Hiking the Glenn Highway through Alaska. Published in Asphalt Pilgrims.
Paul Salopek
Every hundred miles Salopek pauses to record the landscape and a person he meets, assembling a global snapshot of humankind. Milestones reflect straight-line distances, but his walked distances are generally much longer. More on these waypoints here.
Every hundred miles Salopek pauses to record the landscape and a person he meets, assembling a global snapshot of humankind. Milestones reflect straight-line distances, but his walked distances are generally much longer. More on these waypoints here.
The symbolic end to a year of walking — 4,000 kilometers out of Africa.
We walked up from the south as the first Africans once did, traversing the Jezreel Valley with its green rhomboids of wheat. We sprinted across a superhighway. We clawed our way up a cliff to a blackened cave. It chittered with bats. This place marked the outer frontier of human exploration 100,000 years ago. Buried near the cave’s dusty mouth: the slender skeleton of a boy clutching the antlers of a red deer to his chest. The oldest evidence known of human burial. Of human loss. Of mourning. Of compassion.
A wraparound soundscape at this Milestone
This Milestone’s location on a map
Photos of the ground under Paul’s feet and the sky above at this Milestone
A brief question and answer with the first person Paul meets at this Milestone
Ruthie Pliskin
Ph.D. student, age 31
Who are you?
I’m a researcher. I’m doing a Ph.D. in social psychology. Political psychology, specifically.
Where do you come from?
I grew up in Israel, in the south, near Beersheba. I was actually born in Boston to Israeli parents who were there on sabbatical. So I migrated when I was a month old. And I live in Tel Aviv now.
Where are you going?
Forward, hopefully. I’m torn. Half of me wants to stay in Tel Aviv forever. Another half doesn’t see much hope here, and is looking to leave. To Scandinavia, actually.
A video showing the landscape around this Milestone
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