Explorer Ash Dykes announces extreme new challenge facing -30C temperatures with barely any training
Not long after he got back from his Congo Basin expedition, Ash Dykes is announcing his next challenge.
And location two of ‘Project Six’ will see the explorer going from 35+C to facing temperatures of ‘about -30C’.
Travelling by a method Dykes hasn’t really trained in, he’s going to be travelling from the very north of Kyrgyzstan ‘all the way to the very south which borders China’.
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It’s going to be quite the challenge for him (and there’s no denying that) but he tells LADbible he’s ‘excited’.
Sticking with the traditions of that part of the world, Dykes is going to be exclusively travelling across the country by horseback and camping for two or three weeks during the winter season.
“And that's the crazy thing with project six,” he says. “You know, six very different extremes, different environments practically back to back, which gives me only two weeks between each location to prepare and get ready.”
Dykes will be heading out there in the coming weeks and immediately faces a challenge.
The real training starts when he’s ‘on the ground’.
“I'll only have like a day, and this is the crazy thing, you know, it will throw me completely out of my comfort zone,” he says.
“I'll only have hours’ worth training. I mean, when I say training - not only how to ride them [the horses], but I'll have to the shores shoes as well.
“I have to make sure they're getting enough food. I'll have to make sure that they're protected at nighttime as well because the temperatures will plummet.”
With the locals often travelling via horseback, Dykes clarifies that they’ll be using ‘three different horses for three different sections’.
Facing freezing temperatures, the explorer says he’ll be at altitudes between 3-4,000 metres and will be with a local rider as well.
“We’ll have potential snow blizzards,” he adds. “We’ll be very lucky to see snow leopards but where we're going it is remote and it's during dangerously cold season. But it's a challenge I'm feeling excited for.”
Dykes says Kyrgyzstan is a local he is ‘unfamiliar with’ and wants to learn more about.
“You know, take the audience with me and share in live time the struggles – because I might not make it,” he says. “And I don’t mean I might die, I just mean my skill sets are around everything else except for horse riding. So we’re going to have to see how that goes.”
He reckons he’ll be covering around 500 kilometres during the challenge but right now he’s focusing on putting on ‘extra fat’ and ‘extra muscle’ as he’s down to about 66kg following the kayaking in the Congo Basin challenge.
“It's difficult because I don't have an appetite and my stomach lining has shrunk drastically since the Congo,” Dykes add.
“I'll be relying on prior experience of my body, which has been pushed so much in the past. So almost like muscle memory - I've faced sleep deprivation, I've faced starvation, I've faced extremely hot temperatures, extremely cold temperatures.
“So I'll almost be relying on the prior experience that my body's faced to hopefully slip into action and adapt in real time to all of these locations as I go.”
Dykes will be posting again during his challenge and hopes to live stream while on the horses.
Topics: Travel, Extreme Sports
Jess Battison
