GRAND CANYON 2008

This Challenge was one of my Seven Challenges in Seven Continents after the age of Seventy: but in my enthusiasm, I'd overlooked the fact that people would soon get in to Sponsorship Fatigue. I completed the 100kms of the Sahara in March 2007, a great experience: I'd earmarked the Grand Canyon for September 2007.

It's necessary to book accomodation at the North Rim for two nights, leaving a day in between to acclimatise. We needed two or three cabins. Unfortunately, I'd not imagined that every cabin would be totally booked months ahead: and the nearest town to the Grand Canyon, also booked, was fifty miles away!

Without this base, it's very difficult!

I sat and thought, and realised that the trek was the basis for publicising Myfanwy's Charity and our aims to find a cure, raise awareness and make diagnosis more readily available: so publicity was paramount, and four months was insufficient time. I'd miscalculated badly.

I've postponed the trek for a year: I can book accomodation thirteen months ahead, apparently, and this will be done. A commemorative postcard will be designed to accompany the trek, and then I will spend the best part of a year publicising what we're doing. I've already got 163 sponsors, donating £226.00: they'll be the basis for my target of setting a new record for Most Sponsors for One Person for One Event, currently 10,000. I'll also design a page on Just Giving to accompany the bulk sponsor forms, which will be amended by our website manager very shortly to read 2008. I aim to smash this record of 10,000 completely, raise an enormous amount of money to sponsor an entire practical research project, and get massive media attention to publicise the increasing dangers of malignant melanoma, one of the Diseases of the 21st Century. It's all about publicising the dangers of this disease, and making people far more aware: as you know, we've just donated £20,000 to fund a specialist skin cancer nurse at Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, where a new MASCU (Melanoma and Skin Cancer Unit) has been set up that will serve four million people and the whole of the south east. It would be great if we not only raised an enormous amount of money, but were the catalyst for many more units like this nationwide. So, perhaps my planning error was for the best, after all!

I'm ashamed that it took me so long to each these conclusions: but my diary of this event will be started very soon and will chart our progress.

I hope that you will give me your support: I'm just sorry that I let you down by bad miscalculations.

The crossing of the Grand Canyon from rim to rim non-stop is the greatest Challenge that I know: much harder and far more demanding than any marathon (and I've run a few, not just London, but also Death Valley and Nanisivik, 480 miles north of the Arctic Circle).

It's a tough Challenge, 24 miles in total, with a 13,000ft total climb and descent at an overall 1 in 9 gradient in temperatures often far in excess of 100F in one of the harshest yet majestically scenic areas of the world. You descend from the  North Rim at 9,000ft to the Colorado River at 2,000ft, where the temperature ranges from 100F to 130F. The climb through The Furnace (even hotter) leads to the forty switchbacks of Jacob's Ladder: near the South Rim, at 8,000ft, the trail ascends more than 1,200ft in a mile!

I've trekked the Grand Canyon before, in 2002, as you'll see under Fund Raising Events: five years on, we're doing it AGAIN to raise money for Myfanwy's Charity because it is the toughest and mind blowing Challenge that I know. But this time, it will be our BIGGEST EVER fundraiser Last time, we raised only £4,000: and that's because we paid our own way! This time, we intend to raise sponsors throughout Britain and the USA. Money raised in the USA will stay in the USA: money raised in Britain stays in Britain. But sponsor NAMES remain on MY list, because I aim to set a new record for MOST SPONSORS for ONE EVENT: currently, 10,000 set up by Dave Campos when he beat the World Absolute Speed Record on his motorbike in 1990.

So our REAL target is not just 10,001, but far far more: something really spectacular (like100,001!), would mean that more and more people will realise that malignant melanoma is one of the Diseases of the 21st century, doubling in incidence every ten years. Even worse news is the fact that there's no guaranteed cure.

We aim to fund practical research, raise awareness and make diagnosis more readily available: and the support from this trek will enable this.

The date of the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim Challenge will be in mid September 2008 (the exact date will be announced at the end of January): I hope that lots of supporters will come on board, and either print off and complete Sponsor Forms (again, to be available for downloading in late January) or donate through Just Giving, and that one or two of you might even wish to keep me company on the trek. Let me know if you want to lend your support in any way: and from now on I'll be adding my diary below. You can see what the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim crossing is like from the brief record of my 2002 crossing with my friends Ted, Jimmy, Carol, Gary and Malcolm.

We also need support from industry and airlines, press, television, radio, sports clubs: again, if you can help us with such links, please e-mail me  at harry@melanoma-fund.co.uk or telephone 01342 322508 We've got nine months to make a mega impression world wide: and to fund research and awareness. Melanoma Awareness Week June 16th to 24th will help

We'll also be producing a postcard: another unique item of philatelic memorabilia