I've been in at least a couple of the places in that list, and probably about as far from civilization as possible in those areas. I'm willing to believe their numbers are technically correct.
But I bet cityfolk have a reeeeeeaally different notion of "road" than is meant here.
Take the Trinity Alps complex for example. It's got, still to this day, my least favorite approach ever. You go way up the north coast, then along 299 (if I remember right), then through a reservation, and then you get on this lovely little road that's several miles of 15-mile-an-hour white-knuckle less-than-single-lane rough gravel, with steep granite on one side and a drop straight down to a river on t'other, and a whole lot of blind corners. You do that for a while, then you see the yellow sign posted that says, "Road Narrows", and whaddaya know, it sure as heck does.
It's a road that started as a trail and never really had any ambitions beyond that.
There are a ton of logging roads and fire cuts all over the place too. Lots of dusty hill climbs. Other rarely-trafficked routes where the macho advertising for your 4WD meets a grim reality.
Maps aren't necessarily current, either. I once bailed off the Wonderland Trail in Rainier after a partner took a bad fall. According to the map and the GPS, there was a road just a few miles out that led to a paved road that led to civilization. Great. Well, we get there, and after swimming through dense, wet vegetation for a while, start finally seeing signs that, yeah, there was a road there, about a hundred years ago.
18 miles as the bird flies can easily turn into two days' hiking in some of that terrain, too.
I live just north of Truckee. One day my GF had to go do some surveying over towards Nevada City. The easy way would have been out to 80, down to NC, and survey. Probably 2-2.5 hours of driving. I had the day free and said, "hey, lets try the back way -- via Downieville, Forest, Alleghany, etc. She said sure. That didn't work out so well.
Everything was going great, narrow roads crossing part of the Yuba River, gorgeous country, tight switchbacks and dangerous drops. Ended up on Foote Crossing Road, crossed the Yuba, climbed up a ways on a road maybe 2-3 wider than my Tacoma. Come around a corner, a chunk of slate had slid down covering the road days before. The options were backup 2+ miles or try and move the rock. Having a tow rope, we tried to move the large rock -- it moved, just not enough. After about 2.5 hours, a group came from the other direction and helped us out.
You have to be careful when out there. Before I do something like that again, despite thinking I was prepared, I'll do a bit more research and probably add a high lift jack and some other toys.
FWIW Trinity Alps has some pavement-grade approaches as well, for instance you can get onto the PCT right off a fairly major road (Sawyers Bar, which is not bad for the area -- although to be fair you've described 299 as a bad drive, which I didn't find it to be, although it's two lane undivided highway for most of it and maybe city-folk aren't used to that). However forest roads are a given for most trailheads as you've described, at least in all the California wildernesses I've spent time in. I haven't taken the road you're describing, although it sounds a lot like a forest service road I ended up on to see the eclipse north-west of Bend, OR. That was fun. Also you should probably never take 101 up to Trinity Alps: take 5 up to Redding and then cut west on 299 instead of going up the coast and cutting east.
I enjoyed spotting all the places I've been in this fun guide, and the other thing I want to impress on people is that these "distance from road" measurements are crow-flies distance from the closest "road". You've done a good job describing how bad the road might be. People who have no experience with this kind of wilderness will have even less appreciation for how much work might be involved in actually getting to that the center point. It will _never_ be a 12 mile hike or whatever the distance they measure is. In many cases it's twice that, in some cases it's worse, and the trails (if there is one) are in some fairly steep terrain, so you can expect to do 15 miles on a strong day in good conditions.
I went looking for my favorite wilderness and was surprised not to find it, because I know how remote it is and Trinity Alps feels significantly smaller in comparison. In looking at it, I realized they've combined the contiguous region north of Yosemite Park as the "North Yosemite Complex", which includes Emigrant (my favorite), the northern part of Yosemite, etc. I was there for four days a week ago and after I got off the main trail I saw one person while I was hiking out. The rest of the time was spent off the trail and with no sign of another soul.
