Arctic Circle Trail

[Leo L.]

During Corona lockdown, the idea was born to hike the lonliest trail in the world, what the ACT was supposed to be.
We (my stepdaughter Hanna and me) finally did it just recently. It was a really great trip, possiblly the most impressive I've done so far.

We estimated 10 days of hiking (which turned out to be exactly right), gave it two days margin if something went bad during the hike, and added another 2 days at the end for some extra guided trip to the Icecap.
The ACT runs on the west coast of Greenland from Kangerlussuaq (near the icecap) to Sisimiut at the western shore. There is zero signal and no vehicle access along the trail, in case of emergencies.

What we found the trip to be:
- 10 days without any connection to civilisation (OK, there were some very simple huts for emergency use, and a hunters camp right in the middle of the trip. And last not least one pit toilet in the middle of nowhere).
- 171km of wilderness with almost tame wildlife and a fascinating, really great nature.
- Lakes, ponds, streams and bogs in great numbers. Actually water was everywhere and there were only few stretches of dry land.
- Great campspots we found whenever we needed a place to stay.
- Moskitos and Blackflies were present, but in numbers we could handle quite easily.
- We met about 25 people, approx. half from Eastern countries (Czech Republic, Lithunia,...), two US couples (Texas, Oregon) and a few Europeans.
So it was not exactly the lonliest trail in the world, but the number of people was within the limit that we took the time to communicate with everybody and to form some friendship.

Some impressions: