When Bradford Bartels, trail name “Rafiki,” reached the northern terminus of the Alaska Long Trail (ALT), there was no monument waiting for him. “We’ve been saying it, and people have been saying it, but he just showed that it is possible,” Jane Boer, ALT program coordinator, told Outside. Crow Pass is a rugged historical backcountry trail in the Chugach Mountains (Photo: Alaska Long Trail Association)For Bartels, “technically doable” meant connecting a patchwork of established trail, road walks and ridgelines, with ATV tracks, game trails and scrambles. ADVERTISEMENTFor now, hiking to the Arctic and camping in polar bear country remains Rafiki’s vision, not that of the Alaska Long Trail Association. But her hope for the next person attempting Bartels’ route is more practical: that they won’t have to work quite as hard to figure out where the trail goes.