I just recently found this site, and I'm glad I did! I've been a Type-1 Diabetic for years, and have always found it difficult to find other diabetics who share my passion for remote & strenuous endeavors. Simply put, I'm a "rain forest junkie."
I love nothing more than spending weeks at a time exploring the world's last great unspoiled woods... the dripping-wet temperate rainforests of the Northern Pacific Coast (Oregon, Washington, British Columbia and SE Alaska). Most my trips involve trekking and bushwhacking, usually solo, deep into little-traveled wilderness. Usually the routes I take are self-designed, without trails or guidebooks. My last trek was 17-days solo in SE Alaska's Russell Fjord Wilderness [1], a little-known area on the Alaskan coast, just south of Wrangell St. Elias National Park. It's the native home to the ultra-rare Glacier Bear [2], many miles of the world's Northernmost Rainforests [3], as well as some of the largest non-polar glaciers & ice-fields on the planet.
I don't say all this to brag... simply to give an idea of what I'm into. As you might imagine, it's taken years of trial-and-error to find a routine of diet & insulin that works for me, keeping me safe for weeks at a time away from fellow humans. Last year I posted a small page on my personal website ("Hiking With Diabetes [4]" at RainForestTreks.com [5]), in order to help fellow diabetics overcome the mental barriers (and physical barriers... but mostly mental!) that keep people from pursuing such treks on their own. Before long, that page has drawn more online traffic than the rest of my site. I'd obviously struck a need! I would love to expand the page's content with a wider variety of material (for instance, remote trekking with an insulin pump, of which I know very little), but I've had a dearth of experience to draw upon.
Which is why I'm so excited to find this site! Before asking a bunch of direct questions, I'll spend some time perusing the content already here... there's a wealth of knowledge to be tapped. And then, I look forward to talking with y'all. I hope I can learn a lot from everyone here, and maybe make a contribution to the inspiration & knowledge of fellow active Diabetics that accumulates here.
Anyway, I just wanted to say hi! Talk to y'all later, and maybe we'll meet someday under a damp green understory.
- Mike
at RainForestTreks.com [6]