South-North Crossing of the Saudi Empty Quarter (Rub Al Khal

[knightkyle]

On 30 January 2017 myself and desert running partner will attempt to run/hike/walk/crawl from close (but not too close) to the Yemeni/Saudi/Omani boarder to the Saudi/UAE boarder through the largest and most formidable sand desert in the world.  I have attached a map.  I know that others have crossed by camel (i.e Wilfred Thesiger or H. Saint John Philby) or vehicle but I am unaware of anyone that has done this S-N crossing through the heart of the desert only on foot.  There are others that have gone from East-West i.e. from Salalah to Doha on foot (Bertram Thomas / Omani Sheikh Salih bin Kalut Al Rashidi al Kathiri / Mark Evans / Mohammed al-Zadjali / Amour bin Ali bin Majeed Al Wahaibi) or around the heart of the dunes via Oman / UAE (Alastair Humphreys / Leon McCarron / Alex Harris / Marco Broccardo / David Joyce / Young-Ho Nam / Agustin Arroyo Bezanilla / Si-Woo Leebut) in my opinion a South/North crossing is the hardest because it is a continual crossing of the repeated 300m + sand dunes that run South/North.  Please correct me if there is anyone else known who has done it - if not, this would be the first crossing South/North through the heart of the Rub Al Khali on foot. 

We estimate this to be 500km but will invariably be more/less depending on the tracks through the sand.  We hope that it will not take more than 14 days.  This, of course, will need to be a supported endeavour as we would quickly run out of water in the 40+C degree heat.

Here is a facebook link that will have the Spot tracking and updates (this text updated on 16.12.17).

Am I missing anything?  Many thanks and hope this inspires others!





We aim to start on 2 Jan 2018. Here is the spot link (updated on 31.12.17).

share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=00JeoJLYk8xdG6kqx9GZCbugcRg5EbSLt

[knightkyle]

We did it! Here is the garmin link showing our route:

connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/2435852915#.WlxIq02q7eQ.email

We were delayed at the start due to one road being closed along the Yemen boarder that we planned to use to access the start. Therefore we only had 10 days. We started on January 4 2018 at 8:14 am Saudi time and finished at 9:13pm Saudi time on 13 January 2018. Therefore it took us 9 days, 12 hours, 59 minutes to cross 300 km with 5,791m of elevation gain.

[knightkyle]

Here is a newspaper article about the crossing as written in my running partner’s local press:

thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/1538336-demont-empty-quarter-calls-to-long-distance-runners