Boundary County pair to compete in Yukon River Quest

AARON BOHACHEK

Staff writer

BONNERS FERRY — A Bonners Ferry team will compete in the 2014 Yukon River Quest, “Race to the Midnight Sun” June 25-29.

Mountain Mikes owner Julie Kirk along with friend and former Navy Seal (Ret.) Josh Friedman will tackle the 444 mile race from Whitehorse to Dawson City, Yukon, Canada in the Tandem Kayak category. Simon Donato, star of the hit endurance racing show Boundless calls the race one of the top ten toughest endurance races in the world.

Top finishers for 2013 competed the course in under 50 hours, so the team will have to be on their game. Seventy three teams from Australia, Austria, Belgium, France, French Polynesia, Great Britain, Guatemala, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and the US are competing.

“We are training every day on the Kootenai River,” says Friedman, a 20-year Navy Seal retired combat veteran and five-time Ironman Triathlon finisher who qualified for the 2004 Ironman Triathlon World Championship “We spend six to ten hours going up the river and down, with a turn on Deep Creek.” The race is with the current, so the pair is getting good endurance training on the upstream turns.

North Idaho weather has also helped train the pair for the sudden changes the Yukon can throw at them.

“We do quite a bit of paddling,” says Friedman. Both he and Kirk are solo paddlers year round. Friedman also has long navigation experience as a SEAL.

“We have a lot of things going our way as far as experiences, training, nutrition and equipment,” he says.

The biggest worry is the navigational part of the challenge.

Neither team member has ever paddled on the river, which can be as much as a mile wide with a current up to seven mph.

Racers often have to choose the right channel or go off course. They are studying maps and have a GPS unit as a part of their equipment.

Mountain Mike’s is sponsoring the pair, Team No. 22 Challenge Blue America, one of 11 US teams competing in the race.

“We would love to have more sponsors,” says Kirk. “After expenses we will donate any money that we raise to the Silver Strand Foundation, which helps families of fallen US Navy SEALS and other related SEAL projects.”

Donors can contact Mountain Mikes to help the pair, or donate to the Silver Strand Foundation (SSF) directly at https://www.signup2raceusa.com/silverstrand/individual_donate.aspx or SSF, PO Box 129, Smyrna DE 19977. Any donation is welcome, but $50 donors will receive an SSF t-shirt, and $100 donors will receive an SSF Spartan hoodie. Please include in the memo section: Yukon River Quest #22, and shirt size.

More info on the Yukon River Quest and a team tracker can be found at www.yukonriverquest.com