Adventures Abroad – Part 2

Rob / 24.09.2002

While Nicola MacLeod and Richard Picton were romping away with the 4 Winds USA Supreme Race in Utah recently, Ski Sharp had joined Team TNT and a world class field at the Raid the North Extreme in the Yukon.

He’d got in touch via the race site and joined U.S. team ‘Techies and Teachers’ to line up alongside some of the best known expedition racers in the world - the likes of John Jacoby, Steve Gurney and Rebecca Rusch - and head into the wilds of Yukon. And it was very wild indeed. The only way most of the CP marshals could get out onto the course was by helicopter and some of the stages were very long. They started with a 257km paddle!

“I learnt one thing there,” said Ski, “and that’s how to portage Canadian style, they just tucked the big 2 man Canadians under their arms, no need for someone each end! It was great to be racing with different people, and we got on fine, even catching team Montrail (the eventual winners), at one point. Though they pulled away from us again and we finished 5th, which is a good result.”

“The zip wire was spectacular. It was above a waterfall that was just a white sheet of foam which we could make out in the darkness. The noise was incredible – we’d heard the falls from 4km away. The sense of isolation was extreme too – for one 24 hour period we saw no one at all and there was loads of bushwhacking, which I wasn’t keen on. The last bike leg was the toughest bit though, it took us 10 hours to do 7km along the Dawson Trail. There was so much mud we had to carry the whole way and we were sinking all the time and fed up of the cold and rain which never let up. We were glad to see the finish line!”

Other memorable moments were getting evicted from their hotel the night before the race (for taking bikes into their rooms!), the streaker at the 2am start, and the unfortunate consequences of one of the team using depilation cream in a very sensitive area (at Ski’s suggestion) … but we’d best not go into that ….

Ski’s next international race will be with Team Land Rover at the Southern Traverse in New Zealand at the end of November – and SleepMonsters.com will be there following their progress.

Picture - Martin Paquette