SACKVILLE, N.B. – Alex Whynot and Gregory MacNeil are training for the hike of their lives.
“It’s gonna be hot and it’s gonna be cold and it’s gonna be grueling,” said Whynot, a graduate of Mount Allison University.
“I hope I am going to be physically prepared for it, when we get there but it should be a good challenge,” said MacNeil, a current Mount Allison student.
In just over a month, the pair and a team of students and staff from the university will set out to hike the Arizona Grand Canyon and raise money for the Terry Fox Foundation.
The idea was born in Whynot’s heart four years ago.
“My father was actually a brain tumor patient,” he said.
“And I had a girlfriend when I was younger who lost her mother to cancer and that has really driven me as an advocate for cancer research.”
Past treks were held in Cape Breton Highlands National Park, Newfoundland’s Gros Morne National Park, and the White Mountains National Forest in New Hampshire. Those hikes raised nearly $25,000 for the Fox Foundation.
But taking on the Grand Canyon will be their biggest challenge yet.
Whynot says the team will essentially be hiking two and a half marathons in three days.
“We are looking at weather gradients of five degrees at the top of the Canyon to possibly 30 degrees at the bottom of the canyon,” he said.
Just the thought of it is a little overwhelming for Carolle de Ste-Croix. The staffer at Mount Allison will join the team for the first time this spring, in memory of a friend.
“I am doing this for a very good friend of mine who is not with us anymore,” she said. “Cancer got her when we both turned 40 and I think of her every day and I think of her children and for me this is my way of kinda of honoring her.”
The three say this will be the toughest hike of their lives.
But MacNeil says suffering through painful blisters and exhaustion will be worth it in the end to support a worthy cause.
“I think at the end of the day it will be one of the best experiences in my life so far.”
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