in a two-day crash course in snow kiting on a frozen reservoir in Utah.

The route I designed was a 985-mile solo traverse across the Scandinavian Arctic. It was meant to start at the ocean, climb into the largest mountain range in Sweden, cross the tundra, and eventually finish back at the sea. I planned for the absolute worst-case scenarios, preparing my gear for negative forty degrees. During the first few days, the ambient temperature dropped to negative fifteen, pushing closer to negative twenty-five with the windchill, making basic survival routines like operating a lighter, managing the stove, or dealing with ski bindings incredibly difficult.

My daily life on the ice was repetitive and completely utilitarian. I would wake up in the freezing cold, turn on my stove to melt snow, and eat a standard breakfast of oatmeal mixed with protein powder and dried fruit. Because I couldn't afford to cache food in advance, I relied entirely on local grocery stores along the way. I often found myself wandering the aisles, having to ask locals to translate Swedish packaging just to figure out if I was holding a bag of oats or a bag of flour. It was strictly about raw calories, not culinary enjoyment.

For the vast majority of the distance—about eighty percent of the miles I covered—I was simply skinny skiing. I dragged a heavy sled behind me all day, eventually stopping to set up the tent, melt more snow, and try to get warm before sleeping. Going into this, I gave myself perhaps a one percent chance of actually finishing. I didn't design this route to achieve conventional success; I structured it to push myself to the point where my body, my mind, or my equipment would inevitably break down.

Out there alone, the isolation was deeply intimidating. I experienced a lot of negative self-talk, though it was subtle, and I realized I had to be completely militant with myself just to keep moving forward. Every day felt like an absolute grind where I was barely chipping off one percent of the total distance. When the anxiety crept in, I leaned on a concept I'd read from Reinhold Messner: when you stop, the fear is growing, but when you keep moving, the fear is going down.

Two-thirds of the way through the traverse, an early spring arrived and completely dismantled my plans. The snowpack collapsed, and my route turned into two and a half feet of pure slush. I was sinking deep into wet snow, forcing me to take off my skis and trudge in alpine boots that quickly flooded with freezing water. In many places, the snow vanished entirely, and I was reduced to dragging my heavy sled like an anchor directly over rocks, grass, and dry tundra.

Facing a final 180-mile stretch between resupplies in those deteriorating conditions, I desperately wanted to quit. The terrain ahead was flat, bleak, and exhausting, and I knew it was only going to get worse. But I weighed my two options: endure the physical misery in front of me, or fly back to Seattle and sit on the couch staring out the window, regretting that I had stopped. Knowing how much that failure would haunt me, I forced myself to keep going.

The changing conditions also forced me to adapt in terrifying ways I never planned for. Near the town of Abisko, I hit a thirty-mile lake section where the surface snow had entirely melted, leaving bare, glossy ice. It was the middle of the night, raining, and I had a strong tailwind, but my kite was completely useless on the sheer ice. I desperately tried to catch the wind using a 55-liter dry bag attached to my ski poles, which barely worked, before finally deciding to use my tent as a makeshift sail.

I pulled out my Black Diamond tent in the pitch black, held the vents and the zipper open to catch the wind, and tethered a corner of it to my climbing harness in case I let go. Terrified that a gust would cause me to shred the fabric with my metal ski edges, I held my arms rigid and sailed across the dark ice. I covered the entire thirty miles that night, eventually collapsing onto my sled in total exhaustion and waking up 20 minutes later with completely numb hands.

Despite the suffering, watching winter transition into spring became the most humbling and awe-inspiring part of the journey. As the temperatures rose, I shifted to traveling during the 24-hour daylight, sometimes standing perfectly still at 2 AM as a single sunbeam pierced the clouds to illuminate the awakening tundra. By the time I boarded the bus at the end of the journey, the bare, silent birch trees had sprouted leaves. I had stripped away my preconceived limits and watched a frozen landscape bubble back to life, realizing that I now have the confidence to point anywhere on the globe and navigate my own way through it.