It takes a special kind of person to think that running an ultra marathon would be a good idea.
Same goes with skiing 220 kilometres but Jack Panayi and Jack Kotaska thought it would be a good idea and made it a reality earlier this month.
The Yellowknife Ski Club high performance teammates completed a ski from Back Bay to Reid Lake in roughly four days – April 14 to 17 – and lived to tell about it.
So why 220-km and why would they undertake it?
We'll let Kotaska explain:
“We were just looking for a challenge,” he said. “We've heard about all of these crazy things that extreme athletes do down south. Last year, Donny Boake did a 170-km bike ride without any food with a friend of his so we just wanted to do something that would push us.”
Panayi's dad had talked about the ski to Blachford Lake before and Kotaska said that would be a good place to start.
The pair began their journey out by the houseboats in Back Bay on April 14 and hugged the left shoreline, following the snow machine trails that go from Yellowknife to Lutsel K'e.
“At around 115-km out of town, there's a left turn that takes you into the bush,” said Panayi. “From there, there's a series of lakes and portages that take you to Blachford Lake.”
The reason the pair chose to go to Reid Lake was because Blachford Lake was extremely cost-prohibitive.
“It's expensive to fly out of Blachford Lake so it was better if we could ski to a place where we could be picked up on the Ingraham Trail,” said Panayi.
“We didn't want to miss too much school as well,” added Kotaska.
Panayi's dad had divided their route into thirds with checkpoints for each day, which meant they would hopefully ski between 45 and 50-km per day, said Kotaska.
“The first goal was reasonable,” he said. “We aimed to reach the Burnt Islands on the first night and that was good because it filled up our whole day.”
Near the end of day one, warmer temperatures made the snow very slushy. After setting up camp, the boys decided to wake up early on day two in order to take advantage of the firmer snow that resulted from cooler overnight temperatures.
“We didn't want to ski in the heat of the day so we woke up at 5 a.m.,” said Kotaska. “We made some good progress and we actually overshot our projected goal.”
“The snow was fast and we thought the sun would come up and make the snow slower,” added Panayi. “The sun stayed behind the clouds most of the day and it was colder that day so we had faster conditions.”
They ended up 10-km past their projected goal for the second night.
“That gave us a head start for the next day and hopefully, make it shorter,” said Panayi.
Turned out they needed that head start because Kotaska said the headwinds on day three were brutal.
“The wind was terrible on that last straightaway before the turnoff to the Thor Lake mining camp,” he said. “We were expecting to have an easier third day or, at least, shorter than the previous days but it ended up being so windy that it turned into a regular-length day.”
When the pair arrived at Reid Lake on day four, they were met with a warm car, submarine sandwiches and relieved parents.
“We managed to finish it,” said Kotaska.
Supply-wise, the pair took only the essentials with them, namely a tent for shelter, a whistle in case they got lost or found themselves in trouble, a satellite phone to keep in contact and certain types of food.
“It's safe to assume that when you're skiing, especially on slushy or sugary snow, you can expect to do around 5-km per hour with packs, including breaks,” said Panayi. “That's slow but you can't afford to go too fast because you have to take the conditions into account.”
The food itself was high in caloric content and dry in nature so they didn't have to take on any excess water weight, said Kotaska.
“We went with mostly fatty foods when we were picking them,” he said. “We wanted the most calories per gram so we wouldn't have to carry too much. We could melt water from snow along the way if we needed to.”
The highlight, though, were the triple-butter Rice Krispie squares.
“That was my favourite,” said Panayi.
Panayi's dad and Kotaska's mother met the pair at Reid Lake once they arrived. The two skiers said they felt a mixture of relief and exhaustion, largely due to the fact that the last part of the trek was done off of skis.
“I was so tired,” said Kotaska. “I was happy to be back but I was very glad we had only one pack on the way back because the weather had slowed us down a lot near the end. It started snowing and the situation with the ice roads, especially on the portages, they were plowed down to the dirt and you couldn't really ski on them. There was no alternate trail and so we had to run a good part of the last 20-km in down booties. We took off our ski boots because ski boots aren't really made for running.”
“We brought the booties because they're warm and really light,” added Panayi.
This is the first of what's hoped will be several ultra-marathon type of treks for the boys. They're already in the planning stages for their next adventure and it isn't too far off.
“We missed a couple days of school because of this and it would be hard to miss more days but I'm hoping next weekend (May 5 and 6) we'll do a weekend one where we ski out as far as we can and come back the next day,” said Panayi. “We're looking at possible options for next March, maybe skiing home from Lutsel K'e or something similar like that down south. We're just looking for some new adventures.”