Registered nurse is on an extreme trip that spans most of North America
By Tara Trigg | Peak Intern
Published in the Powell River Peak: Wednesday, June 18, 2008
For some people, simply going
for a hike is an adventure. For American Darrell Gardner
of Santa Fe, New Mexico, the word adventure has a
different ring to it.
Gardner is kayaking solo up the Inside Passage
from Seattle, Washington
to Skagway, Alaska
as the third stage of a five-stage journey of mammoth proportions: going from
the Mexico-USA border to the Arctic Ocean, all
under human power.
This stage of Gardner’s
expedition will have him sea kayaking 1,400 miles (2,253 kilometres) over the
course of three months, hopefully averaging 20 miles (32 kilometres) per day.
On June 11, Gardner paddled into Powell River,
stopping with the intention of spending a day here to re-supply, only the
second time he has stopped for supplies since leaving Seattle.
“I spent almost two years getting ready for this,” said Gardner, sitting beside his kayak at his ocean-side
campsite at Willingdon
Beach. “I’m 150 miles out
on my trip of close to 1,400 miles, so this is just the beginning.”
Gardner will
have to stop once every seven to 10 days for food. He will have to stock up
this time, as it will take him about 12 days to get through Desolation Sound
and the Johnstone Strait to Port Hardy from Powell River.
“I enjoy this type of thing,” said Gardner.
“This is one of those trips where if I’m not having fun, nobody else is telling
me to go on. I can decide when it’s time to not do it anymore.”
When he’s not paddling his heart out, Gardner
works as a registered nurse in Santa
Fe.
“It’s my balance between very serious acute care nursing, dealing with death or
very severe illness,” he said. “The natural environment brings me back and
gives me a renewed sense of wanting to help other people.”
Gardner said
that talking to his patients about their regrets is one of the things that gave
him the drive to undertake such an expedition.
“I have sat with a lot of a people in my career in various states of decline,
and listened to their stories about things they would like to have done, but
never did,” he said. “I just don’t want to be one of those people. I want to be
the one who drives people crazy with all the stories that I can tell about
things I’ve done.”
In 2001, Gardner’s
father died at a fairly young age. “He expected to live to be 100, and he
didn’t,” Gardner
said. “I think he missed some opportunities that he was looking forward to in
his retirement, so I said, ‘You know, I’m only 54 years old, but I know that if
I don’t do it now, I’ll never do it. The time’s right, gotta go.’”
In 2004, Gardner
set out on the first stage of his expedition, hiking the Pacific Crest Trail,
totalling 2,650 miles, or 4,265 kilometres. In 2006, he connected land to sea
via the Pacific Northwest Trail and the Skagit
River, canoeing down into Puget Sound.
For his current undertaking, the hard part is yet to come. “One of the biggest
and potentially dangerous parts of this trip will be one of the few places that
the Inside Passage is open to the sea—from Port Hardy, around Cape Caution, and
up the central BC coast is about four days of open ocean paddling,” he said.
“It’s quite a study of weather and knowing conditions.”
Gardner said
that one of the main differences between hiking and kayaking, besides all the
water, is that when hiking, he can let his mind wander, but with kayaking he
must always be paying attention. “If something comes up, if the weather
changes, and you didn’t remember where your last safe harbour was, it can set
you up for some difficult moments,” he said. “You have to pay very close
attention.”
After completing his kayaking trip up to Skagway,
Gardner will return to pick up the trail for
stage four in 2009 by hiking the Chilkoot Trail to the headwaters of the Yukon River. He will follow the river through BC and the Yukon until its northernmost point in Alaska
at Fort Yukon.
In 2010, Gardner will snowshoe and cross-country ski to the top of the Brooks
Range at Atigun Pass for stage five, returning in the summer to traverse more
mountains and connect to a tributary of the Colville River, following it to the
Arctic Ocean.
When completed, Gardner
will have travelled over 5,700 contiguous miles (9,173 kilometres) under his
own power, without mechanical assistance.
He is mostly self-financed at this point, but said that when he gets to the
more northerly portions of his expedition, that will have to change.
Gardner has an
audio blog on his website, located at www.underhumanpower.com.
He is able to post photos and phone in audio updates on his position and
thoughts as the journey progresses.
PHOTO:
Master of the paddle: Darrell
Gardner takes a well-deserved rest after paddling about 21 miles in one day. Gardner has been travelling on the water since May 17, as
a part of a multi-stage 5,700-mile (9,173-kilometre) journey from Mexico to the Arctic Ocean
that he will complete all under human power—no motors allowed.