>
But I bet cityfolk have a reeeeeeaally different notion of "road" than is meant here.
Yes, they mean : no throughfare usable by a regular vehicle including high clearance 4wd, including private roads, tracks etc.
In the Absoroka here there are "inholdings" (I think they're the remnants of old mining claims) that the owners access via helicopter. There have been a few court cases about access over the years e.g. https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/lawsuit-seeks-to-build...
Even in the non-city-folk sense assuming that there are roads immediately adjacent to where the inscribed circle abuts wilderness boundaries seems unlikely. I'm sure the center points' actual distances from roads are often somewhat larger than the circles' radiuses.
Sounds about as friendly as the time I drove the Dalton Highway from Fairbanks, Alaska on a whim towards the Arctic Circle. Many times along the journey I was terrified that my 1996 Eagle Talon would get stuck in the gigantic mud ruts dug out by the maniac truckers that gleefully thundered by (apparently oblivious to the not-quite-cliffs only feet away).
I live in Texas now, which feels relatively tiny because you'll always find some sort of civilization (i.e. potable water) right around the corner. Granted, growing up in Alaska, my definition of "right around the corner" is probably a little different from those who were raised in the Lower 48.
You can get to the most remote area of the Trinity Alps pretty easily from the Bay Area. You head north and then eventually get on highway 3 and take that to Trinity Alps road. You drive maybe 10 miles and the there is Stuart Fork trailhead. The hike is probably 10-13 miles to get to the area shown in the map (though the scramble up to the actual most remote area would be tough). I went to Emerald and Sapphire lakes last year (near the most remote area) and it was pretty painless. Perhaps you were just approaching the alps from another area?
One of the most shocking facts about the lower 48 is that it's impossible to get more than 115 miles from a McDonalds.
That's not on a road - that's anywhere in the lower 48.
I always assume nearby a McDonald's would likely be a gas station.
Growing up in Australia and now living in the Yukon this blows my mind. I just drove 35,000 miles from Morocco to Cape Town in South Africa, and there were zero McDonalds that entire time. [1]
I've done a lot of expedition-style driving (can't stand the words "expedition" and "overlanding" as they are used today) and that straight line distance is very deceiving. I've been to many places that are many more that 115 road-miles from a McDonald's. A few places come to mind: deep in the southern part of the Owyhee Desert along the NV/ID border (one of the least-populated places in the Lower 48), and out in the Wah Wah Mountains [0] of southern Utah.
That's an interesting phrase, "densely developed", because it's very much not the same thing as "densely populated". The African continent between Morocco and cape Town contains a hell of a lot more people than the lower 48 does.
Wow - what a drive! I just roughly clicked your path on Africa in Google Earth. It came up with 12,000 miles. So did the double mileage come from side treks, or is there that many switchbacks and turns to make things double when you are going overland?
18.7 miles is a long distance. If you're 18.7 miles from the closest motorized access point, you're in the middle of 1098 square miles of untouched land. Based on my memories of exploring the woods as a child, you could spend a full year getting to know the details of even a single square mile of natural landscape.
I think it's an interesting irony here that, primarily because of motor travel, we imagine that an 18.7-mile radius is not that substantial. (Yes, a marathon is more distance than that, but those are usually on paved roads and not through wilderness. The legend is that the first to run a marathon died of exhaustion on its completion.)
To be more complete "from roads, machines, and motors." I live in Idaho and know for a fact you can get further than 18.76 miles from a road. The addition of "machines and motors" brings motorized trails into scope and yeah, at that point I believe it.
I've been contemplating moving to Idaho. It is a beautiful place. I would like to find a part of Idaho that has low crime, has at least 30mb internet and ideally low maintenance land.
Very dissatisifed with the evidence in this article (only national parks?), so I did my own digging.
Here is a 2005 USGS map [1] color-coding nearest road distance for every 30m x 30m square [2] in the lower 48. Surprisingly, it seems to hold up the article's claim reasonably well, and without resorting to discussing 'machines' or 'motors'.
