The Yukon Arc­tic Ultra is not a well-known race —  partly because it’s only been run­ning since 2004.  And partly bea­cuse only a few peo­ple have ever com­peted in it, let alone fin­ished it.  When asked what the most dif­fi­cult race is, most reply “oh the Marathon des Sables of course”.  Now this has all changed because those who have heard of it, would agree with what the Yukon’s organ­is­ers describe as “The tough­est and cold­est race inthe world”.  So what is it that’s so tough?

There are a choice of dis­tances —  a marathon, 100 miles, 300 miles and for the truly ‘nails’ indi­vid­u­als — 430 miles (only one per­son has com­pleted it — Andy Head­ing in 2009).  Oh, and it’s very very cold — reach­ing tem­per­a­tures as low as –61C.  Bear­ing in mind the Marathon des Sables (MdS) is a 7-day race over 150 odd miles, in com­par­i­son to the Yukon, it’s a walk in the park.

Mem­bers of the Adven­ture Rac­ing Team Hel­mut, who spoke recently at the Royal Geo­graph­i­cal Soci­ety, said they decided to give the Yukon 300 miler a go because they thought that “the MdS wasn’t tough enough” and that they “Needed a new chal­lenge”.  This new chal­lenge involved pulling all their equip­ment on “pulks” (known to most folk as sleds) non-stop for 320 miles over the Cana­dian Arc­tic — for six days in tem­per­a­tures as low as –30C.  Their plan: to raise £50,000 for Breast Can­cer Care.

But six days of phys­i­cal pain and the risk of frost­bite is noth­ing in com­par­i­son to the 18 months worth of plan­ning, fund rais­ing and train­ing prior to race day.  The pulks weigh on aver­age 18–20 kgs each, so a lot of train­ing was needed.  From August 2008 until they departed in Feb­ru­ary, they could be seen train­ing in Rich­mond park pulling tyres and try­ing to dodge the Royal Park’s Police.

Unfor­tu­nately, this year proved to be more of a chal­lenge than Team Hel­mut could cope with.  Before the race started there was much dis­cus­sion as to whether or not they should take with them snow shoes.  They decided “not” due to the fact it wasn’t pre­dicted to snow.  How­ever, it was to be a fatal flaw as after 260 miles they had to pull out of the race due to a mas­sive dump of snow.  As Simon Bayliff said, “I’m not some­one who likes unfin­ished busi­ness…”  I’m guess­ing that this will be a chal­lenge to be repeated.

For more infor­ma­tion on the Yukon Arc­tic Ultra, check out their web­site.  The next event will in 2011, so plenty of time for those tough enough to train and give it a go!  Good luck!