The Yukon River Quest

Last year i attempted 12 marathons in 12 months and it was an amazing challenge and helped to make a few more people aware of the conflict in the Congo and raised a fair bit of money for Women for Women and Amnesty International. The whole year taught more one important lesson that anything is possible and confirmed my thoughts that i love adventuring. Fuelled by a desire to explore further and to keep people interested in the DRC i have decided to embark on a new challenge – Kayaking/Canoeing.

Why? Well i used my legs a lot last year and they are now tired and injured. But more importantly I wanted try something new and go beyond my comfort zone of running. It would have been to easy to carry on running and think well i’ve done my bit now, but i wanted to do more.

After a few months of thinking, relaxing and contemplation i decided on the Yukon River Quest.

The Yukon River Quest is the longest and most challenging canoe/kayak race in the world. It will involve canoeing 470 miles plus in one of the most remote and wild places in the world – the Yukon. The Yukon is in the north west of Canada and is so far north that during the summer, it never gets dark, which gives the Yukon River Quest the title of the ‘race to the midnight sun’. The race itself is non-stop and is likely to anywhere from 40 to 100 hours to complete. Within this period there are two mandatory stops, one for 7 hours and one for 3. Aside from that you just paddle, they estimate that you max over 700,000 paddle strokes during the race. It takes place on the 29th June and runs till the 3rd July.

I’ve never kayaked before this year and at present i can count on one hand the number of times i’ve been in a canoe. This scares me, i’ll have to negotiate grade 3 rapids, waves that could be as big as 5 metres. The prospect of kayaking for pretty much 70hrs or more is pretty frightening and if that isn’t enough i’ll have to deal with the prospect of bears. Real bears. In the Yukon there are an estimated 160,000 black bears, it is a big place the Yukon, but that number of bears does seem to suggest i’ll paddle in to one at some stage.

Watch this little video to get a sense of what i’m up against.