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 were making for the Daoist temple where, according to legend, the ancient philosopher Lao Tzu wrote down the Tao Te Ching. We crossed through unkempt gardens of kiwis and passed a lettuce field where a farmer had placed a hand-written sign: Steal Vegetables and Your Family Will Die. But there was nobody around to pilfer high-fiber, leafy greens of any kind. This was during the height of the zero COVID policy, and the land was as bereft of humans as if our species had never been born. The temple too was locked up. The monks hadn’t ventured beyond their walls in 10 days. Lao Tzu got around on an ox. Fed up with civilization’s moral decay, he rode into the wilderness never to be heard from again. We empathized.
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 83 Encounter
No human being was encountered at this Milestone.
A video showing the landscape around this Milestone
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