For the past few weeks it’s been all about hula hooping, extinct volcanoes and world records here at HOOP. The reason is simple – we want to raise $10,000. We’re doing this by climbing Chachani, a 6057m high extinct volcano and hula hooping at the top to (hopefully) break the world record in high altitude hula hooping. A month into our challenge a lot has happened, so our campaign leader and comms intern Elise decided to catch up with two of the committed volunteers doing the challenge.
We caught up first with expedition leader, Julie Bergaust (22), to find out how the preparations are going. “We’ve had some really exciting weeks getting ready for this amazing challenge. We started the fundraising with a boom, and we are incredibly happy that people are on board with what we are doing. But the reality of the challenge has dawned on us, and several team members (including myself) realized early on that both our fitness and hula hooping skills need serious work. So we all caught the combi to Yura last Sunday for a practice hike to the Kaupa waterfalls. Breathing heavily after walking for about 10 seconds uphill at around 2000m in altitude was definitely a big wake-up call (in case you forgot, Chachani is at 6000m!). We need to hula hoop for at least 30 seconds for it to be legit, and with the low oxygen level, altitude and also the wind at the top of Chachani we have enough challenges on our hands”.
Luckily for the team, we have the ever-upbeat and energetic Charlotte Price (19) as our hula hooping coach. So what does Charlotte think of our progress so far?: “Training has been going well – we made some quick progress at the start in both fitness and hula hooping skills. Now the danger is that we could get complacent as the newness and excitement of the challenge starts to wear off. So we really need to make sure we don’t lose sight of our goal – and the fact that in just over a month we will be doing the climb for real.”
So it sounds like hula training is going well, but the team has started to realize that they’ve signed up to a seriously challenging expedition. The other huge challenge, of course, is our $10,000 fundraising target. Thanks to the incredible and generous donations we’ve had so far, we are more than three quarters of the way toward our goal. You can help us get the rest of the way there by donating at our fundraiser page: https://igg.me/at/VYGmrxQcT74
Words and photos by Elise Fjordbakk