Lina Augaitis stand-up paddle boards Yukon River

Lina Augaitis is out for adventure.

Lina Augaitis is out for adventure.

Stand-up paddle boarding the Yukon River was only the next step in her life-long quest to challenge herself and inspire others.

The Vancouver school teacher and her partner Andrew Dye, who rode along in kayak, left Whitehorse for their latest adventure on June 27, two days before the Yukon River Quest.

The Vancouver couple arrived in Dawson City on July 3.

“I’m just trying to explore my limits,” Augaitis said. “And it’s really cool to do it with your partner, something like that. I feel like we definitely had difficult moments, but then the good moments are amazing, and it brings us that much closer together.”

They must be really close, according to the blog Augaitis writes – http://linaaugaitis.blogspot.com/ – detailing their adventures.

Prior to hitting the Yukon River, the two won first in the two-person team at the 24 Hours of Light Mountain Bike Festival.

But the Yukon River is a whole other beast.

The pair met cross-winds on Lake Laberge early in the trip, forcing her to lie on her board at times, before stopping for the night on a beach in a cove.

The following day greeted them with agreeable tailwinds which helped bring the two back to the river.

“Definitely the hardest part was the lake (Lake Laberge),” Augaitis said. “Whenever you break on the river, it’s kind of nice that you’re still moving forward. You have a little snack on the boat. You’re still getting to your destination; whereas on the lake it was sometimes demoralizing.”

But that feeling didn’t last too long.

After stopping at the Coal Mine Campground, the first mandatory stop for the River Quest, Augaitis and Dye had some company on the river.

But not before they had to navigate Five Finger Rapids.

That and Lake Laberge were the real wild cards, Dye said.

“I feel like there was a lot of unknowns coming into this; it’s like you never really run a rapids on a stand-up paddle board before,” he said to Augaitis. “So we’re paddling into this thing – we don’t really know how it’s going to end – it looks OK, we think it should work.”

It did.

At roughly 8 p.m., Augaitis and Dye were joined by the Texans, the voyageur canoe team which won the Yukon River Quest in a time of 42 hours, 17 minutes.

Augaitis said that extra company on the river helped alleviate any boredom.

“I didn’t suffer physically, but it’s a long way, and some parts are quite monotonous,” she said.

“It’s flat water and the scenery doesn’t change for a while, and so it’s one of those things, and I’m sure the (River Quest) racers would say that too, it’s very mental, to keep yourself motivated, to keep yourself excited and understand why you’re doing it,” she said.

Dye agreed.

“A lot of them (Yukon River Quest competitors) had heard about us, and obviously we knew what they were doing, and we’d encourage each other. It was pretty fun to run across other people on the river. We were trying to figure out when the Texan team would catch us, because we knew they were behind us, and we knew they were fast.”

During their journey between seeing the Texans and eventually Dawson, River Quest paddlers very gradually caught up to the duo and passed them.

On Friday night, they camped just passed Kirkman Creek, the final mandatory layover for the River Quest.

Then, on July 3, Dawson City. Finally.

“It’s like a sigh feeling,” Augaitis said of seeing the finish. “Like yes. I felt really happy.”

Dye added that finishing was a strange feeling mainly because it meant a change in schedule.

“It took a while for it to sink in that we had finished and we weren’t just stopping for a break. It was like, ‘We don’t get back on the river now, we’re done.’ We were on the river for 5 1/2 days, and you get into this routine: you get up, you paddle, you eat, you paddle, you sleep, you paddle.”

That schedule can take its toll.

But paddling the river gave Augaitis ideas for future adventures.

“I might be done with this river. But I might not. When we came into Dawson we met a couple other race organizers who came up to me saying they’d let me paddle that river in their races,” she said referring to the Yukon 360 Canoe and Kayak Race.

“So I can’t say I’m done with it. But it’s spurred me to explore other rivers for sure.”