DOWNTOWN — Yannick Chaigneau met his girlfriend Shirley Lam while rock climbing at Joshua Tree National Park seven years ago. On their first date, they went on a night run on the Mount Wilson Trail in the San Gabriel Mountains.
“We started at 7 p.m. on a rainy evening, jogged all the way to the summit and down … . It was 2 a.m. [when we finished]. It was a weekday, and I said, ‘That girl is for me,’” said Chaigneau, 35, who has since climbed the highest peak in North America, Europe and South Africa with Lam.
The couple, which resides in Santa Monica when not traveling, is currently on an 18-month expedition from Juneau, Alaska to Ushuaia, Argentina — largely regarded as the southernmost city in the world — traveling only by kayaking, hiking and biking.
“Our [weekend] trips just kept getting bigger and bigger,” said Lam, 31, who was working toward a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology at Claremont Graduate University when they left. “Vacations were never long enough.”
The couple’s commitment runs deep.
“At this time, I am technically homeless, jobless and I just sold my car [recently],” said Chaigneau, a former engineer at SolidWorks Corporation in Santa Monica. “So, I’m all in right now.”
In April 2010, they bought a one-way ticket to Juneau.
“We considered [settling down] like everybody else,” Chaigneau said. “If we had gotten married and had kids, I probably would have regretted all our lives not doing this … . We said it’s now or never.”
The first leg of the trip consisted of 2.5 months of kayaking through the Inside Passage, a coastal route that passes through Alaska, Canada and Washington. Most people kayak the route northbound; however, the couple decided to go against the current, paddling southbound the entire way.
One sunny morning two weeks after starting the trip, the couple decided to take a break and removed their dry suits, a decision that proved to be a near fatal mistake. Within 10 minutes of them being back on the water, they were hit by 6-foot waves. Fearing their tandem kayak would flip over and leave them swimming in frigid waters without any protection, the two decided to continue paddling until they could find another landing.
“After several hours of effort, we landed safely,” said Chaigneau, who remembers thinking more about comfort than safety when he took off his wet suit. “We’re never making that mistake again.”
The lesson was learned by both adventurers.
“We pulled up the boat, went under some trees … built a fire … and sat there for six hours staring at it, eating peanut butter and Nutella,” Lam said.
Chaigneau and Lam finished the first part of their journey on a beach near Seattle on June 17, completing 1,200 miles in 70 days, with Yannick losing 5 pounds in the process. After taking a two-week break to recharge, the couple began the 2,700-mile hike along the Pacific Crest Trail, encountering both physical and emotional challenges.
“It’s hard. The commercial says it’s a trip of a lifetime,” Chaigneau said. “But the commercial doesn’t say that it’s tough mentally … . if you want to make it all the way you’re going to need determination.”
The couple, which pays for food and supplies with their savings, do not stay in hotels. They live on $750 a month, relying on tents and packing everything they need —a GPS tracking device, cell phone and a week’s worth of food — in their backpacks.
“I know what hunger feels like. We’re not talking about one meal … . It’s just the repetitiveness of starving,” said Chaigneau, who admits fighting with Lam when food supplies were low. “We say those fights aren’t us. It’s the situation that puts us in that mode.”
Those dust ups usually have a way of working themselves out.
“Whenever we hit a really low point … we just have to give it time to turn it around,” Lam said. “Two weeks was our time frame. If we’re hating it for two whole weeks, then we can say we give up.”
Currently, the two don’t have plans to stop yet. They’ve completed two-thirds of the trip, and are staying with Lam’s parents in Baldwin Park until they receive their new passports before setting off on bicycle through Central and South America. During the last leg of their trip, they hope to raise $20,000 for MedShare, a nonprofit organization that donates surplus medical supplies to developing countries. The amount is enough money to ship about $500,000 worth of supplies, Chaigneau said.
“Along the way as we talked to more and more people, it became more clear that it was something we could do,” said Lam, who was inspired by a fellow adventurer they had met who also fundraised for MedShare. Although, both expect to finish on time, they remain unsure about whether or not they’d do it again.
“Either we like it very much — professional adventurers can be our job — or we can get so sick of that and go back to our professional lives and go back to [being] weekend warriors,” Chaigneau said.
To check out their blog and donate to MedShare go to www.travelpod.com/travel-blog/hobos/1/tpod.html.
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