Yukon Quest

Adventurer Mark Hines avoids wolves and breaks ribs as he pulls his sled 1,000 miles across the sub-Arctic wilderness in the Yukon Quest.

- Mark Hines

THE YUKON QUEST involves 1,000 miles of sub-Arctic wilderness between Fairbanks, Alaska and Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. It proceeds along hundreds of miles of rivers and lakes, through woodland and over four mountain ranges in any ordinary year - five last. The Yukon itself is almost the size of Spain, with a population of about 35,000 people. It is home to bears, wolves, mountain lions, lynxes, moose, elk and bison.

After three finishes of a 430-mile foot-race along the Canadian side of the trail, it was time to head to Fairbanks and see what the rest of the trail looked like. My confidence was not high. The environment is unpredictable, with temperatures that can drop below -50 celsius. There can be blizzards and white-outs, and snowfall that can make the trail an energy sapping nightmare. It once took me close to an hour to cover just a few hundred metres, along a river section in deep snow - and this time there would be no race support crew to break trail ahead of me. If trail conditions turned bad, they could stay bad. The Yukon is not a land to be conquered, but if you are lucky enough it might just let you pass through. I dreamed of sled-hauling the full route, but it was only a dream.A sled-hauling expedition in Polar regions typically involves 100 kilogrammes of kit, daily mileages that only just creep into double figures, and half a day spent in a tent, melting snow for water and food.