Chilean Patagonia – Minnesotan and avid adventure racer, Stephen Regenold, is prepared to lead his team in the toughest race in the world and, he admits, he would be lying if he said he wasn’t scared.

 

Regenold, 33, is the founder of Gear Junkie, a company selling a wide variety of outdoor gear, and has finished in more than 40 adventure races, including Ironman. And, even after all of the testing competitions of his past, Regenold considers the Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race to be the most ambitious race he has ever committed to.

 

The competition, which takes teams through the remote wilderness of Chilean Patagonia, will push competitors to the very limit of exhaustion both mentally and physically, with many likely to suffer severe sleep depravation. Though, Regenold believes he has the gear for the job. He has been gathering a “best-of-the-best” equipment kit, he says, to battle the elements of the wilds of Patagonia.

 

Last year’s winners, British team Helly Hansen-Prunesco, overcame hallucinations and hands ripped to shreds by thorn bushes to win in six days. A team of Americans, meanwhile, were the ones to suffer a close call after getting lost in the mountains for days, having to survive on wild berries before two team members swum in ice-fed waters and climbed a cliff face without ropes to escape and call a helicopter rescue for their two hypothermic team-mates.

 

Helly Hansen-Prunesco, which includes two team members from Surrey, will return to try and retain their trophy this year, competing against an enlarged field that includes two members of the aforementioned American team. And the organizers are planning another difficult test this time around.

 

Race Director Stjepan Pavicic said, “We had an exciting race last year and with a bigger field this time there will be even tougher competition. Once again we have developed an exciting course to test the competitors to the limit and also display the beauty of the region. This year will mark Chile’s Bicentenary, so the course runs across mountains and through valleys in the footsteps of great explorers Magellan and Darwin. It also goes through Karukinka, a conservation area of the Wildlife Conservation Society that the race collaborates with to protect.”

 

The Karukinka reserve, on Tierra del Fuego – “the Land of Fire” – protects some unique habitats and aims to stop the erosion of an endangered ecosystem whose peat bogs play a vital part in absorbing greenhouse gases as part of the planet’s natural protection.

 

The remoteness of this region is what draws competitors back – and despite the tough challenges competitors faced in adverse weather conditions last year, Henson is happy to get the chance to try it out. “It is a real wilderness out there, and it will be fantastic to race in,” she said. “There will be a benefit for those teams who have competed before, but because of the environment, the weather and the distance, the race is wide open.”

 

Regenold and his three teammates, members of the adventure group Yoga Slackers, have left their homes for the southernmost place on Earth and will begin the race Feb. 9. Although the course has not been released yet, the 9-day event will most-likely take team Gear Junkie trekking, hiking, kayaking, mountain biking and climbing.

 

The Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race is an annual adventure race which takes place in the southern-most region of the world. Top-ranked international teams compete in spectacularly rugged and climatically diverse terrain in the Chilean Patagonia region located between southern

latitudes 49º and 56º. Extremely physically and mentally challenging, the event test competitors to the limit on bike, kayak and foot as they traverse plains, mountains, glaciers, native forests, swampland, rivers, lakes and channels, guided only by their mind and spirit and driven on by their physical stamina and experience. Past routes have incorporated the Southern Continental Ice Field, the Torres del Paine National Park, the Strait of Magellan, Tierra del Fuego, the Darwin Range, and the Beagle Channel. The race aims to raise awareness of the need to preserve the fragile terrain of Southern Patagonia. The 2010 race passes through a 300,000ha Wildlife Conservation Society conservation area called “Karukinka”, the largest terrain of this kind and one with the very last protected sub-Antarctic forest reserves on earth.

 

Official website: www.patagonianexpeditionrace.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com/Patagonianrace