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.
We left Baku in the time of the khazri — the cold north wind that blows bluely across the Caspian Sea in the winter. The cargo ship was the MV Fikret Emirov, named after an Azeri composer of the Soviet period. The night Caspian stretched the color of charcoal. The sea was five million and a half years old and it expanded and contracted through the ages with the changes in climate: a vast systole and diastole of dilute saltwater beating at the very edge of Asia, at the last rim of Europe. If not a heart — then an eye. A teary, black pupil gazing up at the Milky Way. The wind blew and the same three seagulls drafted on the superstructure all the way across, from the Caucasus to Central Asia. The birds reached a new subcontinent without hardly flicking a wing.
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
Milestone 33: Night Crossing
No human being was encountered on foot within 6 miles (10 kilometers) of this Milestone.
No human being was encountered on foot within 6 miles (10 kilometers) of this Milestone.
Observations from social media from the Milestone location
At this time of the year, people are traveling either from or to Baku to celebrate the Christmas season. A student is making use of a long layover at the airport and doing some homework during travels. A worker is having a break at work and smoking sheesha (an Arabic water-pipe filled with tobacco), and a father is tweeting about his happiness in having his third baby delivered. A girl is quoting a Russian song: “I remember everything, and I’ve forgotten everything, whom I sought, whom I’ve loved, passed through those walls, and I don’t want to look back.”
A video showing the landscape around this Milestone
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