In the last seven years, he has walked nearly 27,000km that have taken in the wilds of southern Chile, through both American continents and the rugged and desolate terrain of Alaska. He has braved Arctic snowstorms and Panamanian swamps. But Karl Bushby's heroic attempt to complete the first unbroken walk around the world was hanging in the balance on Tuesday.
Bushby, 36, was arrested by the Russian authorities, who will decide whether to send him home to Hull or allow him to continue on the next leg of a journey that still has 30,000km -- and another seven years -- to go.
The UK Foreign Office was urgently trying to help the former paratrooper, who was arrested on Saturday as he crossed the border from Alaska, apparently because he did not have the right papers.
However, Bushby was also carrying a GPS location device and a Colt Magnum .44 pistol, to protect him from polar bears.
The Russian security service, the FSB, detained him and fellow marathon hiker Dimitri Kieffer, a US citizen and expert on the Arctic who was traveling with him. They were apprehended by border guards in the eastern province of Chukotka, which is linked to the western tip of Alaska by the Bering Strait, a hazardous but solid ice floe for most of the year.
They were apparently en route to get their passports stamped after 15 days trudging through an Arctic snowstorm, Andrei Orlov, a spokesman for the FSB's northern border division, told Russian television.
"So far the actions of these tourists is unclear, so to speak, and an investigation is being conducted," he said.
A UK Foreign Office spokesman said: "It seems to be an oversight that he didn't get the correct entry clearance and we hope this is swiftly resolved."
Andy Cooper, a friend and spokesman for what Bushby has called the Goliath expedition, said the men technically faced deportation.
"He's not a spy. He's a guy walking around the world trying to do something no one else has done before," Cooper said.
Cooper admitted the walkers' gun, ammunition, GPS system, video camera and satellite phones would have aroused the suspicion of the Russian authorities.
"They were strongly advised to take a weapon with them, for [protection against] polar bears and all the nasty things that you get lurking on the Bering Strait," he said.
"The GPS was also an absolute life-saver requirement," he added.
He said that he and Bushby's father, Keith, had advised him to "ditch the bloody gun" when he got to Russia as the firearm, bought legally in Alaska, and the GPS system were illegal under Russian law.
Cooper said the men had been pulling 90kg sleighs of supplies, but hit severe weather on the strait.
"If they kept carrying the [sleighs], they would not have made it, so they had to ditch their lifeline and use lightweight backpacks, moving as quickly as they could to Russian soil. It's like running the marathon every day," he said.
Bushby hopes to walk across Russia's 11 time zones, then through Europe, finally getting permission to walk through the service canal of the Channel tunnel to complete his trip back to Hull in northern England.
"There's another seven years ahead of him," Cooper said.
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