Sidetracked Editor Jamie Bunchuk and contributor Matthew Traver have recently touched-down in England after a five-month-long expedition across Central Asia. The project – dubbed One Steppe Ahead – saw them complete a 63 day crossing of Eastern Kazakhstan by horse, live and work with hunters on the Tajik/Afghan border, and Jamie also ran 100 miles across the Red Sands Desert in Uzbekistan. They’re now into post-expedition mode, with Matthew producing three documentary films of the adventure and Jamie writing a book about the pair’s many trials and ordeals. Stay tuned to Sidetracked for an upcoming article on the expedition in the near future.
Richard Parks has announced his latest expedition; Project X. An attempt to complete the fastest and longest solo, unsupported Antarctic polar expeditions in history. The first stage of the project is breaking Christian Eide’s Antarctic speed record. In order to do so he must make the 715 mile journey in 23 days. He leaves the UK on October 28th to begin. His training for this journey has seen him ski for 39 days solo in the Antarctica, complete the highest mountain bike race in the world, run a Jungle Ultra and compete in a double ironman.
Another cold weather expedition on the cards is 19-year-old Parker Liautaud’s plan to race from the coast of Antarctica to the South Pole on skis commencing in December. Ultrarunner Dean Karnazes has hinted at a upcoming project to run a marathon in all 198 countries in the space of a year. The challenge will get underway in 2015.
A new expedition called Running after Routledge: The Pursuit of an English Expedition is to happen in February 2014. It will follow parts of the 1914 Mana Expedition to Easter Island. The multidimensional challenge will involve running, biking and boating from England to Chile.
The Nobody’s River expedition has recently been completed. It began last June when four women rode horses from Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia to the river Onon, and kayaked down it. They then connected with the Transiberian Railway to reach the Amur River and paddled down it. Two Cambridge rowers Mark de Rond and Anton Wright have successfully rowed two hours on, two hours off for the month long adventure taking them 2077 miles down the Amazon River for the The Row The Amazon expedition. Climbing legend Ueli Steck made a solo summit of Annapurna. Steck climbed the notorious 8091 meter peak alpine style. Finally after over a year on their feet, David and Katharine Lowrie have ran the length of South America. The 6504 mile challenge took them over the Andes, through the Amazon Rainforest, from Chile to Venezuela.
In other news, a new documentary is currently in the works called ‘The Armstrong Lie’ which chronicles disgraced cyclists Lance Armstrong’s career. The film will be on limited release on November 8 . To finish up, we leave you with a great competition to consider entering. GoPro have launched; ‘How will you GoPro?‘ which gives participants the chance to win their dream adventure filmed by a GoPro crew. All you have to do is get creative and make a poster of your idea accompanied by a few words detailing your plans.
Have an epic weekend!
Written by Orla O’Muiri | Photo from NobodysRiver.org