Description
Kyle Knight posted:
On 30 January 2017 myself and desert running partner [Deirde O'Leary] will attempt to run/hike/walk/crawl from close (but not too close) to the Yemeni/Saudi/Omani boarder to the Saudi/UAE boarder through the largest and most formidable sand desert in the world. I have attached a map. I know that others have crossed by camel (i.e Wilfred Thesiger or H. Saint John Philby) or vehicle but I am unaware of anyone that has done this S-N crossing through the heart of the desert only on foot. There are others that have gone from East-West i.e. from Salalah to Doha on foot (Bertram Thomas / Omani Sheikh Salih bin Kalut Al Rashidi al Kathiri / Mark Evans / Mohammed al-Zadjali / Amour bin Ali bin Majeed Al Wahaibi) or around the heart of the dunes via Oman / UAE (Alastair Humphreys / Leon McCarron / Alex Harris / Marco Broccardo / David Joyce / Young-Ho Nam / Agustin Arroyo Bezanilla / Si-Woo Leebut) in my opinion a South/North crossing is the hardest because it is a continual crossing of the repeated 300m + sand dunes that run South/North. Please correct me if there is anyone else known who has done it - if not, this would be the first crossing South/North through the heart of the Rub Al Khali on foot.
We estimate this to be 500km but will invariably be more/less depending on the tracks through the sand. We hope that it will not take more than 14 days. This, of course, will need to be a supported endeavour as we would quickly run out of water in the 40+C degree heat.
Here is a facebook link that will have the Spot tracking and updates (this text updated on 16.12.17).
Am I missing anything? Many thanks and hope this inspires others!
We aim to start on 2 Jan 2018. Here is the spot link (updated on 31.12.17).
share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=00JeoJLYk8xdG6kqx9GZCbugcRg5EbSLt
This route on the old FKT site