In the US, "Wilderness" has a specific meaning at the Federal level. "Machines and motors" is part of the wilderness designation. Wilderness designation prohibits chainsaws, snowmobiles, outboard motors, aircraft, and bicycles. Horses are allowed and owners of valubale Wilderness Area inholdings will use wagon trains to haul construction materials for their getaways.
This article (among others) suggests that the most remote from a road is a corner of Yellowstone where you can get about 20 miles away. [1] I sort of expected that the distance would be greater even accounting for the fact that many "roads" in the West aren't really what a lot of people would consider roads. I have also read some claims for a greater distance from a road, such as in the Wind Rivers, but I haven't seen anyone arguing for more than 30 miles or so.
[ADDED: The USGS map is really interesting although I wish they had given the "winner." It appears that there are a fair number of spots that cluster around about the 20 mile point. Some are in places you wouldn't necessarily expect although many of those are along a border which reduces the number of directions where a road could lie.]
The actual title of the article does not mention roads, probably because they "all motorized travel, including the legal use of motorboats on portions of Yellowstone Lake."
>So the remote Thorofare location and radius shown here will not match values calculated purely from the road network.
I grew up in very rural NM, and while you can find a road in some of these areas, I doubt you’ll see more than a few cars a month during peak times of the year.
Just because there’s a road doesn’t mean that it gets much use. Some are only used to haul animals, oil or timber a few times a year.
Interesting data set, but what I'd want to know is what is the farthest you can get from the farthest road.
This tells us that wherever we are, IFF we walk in one of the 2-3 the optimal headings for that circle, we'll hit a road in ~18 miles max. That's the best worst-case.
What about the worst worst case -- if we head in the most un-optimal direction? How effed are we in that circumstance?
Might not be the worst case and I may have missed a small logging road but if you were to head roughly south parallel to the John Muir Trail from around Tuolumne meadows it would be about 130-140 miles before you reach a road or US-395 around the Kennedy Meadows store. I think you can just miss the roads around Mammoth and Devil's postpile and then the Road's end trail head in SEKI.
Assume you are between any two civilization services and you simply walk parallel to both indefinitely... Seems that's about as bad as it can get. So I guess finding for the longest straight line anyone can take wuthout hitting anything that could rescue you is the answer to your question.
I actually find this rather upsetting. I'd always assumed if you went to the right places out west, you'd be able to get at least 50 miles or so from anything if you wanted to. It seems the west isn't quite as wild as I wanted it to be.
I live in Mazama, Washington right on the edge of the Pasayten Wilderness (we can run from the house and be in the wilderness in a few trail miles). It is a massive, remote, beautiful place that even most people in Seattle have never heard of. There are downsides to living so remotely but the upsides far outweigh them.
It looks like they limit the radius of wilderness to the US border. The circle for Boundary Waters would be bigger otherwise, since the Quetico (on Canada's side) is wilderness as well.
From the article: "Wilderness areas in Canada are not taken into account. There is no Canadian national wilderness designation program like there in the USA, and determining the boundaries of land with wilderness character in the various parks would be difficult. Three US wilderness complexes have inscribed circles constrained by the border with Canada, and a glance at aerial maps for the areas north of the Mount Baker and Pasyaten wilderness areas show what looks like roads and clear-cuts over the border. However, the Boundary Waters wilderness is next to the vast Quetico Provincial Park in Ontario, which appears to be mostly primeval. So the radius for Boundary Waters could be as high as 13.6 miles if allowed to go over the border."
Just by looking at the first example you can actually "be more than 18.76 miles from a road" if you don't limit your radius by park boundaries. Probably 20-somthingish just eyeballing the first map without looking at other examples where (maybe) multiple parks share borders.
Yvon Chouinard mentions this in his excellent book “Let My People Go Surfing,” where he says the furthest you can get from a road in the lower 48 is about 20 miles, near the headwaters of the Snake River in Wyoming. Cool to see some methodology that lines up with that estimate.
