Karen Darke is an extraordinary human being, and a woman who has touched the lives of many through her spirit for adventure. A keen runner and mountaineer, she was paralysed in a rock-climbing accident on a Scottish sea cliff at the age of twenty-one. Facing a life in a wheelchair, Karen chose to fight preconceived ideas of just what was possible for someone who could feel nothing below their chest.
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The US magazine ‘Climbing’ once described Andy as a climber with a strange penchant for the long, the cold and the difficult, with a reputation for seeking out routes where the danger is real, and the return is questionable, pushing himself on some of the hardest walls and faces in the Alps and beyond, sometimes with partners and sometimes alone.
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Simon Darke is Karen’s younger brother. Also with adventurous and cycling genes, Simon is accustomed to arduous long journeys, though has no real experience in polar regions. He rode the UK’s Lands End to John O’Groats at age 16, (965 miles in 8 days), went on to be coached as part of the Yorkshire road cycling team before becoming a sponsored mountain bike rider with Team Orange and then was selected to represent Great Britain at Mountain Bike World Championship level.
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Mike Christie has known Karen since they were fellow triathletes at Aberdeen University. Mike is an accomplished sportsman, having competed at national level in endurance triathlon/adventure races and kayaking. He is also an accomplished adventurer, having led ski mountaineering and Alpine climbing expeditions in Norway, the Alps, and the Rockies. Currently, he spends his weekends mountain biking and kite surfing which are available on his doorstep at home in west Wales.
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