KARL BUSHBY: Walking the Line
Miles: 36,000 // Apparatus: feet
Karl Bushby used to look out over the white cliffs of Dover, where he was serving in the British army, and wonder what they would look like from France. But rather than cross the English Channel to find out, Bushby decided to go the long way round—on foot. On November 1, 1998, Bushby, then 29, set off on a planned 12-year, 36,000-mile hike that would take him across four continents, seven mountain ranges, and six deserts. This past March, it also took him across the Bering Strait, a 55-mile hike from Alaska to Russia that involved polar bears, 30-below temperatures, and ice so unstable he had to dump most of his gear to make it across. His reward: 54 days in a Russian jail for lacking a visa and permits. Now free and awaiting new paperwork, Bushby next faces 2,000 roadless miles across Siberia. "I've thought a lot about why I'm doing this," he says. "Whatever my reasons are, they're probably not the same as when I set out."
—Bryant Urstadt
LAIRD HAMILTON: Channel Surfer
Miles: 264 // Apparatus: bike, paddleboard
The Chunnel is for chumps. When Laird Hamilton decides to travel from London to Paris, he skips the train that runs under the English Channel and opts for a bike and stand-up paddleboard instead. In May, after riding east from London, the big-wave pioneer paddled the 27-mile channel, then rode into Paris, covering the 264-mile route in 27 hours. "It wasn't a sightseeing tour," says Hamilton, who did the trip to raise money for a documentary about autism, which is being shot by filmmaker friend Don King. Winds that slowed the ride from London shifted once Hamilton was at sea, taking some of the sting out of the six-hour crossing. He pedaled the 146-mile stretch into Paris in just under nine hours, finishing at the Arc de Triomphe. "At first I kept riding around it," says Hamilton. "Then I realized I could finally get off the bike."
—Charles Bethea
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Renata Chlumska (Scott Markewitz)
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RENATA CHLUMSKA: Lady in the Water
Miles: 11,185 // Apparatus: Bike, sea kayak
"When I look at the map, it's almost unbelievable," says Swedish adventurer Renata Chlumska, while paddling her 17-foot sea kayak north off New York's Long Island. "It's a lot of miles." Sometime around the middle of September, Chlumska, 32, will paddle into Seattle's Lake Union after completing a 14-month, 11,185-mile bike-and-kayak lap of the lower 48. Chlumska, the first Swedish woman to summit Everest, dreamed up the trip with her late fiancé, Swedish adventurer Göran Kropp, who put his stamp on the world of human-powered travel with a 9,321-mile bike-climb-bike expedition from Sweden to Everest and back in 1996. When Kropp died in a climbing accident in 2002, Chlumska decided to continue with their plans, which involved paddling her gear-laden kayak for up to 12 hours a day through oceans, lakes, and rivers and towing the 220-pound load behind her while cycling everything in between. She was almost upended by whales off the coast of Washington, saw her kayak nearly demolished by a driver in Florida, and paddled against soul-crushing headwinds in the Atlantic, which is exactly what she wanted. "You can be very extreme without going to the North Pole," she says. "If you just add distance, length, and weather, you can find an expedition in your own backyard."
—Shanti Sosienski
