Ryan Sandes is looking upward for his next endurance adventure, planning a triple assault on Africa’s second-highest peak, Mount Kenya, via three routes in July.
The 44-year-old father-of-one jokes he’s barely cleaned off all the Sahara sand after his last venture, the six-stage 250km Marathon Des Sables in Morocco earlier this month.
But he and friend Ryno Griesel, who among other things combined to do the fastest crossing of the Great Himalaya Trail in 2018, have set their sights on the 5,199m Batian peak atop Mount Kenya.
“There are three ways to summit Mt Kenya, and we want to try and do two or three summits consecutively,” Sandes told TimesLIVE in an interview.
Having not been there before, the duo would use the trip to do a reconnaissance and then begin the push. “We’re going there to do the attempt, but also to do a scouting trip and acclimatise. I think it would be around 30 hours. Anything under 30 hours we’d be pretty happy with.
“Distance-wise it’s about 110km with, I think, about 7,000m of elevation gain. We want to self-support it; so, obviously, we need to carry everything. No stopping, that’s the plan,” said Sandes, who is gearing up for Red Bull’s Wings for Life World Run next Sunday.
Life on the trails
Sandes has been living life on the trails beyond the reach of civilisation for nearly 20 years, since he stormed from obscurity to take the Four Deserts Gobi March in mid-2008.
Four months later, he won the Four Deserts Sahara in Egypt and, the next year, he quit his day job as a quantity surveyor to do it full time.
In 2010, he became the first man to win all of the Four Desert races, adding the Atacama Crossing in Chile and Antarctica prizes to his trophy cabinet.
His recent sojourn in North Africa, where he finished fifth in 23hr 21min 05sec, 2:33:26 behind the winner, was an almost nostalgic return to his arid beginnings. “It’s been years since I last did a desert race so it was cool to see how the sport’s evolved and things have changed.
“The sport has gotten a lot more professional and the kind of racing side of things is probably a lot more competitive now, the depth of field,” he said, adding the turn-out had been particularly good for the event’s 40th edition.
Beauty in barren regions
The course was 40% soft dune sand and 60% compact ground, said Sandes, who finds beauty in the world’s most barren regions. “In Morocco, I was actually blown away by the variety and the landscapes. Just heading out into the desert, driving through the Atlas Mountains, was super pretty.
“But I’ve always said, for me, my favourite desert was the Atacama in Chile. I’ve got some incredible memories from there … in the backdrop you’ve got these snow-capped mountains. That was pretty special.”
He also has an affinity for the Karoo. “[It] is brutal. We’ve got some tough terrain in South Africa, [but] there’s something special about running it at home. You get this inner feeling that you’re at home, and you just kind of get this sense of feeling at peace.
“The Karoo is super pretty, and I think there’s something really unique about being in the desert or in a big landscape, just a feeling of simplicity and not being overly connected and being able to escape the craziness and all the technology. That was something I really picked up when I was in Morocco.”
Sandes, whose son Max is nine, enjoys the balance between life as a family man and professional trail runner. “It was really refreshing having Max, and just realising that there’s actually more to life than just running; that’s not the be all and end all.
“Max doesn’t care if I come first or last in a race — he wants my attention and for me to be a good dad. That’s actually really helped me; it kind of takes the pressure off in many ways.”
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