SummitPost.org

I was just playing with Google Earth and realized how much of the planet would be considered remote. I mean, if you want to get remote, you can. But then, what is remote? There are towns in the middle of China that I guess I would consider remote and they have a 100 thousand people living there. How can that be remote. Is remote relative to whoever is trying to get away? The Mariana trench is remote, I know that.

Where have you been that you would consider is the most remote? With this group we should have the globe covered.

For a city I guess mine would be a little Inuit village by the name of Teller which is about 75 miles North of Nome, AK. I spent 5 weeks in Nome on a project and got out quite a bit. Lots of remoteness out in the tundra.

I used to go out to Isle Royale which is remote for inside the lower 48 standards and we would bring a canoe. This gave you access to areas that felt very remote. I've gone 5 days without seeing another human there.

North Pole? Astronaut? Deep sea diver? Everest base camp

I've been on peaks in sight of Vegas, where one or two people may travel per year, at most.

Of course, there are different types of "remoteness". I've been to Gerlach-Empire, NV two towns in the desert with a population of about 300, and I've heard that these two towns are the most remote in the lower 48, ie the furthest towns from any other town (the nearest town from there is about 65 miles down the road).

The SE corner of Montana seemed pretty damn remote when I was there last January.

Parts of the Navajo Nation in NE AZ and SE UT that I've been to are also very remote.

The places I've listed are definite examples of remote places, but the only thing that makes them remote is a large distance from any sizable urban center. They still have roads and signs of human inhabitance. If you are talking about places away roads, the mountains of Montana and Wyoming come to mind. I also read somewhere that the furthest point from any road in the U.S. was somewhere in Sequoia Natl Park at 30something miles.

Try this place in Alaska:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umiat

Supposed "most remote spot in U.S."

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Ipnavik+River+&sll=63.022754,-148.803759&sspn=5.627715,19.753418&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Ipnavik+River&ll=68.301447,-157.505927&spn=2.291677,9.876709&t=h&z=7

-120 miles from the nearest settlement.

McCannster wrote:Supposed "most remote spot in U.S."

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Ipnavik+River+&sll=63.022754,-148.803759&sspn=5.627715,19.753418&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Ipnavik+River&ll=68.301447,-157.505927&spn=2.291677,9.876709&t=h&z=7

-120 miles from the nearest settlement.

Funny. This is just Northeast of Teller which I mentioned in my original post. Brevig Mission is probably the nearest town.

Thinking of a remote peak I thought of this one I found once on SP, it's in Tibet:

http://www.summitpost.org/mountain/rock ... hagri.html

I'd agree that five days without seeing anyone else and the moskitia, amongst others will make you feel really remote. I can't say I've experienced such remoteness.

Although I've felt pretty remote in mountain villages where there is no electricity (in Uttarkhand, Indian Himalayas in northern India, or in its Thar desert in Gujarat). But of course, you'll still be surrounded by people there.

The most remote place I've ever been to is the source of the Chitina River in Alaska. The closest permanently populated place is the town of McCarthy, about 50 miles away as the crow flies. That's not actually very remote for Alaska, but I don't know how different 50 miles versus 200 miles feels when you're there.

Most remote? Probably the South Pole in 2003.

Most remote for me has been the Sahara Desert in the Sinai. On somedays, it was just me and a few Bedouin with their camels.

partlyanimal wrote:Most remote? Probably the South Pole in 2003.

I guided an expedition to the Pole in 2000-01. After 60 days with just two or three other people (and one air-resupply) hitting the dome felt like being dropped into Manhattan - too warm, too much food, too many people, too many cars, too much noise. After 60 days on foot under your own power, F150s and Econovans driving by really freaks you out!

So while it's tecnically very remote, for me personally it felt much more remote somewhere along the way, where we were hundreds of kilometres from anybody or anything human - all your food, fuel and shelter in your sled behind you and no way to move except walking on your own two feet.

Here in Australia we just roll our eyes when we hear about how big Texas is. We have farms the size of European countries. Plenty of people live 6-8 hrs drive from the nearest town, and that's without even going out into the desert.

But surely some poor bastard out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, alone on a yacht, could tell us about 'remote'?

D

I've been to Gerlach-Empire, NV two towns in the desert with a population of about 300, and I've heard that these two towns are the most remote in the lower 48, ie the furthest towns from any other town (the nearest town from there is about 65 miles down the road).

Callao and Trout Creek near the Utah/Nevada border are even more remote than these by quite a large margin. I believe Trout Creek is well over 50 miles from the nearest paved road. On the other hand, maybe these two communities are too small to be considered "real towns".

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Anyway, I guess by United States standards I've been to a lot of remote places.

Here's just one:

http://www.summitpost.org/article/27288 ... -arch.html

I've been to quite a few remote places in Northern Arizona, Southern Utah and Northern Wyoming as well. I guess many of the places in Montana and Idaho I've been are fairly far from roads, but by Montana and Idaho standards wouldn't be near the most remote areas of those states (such as the heart of the Frank-Church or Bob Marshall Wilderness). In places like the North Cascades, there are plenty of remote areas, but I've stuck mostly to trails so haven't been to the really remote sections. Unfortunately in recent years (10+ years) I've been mostly confined to taking vacations in winter only so haven't gotten more into those areas, though I really want to.

Other than places in Dinosaur NM, I've never been to a place in Colorado that I would consider to be remote. Some people speak of places like the heart of the Gore Range, Never Summers or similar areas as being "remote", but in the rest of the Rocky Mountains they would be considered to be extremely popular so I always chuckle when I hear such things.

Outside of the United States, the most remote populated place I've been to would probably be Paudwar Nepal, which is seldom visited by outsiders.

Parts of Colombia seemed really remote to me, but if I lived in the area, it might seem different. I've been told that I was the first American to visit some places in some of the more remote regions of Uganda so to me some of those areas were really remote as well.

Most Remote Place on Earth:

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/cliff-k ... adlines%29


(of course, this only address LAND, and ignores Antarctica)

I remember as a kid my dad rushing through airport security asking them to call ahead and hold his plane. They always did, and I never knew why until I got older and my sister told me he would just say "A group of villagers is walking 5 days out of the bush to meet me. If I miss this flight, I'll miss my connection and a group of tribal elders in (insert crazy-sounding country here) will have walked all that way for nothing." I guess it always worked, but I just thought it was pretty cool, as a young boy, that people held airplanes for him....

Ncst:
Kangzhagri is for sure one of the most remote peaks on earth. At least if you count high ones. I may add another one (Kukushili) on SP later on. It took me about 40 days through the wilderness to reach that one, while it was 27 to the foot of Kangzhagri, but the route to Kukushili wasn´t the most direct one. The most desolate peak over 6000m must be Rola Kangri, located quite close to Kangzhagri, roughly 5-6 days walking further into the wilderness.
On one of the traverses over the Tibetan high plateau I didn´t see a single human being for 39 days.