Expedition Journals

Project Remote is working to precisely calculate and document the remotest locations in each of the 50 United States. Below is a written account of our 3-day backpacking expedition to…

Skyla can do anything she sets her mind to – she decided she wasn’t going to get in the backpack and she didn’t!  At 6 years old she hiked almost 19 miles in 3 days…her first ever trip to hike by herself!

The likelihood that a European human has stood in this exact location at sometime in the past seems fairly high, given that almost all Eastern forests were either clearcut or selectively cut at some time since colonization. 

The Colorado Remote Spot sits within a forested hillside covered in spruce. The elevation is 11, 700 feet. We are near, but not beyond treeline. Standing dead spruce trees vastly outnumber the live ones.

We had to bushwhack-hike up a steep mountain slope 0.3 mile from the nearest foot hiking trail. The bushwhack took more time and energy to accomplish than the other 4 miles of the round-trip Remote Spot hike. We could hear a train as well as the nearest highway while standing on the CT Remote Spot in the mid afternoon.

One of the unique pleasures of Remote Spotting is listening to the natural sounds of an area. At the Delaware Remote Spot, the sound of the water rolling against the grassy shoreline was peaceful and soothing.

But out here in the Everglades, waiting for the tide to rise with no ability to connect with the outside world, there is nothing to do BUT sit…and think…and soak up your surroundings. This kind of disconnected remoteness is exactly what we hope to help others experience.

Project Remote canoes to the center of the Okefenokee Swamp to document the remotest location in all of Georgia

In the middle of the night, something wildly wonderful yet frightening happens…I awaken out of a dead sleep to the howling of a wolf pack seemingly all around us.

After only 30 minutes of paddling down river, we arrive at the single remotest location in the entire state of Illinois. Boats race up and down river. Men are hammering on a dock structure across the river. Of course, our feeling of remoteness takes a hit.

Today we conclude that motorboats are a remoteness conservation conundrum. We did not incorporate motorboat travel on the landscape within the remote spot calculation procedure.

The spot happens to be nestled right on top of a narrow ridge line with steep slopes on either side. Elevation is 1427 feet.

We are in the middle of Baxter State Park, and it has that large and wild feel. Still, there is something about having to “sign in” to a place that detracts from wilderness and remoteness, but that has been par for the course while searching for remoteness in the East.

We dodge crab pots, sand bars, and small islands until we see Holland Island in the distance, marked by several clumps of trees. The trees on the island are completely covered with pelicans and cormorants.

Our excursion to the Massachusetts Remote Spot begins at Saquatucket Harbor boat launch on the south shores of Cape Cod. We set out by motorboat southward into northern Nantucket Sound.

The Boundary Waters is a large and magnificent functioning northern ecosystem filled with mosaic forests perpetuated by fire and numerous lakes sculpted by past glacial activity. This natural region, shared by Canada and the U.S., has inspired and spawned generations of people who care about wilderness.

The day’s out and back day hike to the Missouri Remote Spot took approximately 6 hours. We traveled a total out and back distance of 7.1 rugged mountain miles on foot.

Other than con trails, which are an eye sore and conservation conundrum in the atmosphere, we measure zero human presence terrestrially from the Montana Remote Spot.

The Remote Spotters set out to the remotest location in New Hampshire down a hiking trail system within the Pemigewasset Wilderness of the White Mountains National Forest.

The New Jersey Remote Spot, being within a federal conservation land, would apparently have better than average prospects for the conservation of its remoteness, were it not for rapid urbanization outside the Forsythe Refuge.

The New Mexico Remote Spot resides in an elevated region of the Gila Wilderness called McKenna Park. A magnificent Ponderosa pine forest towers over fire-maintained grassland.

Excitement builds as we reach that point in the Northville-Placid trail along the north side of Cold River where we must set out on a bushwhack northward to “Go Remote,” as we call it…It turns out that our bushwhack is extrememly short, and after winding around a bit dealing with a sluggish GPS unit, we land onto the NY Remote Spot.

This is the first time during Project Remote that we found 2 state Remote Spots located in a single National Park (Tennessee and North Carolina Remote Spots are within Great Smoky Mountains National Park).

This Remote Spot is located within the Mandan Hidasta Artikara Indian Nation and is 2.6 miles from a road. Impacts from the Bakken oil boom are visible throughout the area.

Located within state-owned Egypt Valley Wildlife Area, the Ohio Remote Spot is 1.2 miles from a road.

Our handheld GPS beeps and notifies us that we have arrived at the exact coordinates of the Pennsylvania Remote Spot. It is a feeling of both satisfaction and anticlimax. After all, there is a hiking trail just a tenth of a mile below.

The Rhode Island Remote Spot trip was a quick, coastal out-and-back day jaunt. We were hardly awe-struck by its remoteness. Humans and their noises and structures were never so far away as to be undetectable.

Some Remote Spots are located on dynamic landscapes that change quicker than the available GIS data can incorporate. Barrier islands are one such example.

We documented the remotest location in all of South Dakota on October 2, 2014. The SD Remote Spot is protected in the middle of the Sage Creek Wilderness Unit in Badlands National Park.

The presence of a major hiking trail system (Appalachian Trail) and associated shelters can detract from the feeling of remoteness, but we embrace and encourage this mode of travel.

Despite the ho hum farthest distance you can get from a road in all of Texas, in order to mount a family expedition to get there, we still have ourselves a Texas-sized challenge.

We begin our day-hiking foray to the remotest location in the entire state of Vermont within Green Mountain National Forest…starting at the Bourne Pond trailhead. This will be an out-and-back hike featuring what appears to be our longest off-trail bushwhack (through intact forest) on Project Remote to date.

The remotest location in the entire state of Virginia happens to be 9 miles off the mainland on a distant barrier island. Spirits are high with the prospects of a marine and beach adventure. As we embark to the Virginia Remote Spot, We wonder, “Will there be big waves? Can our flat-bottomed, low-sided aluminum jon boat make it all the way there and back?”

While isolated and roadless, we were able to follow a trail, which just happened to be an old road, to within 0.2 miles of the Remote Spot.

Located within the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, the Wisconsin Remote Spot is located 17.2 miles from a road on Lake Superior.

The Wyoming Remote Spot also is the remotest MAINLAND location from a road in the entire 48 conterminous United States. (There are islands off the Lower 48 mainland that are more remote. We will be documenting these places soon…)