Kelsey Pfendler: A River Guide’s Journey to a Solo Pacific Crossing

For most people, rowing across the Pacific Ocean solo sounds unimaginable. For Kelsey Pfendler, a Grand Canyon River guide, it feels like the natural next step in a lifetime spent chasing wild water. This Women’s History Month, we’re celebrating athletes who push the boundaries of what’s possible and her journey is a powerful reminder that those boundaries are often meant to be tested. 

If successful, Kelsey will become just the third woman ever to row solo to Hawaii from California, navigating thousands of miles of open ocean with nothing but her boat, her preparation, and her resolve. She will begin this mission in May 2026. But her story didn’t begin in the middle of the Pacific. It began on a whitewater rafting trip. 

Kelsey’s path into adventure sports started with a birthday gift. When she turned 18, her mother took her on a whitewater rafting trip in the Adirondacks. The experience sparked something immediately. She says, “I loved it so much that as soon as the trip ended, I cornered one of the guides and asked how I could become one too.” 

The answer was simple: show up and work. So, she did. She spent the rest of the summer volunteering hours on the river until she qualified for her New York State guide’s license. Once she started guiding, she never stopped. 

Kelsey had always loved the water, swimming competitively as a kid, but whitewater felt different. “When I found whitewater, it felt like coming home.” Eventually that path led her to the Grand Canyon, where she spent the last decade guiding multi-day river expeditions through one of the most iconic landscapes in the world. 

A full Grand Canyon trip means rowing more than 300 miles through massive rapids, quiet stretches of desert beauty, and relentless headwinds. In many ways, it’s the perfect training ground for ocean rowing. But the most important lesson the river taught her wasn’t technical. It was humility. “You learn very quickly that you’re not in control,” Kelsey says. “You can prepare, make thoughtful inputs, and work with the river, but in the end, the river has the final say.” The ocean, she would later discover, operates the same way. 

When she reflects on her life, a pattern emerges. “Most of my life has been spent finding new ways to be on a boat in the middle of nowhere.” There wasn’t one defining moment that shaped this path. Instead, it has always felt like a quiet pull. The wilderness has become the place where she feels most grounded. Kelsey says, “It’s where I’ve learned the most about who I am and who I want to become.” 

Sitting in a small boat surrounded by vast landscapes, whether canyon walls or open ocean, creates a sense of perspective that’s hard to find anywhere else. And eventually, that calling led her to a new kind of challenge. 

The idea of rowing across an ocean arrived unexpectedly. In 2019, Kelsey and her partner Carlos were sailing from Spain to the Caribbean when they encountered a team rowing across the Atlantic. The simplicity of it captured her imagination. “There was something about the audacity of it,” she recalls. “Just a small boat, a massive ocean, and a team committed to a dream.” A year later, she watched a women’s team set a speed record rowing across the Mid-Pacific. 

Seeing what those athletes accomplished changed something. “That’s when it clicked for me.” Kelsey knew she wanted to try it herself. 

Kelsey’s first ocean rowing expedition was a four-person Mid-Pacific crossing, an experience that tested every part of her preparation. For two years, the team worked tirelessly to reach the start line. There were fundraising challenges, logistical hurdles, and one major obstacle: four months before launch, she had to completely rebuild their boat after it arrived in far worse condition than expected. 

By the time they pushed off the dock, they had already fought so hard to get there that quitting was never an option. But the ocean didn’t make things easy. The first three weeks brought towering waves, freezing temperatures, sleep deprivation, and eventually a capsize. “I even lost my only pair of shoes in the first week and rowed the rest of the ocean in socks,” Kelsey says. 

But there were moments of magic, too. A family of humpback whales followed their boat for two days as they left Monterey. Sunrises after the hardest night shifts brought unexpected bursts of energy. And surviving the capsize together strengthened the bond between teammates who had already become close friends. 

By the time Kelsey and her team reached the halfway point of that first crossing, something surprising happened. She realized she wasn’t ready for the journey to end. “I was already mourning the fact that it would eventually be over.” Months later, the idea of another expedition began to take shape. But this time, Kelsey couldn’t find a team preparing for another crossing. So, she began considering something far more daunting. A solo row. 

She soon learned that no American woman had ever rowed the Mid-Pacific solo. The question that followed was simple. Why not try it? “At some point I asked myself, ‘Why not me?’” 

Ocean rowing remains a male-dominated sport. Very few women attempt crossings, and even fewer attempt them alone. That reality often creates additional barriers, from fundraising challenges to subtle doubts about capability. “In these spaces, it can feel like you have to prove you belong,” Kelsey says. But she has learned that confidence is not optional. “The ocean doesn’t care whether you’re a man or a woman. It responds to skill, preparation, and resilience.” And those are qualities she has spent years building. 

Like many athletes, Kelsey has drawn inspiration from women who came before her. One of the most legendary figures in Grand Canyon history is Georgie White, a boatman who defied expectations in an era when women were rarely welcomed on the river. Instead of accepting those limitations, White started her own company and carved out her own place in whitewater history. “She wore leopard print religiously and took no sass,” Kelsey says with admiration. 

To Kelsey, that spirit represents something powerful: being unapologetically yourself in spaces that weren’t originally built for you. She also credits the women in her own life, her teammates, her mentors, and her mother, for shaping the person she has become. “I stand on the shoulders of strong women past and present.” 

Preparing for a solo ocean row requires far more than physical training. Kelsey’s preparation includes long hours of rowing, strength training, and mobility work—but also navigation study, mechanical skills and endless logistical planning. She’ll row up to 16 hours per day, eat more than 4,000 calories, and produce fresh drinking water using a desalinator. 

Every decision matters, from wind and current patterns to equipment placement on the boat. Small improvements can mean the difference between success and failure across thousands of miles. 

Kelsey’s ultimate goal for the crossing is simple, but powerful. To test the limits of what she can do. To inspire others to chase goals that feel intimidating. And to create a benchmark that the next woman will eventually surpass. “If I’m fortunate enough to set a new record,” she says, “I hope someone else comes along and breaks it.” Because that’s how progress happens. Each generation pushes a little further. 

This Women’s History Month, Kelsey’s story is a reminder that the history of women in sport is still unfolding. It’s being written by athletes who are willing to ask bold questions. Who are willing to take risks. And who are willing to push their boats—literally and figuratively, into uncharted water. 

For Kelsey, the motivation remains simple. She’s just continuing a lifelong pattern. Finding new ways to be on a boat in the middle of nowhere. And seeing how far that journey can go. 

Want to follow Kelsey Pfendler for her crossing? Follow her on her journey here: https://my.yb.tl/solocatohawaii 

Learn more about Kelsey and her upcoming adventure at YouRowKelsey.com as well as on Instagram at @YouRowKelsey. If you would like to help support Kelsey’s Mid-Pacific row, you can do so here.