It looks like you get 18.7 miles for the Thorofare area if you look at the boundaries of the wilderness area, not roads. For OSM data, specifically, the area is bigger than that: 21.7 miles. If yall want to play yourselves:
I saw the same thing for the only Adirondack entry on the list; there's on spot that is technically private property surrounded by wilderness that probably drops the distance in half. Sure somebody could put a road there, but the effort would be insane.
The important thing to know is what the heading should be to that road, when you’re lost. Knowing one is no more than 17miles from you max, when under weather stress, does little good and offers little comfort.
That is very true. When I read the title it immediately brought to mind the 2006 events of James Kim disappearance and death. Although I'm on the other side of the planet and didn't know him or ever followed his TV show, the then news of him and his family being lost in the wild got my attention until the sad ending.
Equaling remoteness with being a designated wilderness is not the best way to find the most remote spots. Get on Tarantula Mesa or Upper Stevens Canyon in Utah. It is not a wilderness, but a National Monument (the one shrunk by the orange piece of shit in white house, btw), but these places are exceptionally remote. Certainly more remote than Thorofare in Yellowstone.
This is awesome! I've been near a few of these spots. However, some, at least, of their data is out of date.
For the Adirondack High Peaks complex, much of the Tahawus Tract, which bounds the circle on the southeast side, has been officially part of the wilderness area for five or so years now. I used to work at the main visitor's center in the area, and now work remote from about two miles from the northern edge of the complex. I'd say that adds roughly a mile to the radius here, but it could be a little less.
Also, in the near future, the bounds of the complex will change drastically at the southeast edge. The Boreas Ponds tract has been acquired by the state, and while it hasn't yet been officially designated as wilderness, when it is, it will connect the High Peaks to the Dix Mountain Wilderness, making the overall complex -- already the largest in the northeast -- something like 20% larger. But it won't stop it being a crazy shape.
Panhandle Lake is NOT the most remote place in the Boundary Waters. Not by any stretch. A clay foot algorithm.
I’ve had 100 square miles alone to myself in the BWCA for days/weeks and know the park well.
Since the BWCA is adjacent to the Quetico (on the Canadian side of the border), the concept of remote skews much further north. Time of year is also “remote” ... late October/early November is beautiful, if you don’t get “iced-in” for winter and can neither canoe nor walk out.
A relatively remote lake is Lake Kiana, where I’ve been between two simultaneous wolf packs (100 yds and 150 yards away in opposite directions). BWCA is where Yellowstone re-populated its wolves from. That close to 20-25 wolves chasing deer in the deep of night ... you listen for the “yip, yip, yip” of the pups trying to learn and keep up.
>where nature reigns supreme and no powered travel is permitted.
Except for airplanes and helicopters of course. There are no airspace restrictions preventing you from flying over these locations and I know people who have landed both planes and helicopters in these regions (although likely illegally).
[+] [-] thaumaturgy|7 years ago|reply
But I bet cityfolk have a reeeeeeaally different notion of "road" than is meant here.
Take the Trinity Alps complex for example. It's got, still to this day, my least favorite approach ever. You go way up the north coast, then along 299 (if I remember right), then through a reservation, and then you get on this lovely little road that's several miles of 15-mile-an-hour white-knuckle less-than-single-lane rough gravel, with steep granite on one side and a drop straight down to a river on t'other, and a whole lot of blind corners. You do that for a while, then you see the yellow sign posted that says, "Road Narrows", and whaddaya know, it sure as heck does.
It's a road that started as a trail and never really had any ambitions beyond that.
There are a ton of logging roads and fire cuts all over the place too. Lots of dusty hill climbs. Other rarely-trafficked routes where the macho advertising for your 4WD meets a grim reality.
Maps aren't necessarily current, either. I once bailed off the Wonderland Trail in Rainier after a partner took a bad fall. According to the map and the GPS, there was a road just a few miles out that led to a paved road that led to civilization. Great. Well, we get there, and after swimming through dense, wet vegetation for a while, start finally seeing signs that, yeah, there was a road there, about a hundred years ago.
