Ep. 839: Kayaking the Amazon from Source to Sea - Revisited - West Hansen
Adventure Sports Podcast
Curt Linville
4.6 • 579 Ratings
🗓️ 16 June 2022
⏱️ 59 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Originally aired October 21, 2019
West was born and raised in Texas and found his love of water at an early age. He was heavily involved in the water sports scene in Austin for years, organizing cleanups, races, etc. However, it wasn’t until his first trip out of the county, at the age of 46, that West decided to pursue an enormous expedition, paddling the entire length of the Amazon River.
This led West to organize The 2012 National Geographic Amazon Express Expedition, which was his first expedition. It started at the newly discovered/confirmed source of the Amazon, which added almost 100 miles to the river, and after 111 days, they made it to the Atlantic Ocean, 75 miles east of Belem, Brazil.
West is also the first to kayak Europe's longest river 2200 mile Volga River in Russia. In 2020 he and his group will be the first to kayak the entire Northwest Passage - 1,900 miles across the Canadian Arctic Archipelago with the “Arctic Cowboys”.
Check out his new book at the link below!
Insta: @westhansenexpeditions
Documentary: "Peeled Faces on the Amazon: The Story of the Amazon Express."
New Book!: The Amazon From Source to Sea
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Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey folks, welcome to the adventure sports podcast. I'm your host, Mason. |
| 0:25.8 | Today's episode goes back a couple years ago when we talked to West Hanson, the born and raised Texan, who literally kayaked the Amazon River from Source to Sea. |
| 0:36.5 | And when I say Source, I mean a trickle of water in the Andes Mountains where they walked for days because there was, you know, the water they were following wasn't even big enough to paddle. |
| 0:49.1 | So it took miles and miles and miles days until they got to water big enough to paddle. |
| 0:54.5 | And then it was thousands of miles to the sea, which I mean, the Amazon River, gosh, crazy. |
| 1:03.1 | Longest or second longest river in the world, depending on how you define it compared to the Nile, |
| 1:08.0 | but very, very long expedition. |
| 1:10.4 | And West has done things all over the world with National Geographic. Yeah. compared to the Nile, but very, very long expedition. |
| 1:13.8 | And Wes has done things all over the world with National Geographic, |
| 1:19.6 | has a crazy idea to paddle the Northwest Passage across the Canadian Arctic. |
| 1:21.5 | It's done a lot of cool things. |
| 1:22.5 | This was a great episode. |
| 1:23.4 | I really enjoyed it. |
| 1:24.8 | Wes is a great storyteller. |
| 1:28.2 | There's a documentary about this experience. You can find that in the show notes as well as a book. So without further ado, let's just go ahead and jump in. |
| 1:44.0 | Where are you coming from today? |
| 1:45.4 | Where is home for you? |
| 1:46.6 | I'm in Austin, Texas. |
| 1:48.1 | Okay. |
| 1:48.5 | Is that where you're from? |
| 1:50.8 | From League City, Texas, which is in between Houston and Galveston. |
| 1:54.0 | But I went to college up here in the Hill Country at Southwest Texas State University. |
... |
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