Alaska 01: Solitude
Jason is a seasoned Wrangell-St. Elias National Park guide, illustrator, scientist, photographer, and blogger. He is the artist who created our flightseeing map. Check out his work and maybe you’ll be lucky enough to be guided by him on your next backcountry trip at St. Elias Alpine Guides.
Click, Like, Tweet, #Hashtag, Post, Follow, Stream, Comment, Meme, Selfie, Selfie, Selfie, Hustle, Hustle, HUSTLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Whoa there, Slow Down. STOP. Breathe. Relax.
DEEP MEDITATION by Jason Chapman
Imagine a place where there is no Social Media, no Influencers, no mobs of people taking Selfies, no Internet, no 4G. In fact, your phone just won’t work outside of airplane mode. Sounds like a fantasy world, right?
I assure you this place is very real. It DOES exist. This is Alaska. It is a land so big, so vast, so wild, so remote, that most of it is undeveloped wilderness. We live in an age of constant chatter and noise. Our smartphones are always on, the internet is consuming much of our daily lives and we’re seeing more and more of the world through a digital lens in a maddening hustle to maintain our online presence.
THROUGH THE CHUGACH MOUNTAINS by Jason Chapman
One of my favorite things about Alaska is that I have the opportunity to disconnect from my phone. My digital self if forced to take a break when I am exploring the mountains and glaciers in America’s Last Frontier.
Don’t worry, there is internet and you can use your phone in Alaska! Nearly all of the most popular tourist destinations have a cellular signal of some sort that allows you to navigate, search for lodging or restaurants and, yes, even post your latest and greatest masterpiece on social media. However, many of the most sought after recreational areas have limited or no online access. You can hike on a glacier, backpack through the mountains, float a river or take a scenic flight through scenes that look otherworldly. In fact, you have probably only seen places like this in movies, while flipping through the pages of National Geographic or while surfing through your favorite social media platform. But here’s the catch. You may not be able to take a photo and post it to social media immediately. Sorry Influencers!!! You may even have to wait several days depending on where you are or what you are doing. But that’s ok. I’ll bet you won’t even care. You will be so thrilled to simply be there and enjoy this impressive landscape that you will actually be relieved to have no pressure to do anything but smile.
SEA OF ICE by Jason Chapman
Alaska is one of the few truly wild places left on this Earth. As the world population continues to climb and urban sprawl extends further and further, we are losing more and more of our wilderness areas every year. Fortunately, we still do have places of natural beauty that force us to disconnect from the digital world and reconnect with the earthly one. We are animals, not digital avatars. We need to step on a 2000 foot deep block of ice, hop across giant car-sized boulders, walk barefoot on the sandy shores of a river or hike miles through a kaleidoscope of brilliantly colored wildflowers. And we need to watch a thousand pound grizzly bear chomping on wild berries (from a distance!), walk among a herd of dall sheep grazing high in the mountains or witness the magical grace of a herd of caribou prancing through the tundra.
LANDING THROUGH THE SMOKE by Jason Chapman
Solitude is becoming a rare thing in the ever increasing hustle and bustle of our everyday lives. Sure, we are social animals and need to connect with other members of our tribe. But we need to step off the grid once in awhile to reconnect with our planet. Reconnect with ourselves. We’re spending more time looking down at our phones than looking out at the real world around us. We’re investing more time in our digital lives than actually exploring the riches of our natural world around us. And simply put, this is stressing us out and making us less happy humans.
Go to Alaska just once in your lifetime. I promise it will change your outlook on life. It will change your life!