Sandes and Griesel Set Out On The Great Himalaya Trail Run

Press Release / 01.03.2018

At 4am local Nepalese time  today (March 1st) Ryan Sandes and Ryno Griesel  set out on the adventure of a lifetime by trying to set a new Fastest Known Time for the Great Himalaya Trail. The current record is just over 28 days, so the boys will be giving it all they have over the 1400km distance.

IN the following interview from Red Bull the two runners explain the why, what and where of their planned adventure run.

The jury is out as to whose idea an attempt on the Great Himalaya Trail was, but one thing’s certain, Ryan Sandes and Ryno Griesel were always destined to team up for a big expedition.

Ryno has seconded ultramarathon star Sandes on various big international races over the past few years. And, although not a professional athlete, Ryno is a consummate mountaineer, having climbed various mountains in Africa, Europe and Nepal. We caught up with Ryno a few days before their departure to attempt the Great Himalayan Trail in the fastest known time.

Firstly, to someone who has no idea, give us a brief background as to what you two are attempting?

The Great Himalaya Trail (GHT) of Nepal is not a single trail but rather a combination of various trails in either the upper (GHT High Route) or middle (GHT Cultural route) districts of Nepal, stretching from the west to the east (or vice versa) end of the country.

We’ll traverse the estimated 1,400km route (with 70,000m of elevation gain and loss over the Himalayan Mountain range) combining the High GHT and Cultural GHT to challenge the current recognized Fastest Known Time (FKT) of 28 days, 13 hours and 56 minutes, as set by fellow South African, Andrew Porter in October 2016. We’ll self-navigate in an attempt to find the best possible route to link up the 12 required checkpoints as set by Andrew.

Whose crazy idea was this? Yours or Ryan’s?

I’m not too sure when and how we decided exactly to take on this adventure. Ryan and I both love big mountains, adventure and are equally intrigued by the challenge of an FKT. The concept developed over many banters during local mountain runs as a natural progression of our previous projects like the Drakensberg Grand Traverse in 2014. Ryan is generally known for his out-of-the-box ideas, so I’ll blame him!

How important is the team-mate understanding between the two of you for success in an attempt on something as extreme as this?

I would say it’s the absolute platform for possible success in any project of this scale and associated variables and unknowns. We simply can’t plan and prepare for everything and we’ll rely on the foundation of our friendship built from previous epics together to make decisions and adapt on the go.

We know each other very well and each brings different strengths to the team. Firstly we have similar goals, and that’s to live life to the full. We both have a passion and healthy respect for big mountains and each other.

We are, however, very different as well. Ryan is a world-class athlete and I can’t come close to his physical abilities. He’s also a master strategist and brilliant with pacing. He’s further the nicest (read chilled-out) guy you’ll ever meet and super-supportive during our adventures. I hopefully bring some accounting, navigation and multi-day adventure racing to the team.

You are chief-in-charge of logistics, planning and, perhaps most importantly, navigation. How’s the planning gone?

The planning has been quite intense and, having spent over 300 hours on the maps alone, has taken significant time in the build up. Sourcing the right light-weight equipment, apart from running kit, like power sources, water purification equipment and so on that’ll be sufficient in the remote areas, but light enough to carry required extended research.

We won’t be entirely self-sufficient and will meet up with our Nepalese logistics partners, Himalaya Trails, about five times to change kit and receive permits for the national parks we’ll traverse. We planned these ‘drops’ in a lot of detail to be as efficient as possible. The planning has gone extremely well with the help of so many international partners and dream-givers, too many to mention. We feel that we’re well prepared and looking forward to starting running now!

To follow Ryan and Ryno live you can track them on www.redbull.com/ght2018, which will also be updated regularly with pics and videos of their adventure.