Men attempt icy trek across the Bering Strait
WALES, Alaska — Two men began skiing to Russia last week from the icy shores of Alaska, dragging on sleds the 250 pounds of gear they hope will help keep them alive. The solid surface they scraped across disappeared after about a mile and dropped to water.
“They put their little boat together and sailed away,” said Dan Richard. “It looked pretty neat. About a quarter of a mile out, there’s pack ice (massive frozen blocks of seawater). It looked like they could get around the south end of it. They were doing really fine when we last saw them.”
A passion for adventure lured Belgian Dixie Dansercoer, 42, and Alaskan Troy Henkels, 38, onto the erratic Bering Strait despite the mortal risks of polar bear encounters, hypothermia, and drowning.
Repeated setbacks, including a broken backup rescue helicopter in Nome and raging whiteouts didn’t deter Dansercoer and Henkels from the offbeat expedition. Neither did nearly three weeks of waiting in the Eskimo village of Wales on the farthest western edge of North America.
“They’ve shown a lot of skill in this, whether they can do it or not that’s up to Mother Nature,” said Richard, who has helped similar expeditions for more than two decades.
As they departed on March 30 it was 18 degrees below zero with light winds and a steam fog rising off the icy water.
Dansercoer, who makes a living from extreme athletic feats, and Henkels, a telephone company troubleshooter, have been planning the trip for more than three years. Their sponsors pitched in some $250,000 to attach their brand names to the adventure. Belgian’s Royal Highness Prince Philippe has offered his patronage to the duo.
Their progress can be tracked on the Web. MTV-like videos with music fit for spies show the men bracing blasts of wind in Wales with wolf-like howls. One bitterly funny video sets heavy violin strings to scenes of a lone, plodding man in the elements and idle boots by a doorway.
The Bering Strait is 56 miles at its narrowest stretch, which is the route they would prefer to travel. They hope to land at a point on the Siberian shore south of Uelen.
Only Russian mathematician Dmitry Shparo and his son Matvey have made it into the Guinness Book of World Records for crossing the strait on foot in 1998 on their third attempt. It was no straight path. The Shparos zigzagged on drifting sheets of ice for 300 miles and 21 days before they walked ashore at Point Hope, Alaska. Some, however, criticize the feat, contending the Russians really crossed the more solidly frozen Chukchi Sea to the north.
The men hope to outdo the Russians by crossing the strait twice, ideally taking a month total. Dansercoer and Henkels plan to ski and pull their sleds. They will use those bouyant sleds to sail across open water. And they’ll attempt to use wind again with man-size kites that they expect will pull them across long stretches of ice.
Both men say they welcome the intensity that will come from being out of control on the shifting ice. The slushy rivers of rotting ice may be their greatest obstacle. They can’t swim, paddle or sail through it.
Their decisions have put them in risky situations before. In 2002, Dansercoer tried to ski across the Arctic Ocean from Siberia to Canada but he and a partner called it quits after 69 days on fractured ice and rolling waves.
Henkels didn’t plan on getting into newspapers for arctic expeditions. He grew up on an apple orchard in Dubuque, Iowa. But after climbing Denali, North America’s tallest peak, and reaching 25,000 feet on Mount Everest, he fell into a life of adventure.