The EWR Polar Challenge is one of the coldest, toughest, and most spectacular endurance races on the planet. The Polar Challenge is a 320 nautical mile race to the 1996 Magnetic North Pole. This is Extreme Racing at the top of the world.
The frozen ice of the High Arctic is a vast expanse of rugged sea ice, boulders and gulleys, treacherous islands, and home to one of the world’s deadliest land based predators. It’s a stern test for the toughest of individuals. This is more than just a race; it’is the adventure of a lifetime.
Extreme World Races believes that any person with the right tuition, guidance, equipment, and instruction is capable of competing. Our ethos is that it is in our nature to explore and to test ourselves, pushing through mental and physical barriers.
Your journey will take you from your everyday life to the frozen landscape of Norway. There you will be comprehensively trained by the world’s most experienced Polar Instructors in the use of your equipment. This intensive week is essential, as it will provide you with knowledge and expert guidance required not only to survive in the Arctic, but to compete.
Here you will be fully equipped with the essential clothing and navigation, cooking, and survival tools that the environment demands. Your training is a mixture of classroom and lecture based material, interspersed with practical, hands-on tuition. You will be taught Nordic Skiing (XC Skiing) and how to manage a pulk. This week is specifically designed as an intensive course to highlight the importance of knowledge, practice and demonstrate the dangers of extreme cold.
The Polar Challenge gives competitors the opportunity to experience one of the last remaining wildernesses of the world by racing to the very top of it at the Magnetic North pole.
Racing in teams of two or three, competitors set off from Resolute Bay in Northern Canada across a terrain of frozen sea ice and Arctic tundra. As well as racing against the other teams and dealing with the extremes of environment, competitors are also likely to have to factor polar bears into the game plan, the natural inhabitants of this extreme environment and the most powerful animals on earth.
Race distance:
563km
Calendar :
- Training in Norway from 8th to 15th January 2011
- Race from 10th April to 15th May 2011
