ATHABASCA — A pair of American women who have been travelling north from South America on and off for years passed through Athabasca recently.
The thought of self-powering herself across two continents had floated around in 36-year-old Bethany Hughes' head for a few years but it wasn’t until friend Lauren Reed, 37, decided to join her that the dream became a reality seven years ago.
“After I finished the Pacific Crest Trail, I was reading the book, Born to Run by Chris McDougall and he mentioned that the Sierra Madras mountain range in Mexico connects the longest chain of mountains in the world and I was raised learning how to climb in the Andes,” Hughes said. “I learned how to guide and worked with the Boy Scouts in the Rockies ... and when I read that sentence in that book, it just connected these two very important places to me and the thought of returning in a humble way appealed as a way to connect the people of those two continents as well.”
Hughes grew up in Ecuador, Chile and the Dominican Republic, travelling with her missionary parents, so while the idea had been building, McDougall’s book set the plan in motion which meant a five-year wait before it could even get started.
“When I first had the calling, I wanted to make sure that it was something I was committed to,” she said, “So, I did the only thing I could think of that was harder than walking across two continents, which was getting a desk job for five years.”
That allowed her to build up savings to get the journey started and now Her Odyssey relies on help from their Patreon supporters and the kindness of random strangers like Elaine and Arno Birkigt in Athabasca.
“Costs are ameliorated by sponsorships to help us with gear and at this stage seven years into a five-year journey we are largely dependent on our Patreon supporters,” said Hughes. “We have a community there who pitch in anywhere from $1 to $50 a month and we write lots up. It’s enough to float two people 17,000, hopefully 20,000 miles.”
The journey started Nov. 23, 2015, in Argentina and they have stayed on the western side of both continents crossing into Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Nicaragua, Guatemala, then Mexico before entering back into the United States. The pair have documented every step of the way and Patreon supporters pledging $5 or more per month can follow their progress through a GPS device donated by Garmin.
“Right now, our objective is Tuk, Tuktoyaktuk,” said Hughes. "One of the things we've learned from this odyssey is it's more about what Mother Nature will let you do rather than your will over Mother Nature sometimes. So, it may end in Inuvik, it really depends on what the waters are saying.”
One part of the journey took them from New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana, but they also went back and did separate treks in Arizona then Utah to Idaho and a bit into Montana.
Reed and Hughes met by chance in 2010 hiking the Pacific Crest Trail which runs from Canada to Mexico via Washington state, Oregon, and California and became friends who stayed in touch. Reed even helped Hughes resupply on other hikes, but it took her a while before she decided to join Hughes on the larger odyssey.
“In early 2015, I (said) ‘Hey, you know that trip that you've been talking about? I’m pretty interested in joining but I'll only do South America,’” Reed said.
Between November 2015 to October 2021, the women travelled 28,000 km, hiking, biking, or paddling and in South America alone, which took 730 days across six countries, they went through 20 pairs of shoes which is why they rely on corporate sponsors like Xero Shoes and Farm to Feet.
“Just like anything in this journey, we've adapted and adjusted,” she said. "I think I started talking about joining her for the rest of the trip after the first couple of years, then we had a discussion about it in Panama.”
The pair, who call the trek ‘Her Odyssey,’ aren’t permanently on the road, they go back home to the United States where they plan and prepare for the next “season,” as they call it, and a season can range anywhere from five to 13 months, but they put the odyssey on hold due to COVID-19.
“People were starting to react adversely to us, their understanding (was) this is a disease of the wealthy, white people bringing it there,” Hughes said. "But in a church in Zacatecas, Mexico, there was a little grandmother who was a cleaner there who came and wanted to formally welcome us.”
It was important for Reed and Hughes to know she cleaned the church and then she hugged and kissed Hughes.
"I realized that there's no way culturally you can stop a Mexican abuela from loving on you and feeding you and kissing and if there was a single chance, I was taking a day off of her life with her grandkids or cleaning that church the balance of what we're doing out there was completely thrown off,” Hughes said. “So, we got off trail for the duration of COVID and until we could get vaccinated, until things had moved towards stabilizing.
There have also been funnier times too, like the time they were offered a whole goat to eat or the overnight appearance of their silver shelter startling the locals.
“We don't (do) foraging much but when we pass the old homesteads, which are no longer homesteads ... there would still be the fruit trees that they planted,” Hughes said. “And so that was interesting to try heirloom heritage apples that have just been doing their thing for 100 years undisturbed by humans.”
In January they went back to Mexico to collect the bikes stored there and finish off a piece of the trek before returning to the United States for two weeks to get ready to come to Canada, arriving in April.
“The framework for Her Odyssey is ‘northward progress by human powered means’ and our mission statement is a ‘human powered odyssey, travelling the length of the Americas connecting the story of the land and its inhabitants.’” said Hughes.
And connecting the land and inhabitants led to a friend of a friend alerting the Birkigts the duo would be passing their place as they paddled the Athabasca River and asked if they could stop there to resupply and continue by bike until they got past the treacherous rapids.
“When we took a look at the rapids ahead, and I started to have that sense of my pride wanting to say, ‘We'll do it’, but I think my gut knew it was beyond our safety calculation," said Hughes. "So, to me, we had hit this roadblock that started at Athabasca and didn't end until Fort McMurray and I had no idea how we were going to get around it until they were like you need to talk to Arno and Elaine.”
So, the Birkigts met the women and let them restock and rest for a day before sending them off on their bikes and eventually meeting them in Fort McMurray with Reed’s vehicle which has been relayed, again by strangers like the Birkigts, up from Utah, following them on their journey.
“There’s a saying — the trail provides,” Hughes said, and it was proven once again on Highway 63 as the two were biking to Fort McMurray and she wrote about it on the Her Odyssey blog.
On the third day Hughes found herself with a flat tire and without a proper tube so while they were waiting out a storm at a rest stop and trying to figure out how to get a tube in the middle of nowhere, some Canadian hospitality showed up in the form of three men in a white truck; knights in shining armour, who transported the bikes and ladies to Fort McMurray safely.
“They displayed what I am finding of Canadian kindness: thoroughly what you need. In this case, whisked to a Tim Horton’s parking lot right down the street from the cheap-ish hotel I had found.”
And now the women continue their odyssey, their pilgrimage, to unite the two Americas and put their canoes back in the water Saturday to paddle past Fort McKay then south of Lake Athabasca they'll enter one of the biggest inland deltas in the world, the Peace-Athabasca Delta.
And in what may be the last post for a while, Hughes said she is leaving her tablet behind while they canoe onward.
“I'm leaving my trusty little tablet in gear we'll pick up at the end. The screen and battery are starting to die and I'm not sure it would survive three months of canoe packing conditions and I need something to write the book on after it is all over,” she wrote.
You can donate to their journey and follow their progress on the map at: patreon.com/HerOdyssey/posts