18 miles as the bird flies can easily turn into two days' hiking in some of that terrain, too.
[+] [-] jmspring|7 years ago|reply
Everything was going great, narrow roads crossing part of the Yuba River, gorgeous country, tight switchbacks and dangerous drops. Ended up on Foote Crossing Road, crossed the Yuba, climbed up a ways on a road maybe 2-3 wider than my Tacoma. Come around a corner, a chunk of slate had slid down covering the road days before. The options were backup 2+ miles or try and move the rock. Having a tow rope, we tried to move the large rock -- it moved, just not enough. After about 2.5 hours, a group came from the other direction and helped us out.
You have to be careful when out there. Before I do something like that again, despite thinking I was prepared, I'll do a bit more research and probably add a high lift jack and some other toys.
[+] [-] sulam|7 years ago|reply
I enjoyed spotting all the places I've been in this fun guide, and the other thing I want to impress on people is that these "distance from road" measurements are crow-flies distance from the closest "road". You've done a good job describing how bad the road might be. People who have no experience with this kind of wilderness will have even less appreciation for how much work might be involved in actually getting to that the center point. It will _never_ be a 12 mile hike or whatever the distance they measure is. In many cases it's twice that, in some cases it's worse, and the trails (if there is one) are in some fairly steep terrain, so you can expect to do 15 miles on a strong day in good conditions.
I went looking for my favorite wilderness and was surprised not to find it, because I know how remote it is and Trinity Alps feels significantly smaller in comparison. In looking at it, I realized they've combined the contiguous region north of Yosemite Park as the "North Yosemite Complex", which includes Emigrant (my favorite), the northern part of Yosemite, etc. I was there for four days a week ago and after I got off the main trail I saw one person while I was hiking out. The rest of the time was spent off the trail and with no sign of another soul.
[+] [-] dboreham|7 years ago|reply
Yes, they mean : no throughfare usable by a regular vehicle including high clearance 4wd, including private roads, tracks etc.
In the Absoroka here there are "inholdings" (I think they're the remnants of old mining claims) that the owners access via helicopter. There have been a few court cases about access over the years e.g. https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/lawsuit-seeks-to-build...
[+] [-] Glyptodon|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thx4allthestuff|7 years ago|reply
I live in Texas now, which feels relatively tiny because you'll always find some sort of civilization (i.e. potable water) right around the corner. Granted, growing up in Alaska, my definition of "right around the corner" is probably a little different from those who were raised in the Lower 48.
[+] [-] jartelt|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] TaylorAlexander|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ebikelaw|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grecy|7 years ago|reply
That's not on a road - that's anywhere in the lower 48.
I always assume nearby a McDonald's would likely be a gas station.
Growing up in Australia and now living in the Yukon this blows my mind. I just drove 35,000 miles from Morocco to Cape Town in South Africa, and there were zero McDonalds that entire time. [1]
The Lower 48 is extremely densely developed!
[0] http://www.datapointed.net/2009/09/distance-to-nearest-mcdon... and http://www.datapointed.net/2010/09/distance-to-nearest-mcdon...
[1] http://theroadchoseme.com/africa-expedition-overview
[+] [-] chrissnell|7 years ago|reply
There are some photos of these places on my IG: https://instagram.com/desertdefender
[0] https://instagram.com/p/BjRFEeZDxBI/
[+] [-] jasonpeacock|7 years ago|reply
But I do need to mention that there are multiple McD's in Morocco, having been to them myself when I visited :)
http://www.mcdonalds.ma/nos-restaurants/r%C3%A9seau-maroc
[+] [-] seanmcdirmid|7 years ago|reply
I wouldn’t think that is true in Nevada. But from the link wow.
[+] [-] hcurtiss|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] notatoad|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] tomjakubowski|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sarah180|7 years ago|reply
I think it's an interesting irony here that, primarily because of motor travel, we imagine that an 18.7-mile radius is not that substantial. (Yes, a marathon is more distance than that, but those are usually on paved roads and not through wilderness. The legend is that the first to run a marathon died of exhaustion on its completion.)
