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Will Schmidt is an adventure paddler who last year used SUP to highlight the fight against depression. On July 26th, 2014 Will completed his solo challenge to paddle from Canada to Mexico. The journey lasted a total of 61 days with 58 days of actual paddling and Will captured it all on video and camera. Here is his video teaser of the epic journey. We can’t wait to see the full video soon.
Words : Will Schmidt – “In the summer of 2014, I embarked on a largely solo and unassisted stand up paddle journey from Canada to Mexico with nothing but food, important survival items, and enough personal camera equipment to document every moment of it. Over 15 hours of video and photographic footage has emerged as a result of that endeavor and a documentary film is in production with a tentative mid-spring 2015 release date set. There were more than a few instances that I had to decide whether to save myself from impending doom at the hands of a furious ocean…or turn a camera on first! Of course, documentation won that battle most of the time and I have the bumps, bruises, scars, and stories to prove it.
I thought it would be great to provide a short sneak peek into my world before my film and future expeditions unfold. What I have compiled is roughly two minutes of ‘selfies’ from video screenshots along the way. The following images are 100% unedited, unfiltered, raw, real, in the moment, in your FACE reality checks of just what it looks like to attempt modern day oceanic expeditions. The camera capturing these stills was either mounted on my body, my board, or held in a outstretched hand in fairly precarious moments in time.”
Schmidt achieved two firsts for SUP on this epic journey… the first solo and completely unassisted stand up paddler to navigate from Canada to California, and also the first solo and largely unassisted stand up paddler to navigate from Canada to Mexico. During the California coast portion, Schmidt was escorted by land with a safety car however completely solo on the water itself. In addition to the 1386 miles paddled, Schmidt logged an approximate 1.1 million paddle strokes and averaged 3850 calories daily. The median mileage per day topped 28 miles. The farthest distance traveled in a single day was 42 miles. Pretty impressive we recon!
Will Schmidt paddles as a brand ambassador for SIC, Oakley, Nemo Equipment, Carapace Wetsuits, Astral Designs, Black Diamond Equipment, Swiss Barefoot Company, and the Wounded Warrior Project. He continues to seek donations through his crowdfunding site to benefit active duty and veteran US service members suffering from post combat anxiety, depression, PTSD, and traumatic brain injury.
For more information about Will Schmidt and how to donate visit his website here.
I have a kayak company, Paddle NC http://www.paddlenc.com in NC, and I see a lot of veterans from Camp Lejeune. Paddling can do wonders for these guys. I even had a gentleman with PTSD from Vietnam come out on a trip with us last year and paddling was finally freeing him from a lifetime of depression and problems. This is a great cause, keep it up.