Alumnus to embark on a 400-day trip that will take him across an ocean and through three countries

Chris Crane took a quarter off from schooling at UCLA to climb Mount Everest. He made it to within 5,000 feet of the peak.

Now the 2010 alumnus, who wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with his aerospace engineering degree after graduation, is quitting his job and closing up the lease to his apartment to put his life on hold again.

This time, it’s for a four-part trip that will span 400 days, one ocean and three North American countries. In December, Crane and a team with the nonprofit group Epoch Expeditions will begin a 10,000-mile journey that will include rowing across the Atlantic and biking from Mexico to Alaska.

Crane, a relaxed 24-year-old, said his past outdoor experiences have equipped him for the journey.

“This (trip) is still a far reach, but (my past) qualifies me to be crazy enough to even think this is a good idea. That’s probably not a normal response,” Crane said.

The expedition will begin off the coast of Spain in the Canary Islands. From there, the team will row to Barbados in the Caribbean. Then it will bike from Mexico to Alaska, a stretch of roughly 3,500 miles, before kayaking from Skagway, Alaska.

The trip then turns back down to Washington. They’ll finish off the trip on land, by hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, all the way back down to Mexico.

By a series of luck and coincidence, which included an email loop through friends, Crane got the opportunity to join the four-person Epoch Expeditions team when another member dropped out. The expedition team had been preparing for the voyage for nine months.

Crane has been preparing for a month and a half.

But despite his late addition to the team, Crane is not lagging behind his teammates.

“He would call me saying he’s rowing 26 miles a day, and it was kind of frustrating because I had been training for months and he was outdoing me,” said his teammate Sonya Blumstein, with a laugh.

Crane’s four years of experience with the UCLA rowing team made him an ideal candidate for the trip, said Blumstein, who is also the founder and CEO of Epoch Expeditions.

“His rowing at UCLA made it so that he can easily step into the role where he’s rowing 26 miles a day,” Blumstein said. “If he had not rowed, there’d be no way he could do this.”

Crane has been using indoor rowing machines for at least two hours a day to prepare for the trip. His connections with the UCLA rowing team have allowed him to use its boats for his training.

Crane said the leg slides from rowing will also help with the bicycling section of the trip. He also started lifting weights regularly to bulk up.

He needs the extra muscle because the constant exercise will make him lose 20 pounds of fat and muscle by the end of the trip, Crane said.

But despite his training and qualification for the journey, Crane said he realized how difficult the trip would be two weeks ago when he rowed a 24-hour cycle with the team for the first time.

Crane has found a support system from people who have also completed the trek across the Atlantic. It’s a small community of 147 people, but those he contacted were able to give him advice for the crossing, Crane said.

Despite the grandeur of this trip, Crane is no stranger to exploring huge natural landmarks. Inheriting a love of mountaineering from his father, Crane has climbed 14,000-foot mountains in the Sierras and backpacked through the Andes mountains in Peru.

His father Adrian Crane, who has done some big expeditions himself, said he felt a mixture of envy, worry and surprise when he found out about Chris’ trip. The elder Crane once trekked around the entire United States for three months, climbing the highest peak in each state.

“I didn’t think he’d ever go on such a huge expedition, and it’s impressive and interesting and exciting that he is,” Adrian Crane said.

Chris Crane said he’ll finally one-up his adventuring father with this trip. He added that his mother is probably more worried, but that she’s become used to him and his father going off on these trips for months at a time.

His father has talked about joining him for the biking and kayaking sections, Crane said.

Adrian Crane also said he’s interested to see what Chris will learn about himself during the trip.

“One of the most important things about doing things like this is that it changes your perspective of daily life because you learn a completely different lifestyle,” Adrian Crane said. “It’s completely different than anyone back here knows.”

After the trip, Chris Crane said he plans to stay on as a full member of the Epoch Expeditions team.