[+] [-] patcheudor|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LinuxBender|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justinator|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bagrow|7 years ago|reply
Here is a 2005 USGS map [1] color-coding nearest road distance for every 30m x 30m square [2] in the lower 48. Surprisingly, it seems to hold up the article's claim reasonably well, and without resorting to discussing 'machines' or 'motors'.
[1] https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2005/3011/report.pdf
[2] Edit: the map shows 1 km x 1 km averages of the higher-resolution 30 m x 30 m bins.
[+] [-] brudgers|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghaff|7 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/25/yellowst...
[ADDED: The USGS map is really interesting although I wish they had given the "winner." It appears that there are a fair number of spots that cluster around about the 20 mile point. Some are in places you wouldn't necessarily expect although many of those are along a border which reduces the number of directions where a road could lie.]
[+] [-] craftyguy|7 years ago|reply
Having just come out of spending over a week in the Pasayten wilderness, it's most definitely not a national park..
[+] [-] 5555624|7 years ago|reply
>So the remote Thorofare location and radius shown here will not match values calculated purely from the road network.
[+] [-] convivialdingo|7 years ago|reply
Just because there’s a road doesn’t mean that it gets much use. Some are only used to haul animals, oil or timber a few times a year.
[+] [-] toss1|7 years ago|reply
This tells us that wherever we are, IFF we walk in one of the 2-3 the optimal headings for that circle, we'll hit a road in ~18 miles max. That's the best worst-case.
What about the worst worst case -- if we head in the most un-optimal direction? How effed are we in that circumstance?
[+] [-] s0rce|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] lukasb|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrgoldenbrown|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] UncleEntity|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sixstringtheory|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dima55|7 years ago|reply
http://notes.secretsauce.net/notes/2017/09/25_pole-of-road-i...
and for more fun:
http://notes.secretsauce.net/notes/2015/05/06_poles-of-inacc...
[+] [-] jmpman|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sqlacid|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mc32|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] squarefoot|7 years ago|reply
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/STRANDED-FATHER-S-HEROIC...
[+] [-] mjevans|7 years ago|reply
If river, follow down stream.
Anything else, vaguely, follow the power / sight lines towards obvious markers or a way of calling for help.
'way of calling for help' might involve tripping security sensors.
[+] [-] diebir|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] agf|7 years ago|reply
For the Adirondack High Peaks complex, much of the Tahawus Tract, which bounds the circle on the southeast side, has been officially part of the wilderness area for five or so years now. I used to work at the main visitor's center in the area, and now work remote from about two miles from the northern edge of the complex. I'd say that adds roughly a mile to the radius here, but it could be a little less.
Also, in the near future, the bounds of the complex will change drastically at the southeast edge. The Boreas Ponds tract has been acquired by the state, and while it hasn't yet been officially designated as wilderness, when it is, it will connect the High Peaks to the Dix Mountain Wilderness, making the overall complex -- already the largest in the northeast -- something like 20% larger. But it won't stop it being a crazy shape.
[+] [-] teawithcarl|7 years ago|reply
I’ve had 100 square miles alone to myself in the BWCA for days/weeks and know the park well.
Since the BWCA is adjacent to the Quetico (on the Canadian side of the border), the concept of remote skews much further north. Time of year is also “remote” ... late October/early November is beautiful, if you don’t get “iced-in” for winter and can neither canoe nor walk out.
A relatively remote lake is Lake Kiana, where I’ve been between two simultaneous wolf packs (100 yds and 150 yards away in opposite directions). BWCA is where Yellowstone re-populated its wolves from. That close to 20-25 wolves chasing deer in the deep of night ... you listen for the “yip, yip, yip” of the pups trying to learn and keep up.
[+] [-] pathseeker|7 years ago|reply
Except for airplanes and helicopters of course. There are no airspace restrictions preventing you from flying over these locations and I know people who have landed both planes and helicopters in these regions (although likely illegally).