January 30, 2020

EPISODE 1: The 3,000th inReach SOS Incident

Dennis: Last October Guillaume Hullin found himself stuck in the middle of a snowstorm in one of the most remote territories in all of Europe. He was alone. His only hope was to call for help. This is the story of the 3,000th rescue called in from a Garmin inReach handheld device. You’re listening to “Life on the Outside,” a podcast beyond boxes or comfort zones.

Amanda: Presented by Garmin. And we’re your hosts Amanda…

Dennis: And I’m Dennis. We feature stories from athletes, explorers, pilots, captains and anyone who woke up today to beat yesterday. Guillaume isn’t some certified mountaineer with a grizzly beard and years of experience working in the wilderness. He has a job in IT.

Guillaume: I’m a programmer.

Dennis: He’s kind of your average computer geek. He has a thin frame with dark facial hair and a soft smile. He has a fiancé. He likes to snowboard and sometimes he gets tired of living in the city. Like all of us, he gets tired of his job.

Guillaume: I’m mostly dealing with people, and one of my best friends, one time seeing me always between my server rooms and between meeting with people, at one point told me, “You’ve got to go outdoors.” And I never went outdoors, but like really when I say no experience outdoors, I mean like I couldn’t make fire with gasoline.

Dennis: So a few years ago, Guillaume started hiking, but he didn’t just go on day trips or weekend getaways. Every few months Guillaume would head out into the Scandinavian wilds, sometimes for days with absolutely no experience. And the best part, he films everything.

Guillaume: So here we are [inaudible 00:01:56]. It’s in Sweden and it’s a very nice forest. Of course I have decided to come in the winter. Just, you know, a bit of adventure, and of course I arrive late which mean right at night fall, so I have to hurry up to go to shelter.

Dennis: Guillaume has this humble YouTube channel where he chronicles his misadventures in the wilderness because, according to him, he wants his followers to learn from his mistakes. That was a clip from his first video. So last October Guillaume decided to hike through the most remote territory in all of Europe, miles from civilization, Sarek National Park. Sarek is not a place for beginners. Located in northern Sweden above the Arctic Circle, it is largely untouched by mankind. The few trails it has are unmarked. There are no roads, no power lines, no gas stations. There’s nothing. It’s known for its harsh and unpredictable weather, and its incomparable solitude. However, it’s also known for its beauty. Guillaume set out to hike in the Sarek by way of a trail called the Kungsleden, a trail over 440 kilometers long. His first few days in the Sarek were beautiful and cold and lonely.

Guillaume: It’s…I can’t describe it. It’s scary and also, I don’t know really how to explain that.

Dennis: But then it started to snow and while Guillaume had prepared for hiking in the cold, he was not prepared for what was coming.

Guillaume: When I looked at the weather report it was telling me, okay, a storm is coming.

Dennis: Guillaume had a choice. He could continue ahead or he could turn back. If he turned back now, winter would set in and he’d have to wait another year. He’d have to turn back to civilization, back to his job and the buzz of those server rooms. He’d been looking forward to this trip for months.

Guillaume: The next day I just went on this mountain pass and just went for it.

Dennis: Guillaume continued on into Sarek, beyond the point of no return.

Guillaume: And it was snowing enough to basically cover the trail. The terrain when you get into the mountains is mostly rocks, like, boulders, so your feet can fall in between, and marshes, so your feet fall in the water. So you’ve got the choice between having wet feet or broken leg.

Dennis: As Guillaume went deeper into the wilds of Sarek, farther and farther from civilization, he was hoping that the snow would let up. If he made it through the mountain pass before the storm got worse, he thought he would be fine hiking through the frozen marshlands. But he wasn’t.

Guillaume: After that mountain pass I went for, like, 15 kilometers and it was, like, hell of like snowstorm. So several times I fell on the mountains. Imagine you don’t see in front of you, you are just getting your feet always wet, and you’re just following a direction, you don’t see any path.

Dennis: I want to point out that Guillaume did not have snow shoes. So every single step that he took, his feet would fall straight through the surface of the snow. Sometimes he would sink up to his knees. On top of that, Guillaume had to contend with crossing rivers. Because of the weather, the water was freezing and dangerous.

Guillaume: Very rapid water, rapid glacier water which certainly was maybe as deep as me. At that point really when I was doing river…