Running solo across Death Valley with Ray Zahab

Explore: A Canadian Geographic podcast

I’m thrilled to have Ray Zahab back on Explore. Many of you know Ray as an extreme adventurer, Royal Canadian Geographical Society Explorer-in-Residence and friend of this podcast.

Ray joins me to talk about his gruelling solo run across one of the hottest places on earth, Death Valley, California during a record breaking heatwave this summer. The last time we talked, in spring 2023, he was heading off to Death Valley. He had just completed chemotherapy for a rare form of blood cancer, during which he somehow managed to fit in a trek across Baffin Island between chemo sessions, in the depths of winter. That’s a great conversation, check it out if you haven’t already. The Death Valley trip that followed wasn’t completed last year for some dramatic reasons Ray gets into in our talk. So, in true Ray fashion, he tried again. In July, he ran across Death Valley from its highest peak down to Badwater Basin — the lowest point in North America — over some incredibly tough terrain, with temperatures well above 50 degrees Celsius, 120 Fahrenheit.

For those of you who don’t know Ray, his list of accomplishments are long. He set the land speed record for reaching the south pole in Antarctica on foot. He spent three months running right across the Sahara desert during the peak of summer. He has trekked unsupported in winter in the Canadian Arctic, Siberia and Kamchatka. He has run across the Gobi Desert in China and the length of the Atacama Desert in Chile. And he leads youth adventure program Impossible 2 Possible, giving children from around the world the opportunity to experience nature up close at no cost.