Navigate Lesotho

LesothoLesotho
The journey to Lesotho has been nearly two years in the making. Through all the expeditions they've attempted before Ryan and Ryno have never put as much time into recces. "And yet we’ve never felt so unprepared in terms of a route," explains Ryno, who's in charge of route planning and navigation. "There are just too many variables and we have made peace with the fact that many decisions on our kit, navigation, sleep and pace we will have to make on the go."

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Find out more about the challenge

Ryan Sandes explains why the Navigate Lesotho project is one of the most challenging he's undertaken.

Ryan Sandes
“The recces started officially in February 2021,” says Ryno. “But, some of these sections I’ve been scouting for 20 years as part of various adventures in Lesotho and also some of these sections Ryan and I have run before as part of 2014 Grand Traverse.”
What's for sure is that the pair are in for a real adventure. Even through numerous recces over the past 13 months, they've scouted only some 40 percent of the route.
"We also know that is part of the adventure and we back our friendship, our respective skillsets and our experience to build this puzzle as we go along," Ryno says.
Ryan Sandes and Ryno Griesel during an early scouting mission for the Navigate Lesotho project in Lesotho.

Sandes and Griesel during an early scouting mission

© Craig Kolesky/Red Bull Content Pool

Before they started the first recce, Ryno built a rough route on Google Earth. "I basically built it by zooming in and out," he says. "You can't really use normal GPS software like Basecamp because the areas that we go into, like on the far eastern side, are so remote, so you have to use Google Earth to read the lay of the land and the contours and then build a route from there."
Ryan Sandes and Ryno Griesel consult a map on the front of a Land Rover in Lesotho ahead of the Navigate Lesotho project.

Planning, mapping, planning and more mapping

© Craig Kolesky/Red Bull Content Pool

So they had a rough ‘handrail’ that they then used as an outline guide during the recces, which led to various routes on GPS trackers. "We recorded all the section on the recces and then all of that got stitched back together either in Google Earth or GPS software. I then did a non-stop 60-hour sit-down in front of the computer about three weeks ago to plot the route point-by-point," says Ryno.