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TAR Canada 1: Contestants - Kristen Idiens and Darren Trapp - Dating Couple
walkingpneumonia:
TAR Canada Contestants - Kristen Idiens and Darren Trapp: Dating No Spoilers Please!
Kristen Idiens
Age: 32 (Feb. 21, 1981)
Nickname: K
Occupation: Outdoor Adventure Guide
Hometown: Fairmont Hot Springs, BC
Place of Birth: Toronto, ON
Couldn’t live without: Nature
Good luck charm: Pine cone
Strengths: Identifying plants, making people smile, teaching, handling reptiles, basketball
Fears/Phobias: Heights, cliffs, eating strange animals
Favourite travel destination: Any place off the beaten path
Darren Trapp
Age: 26 (April 20, 1987)
Nickname: D-Ron
Occupation: White-Water Raft Guide, Lifeguard
Hometown: Fairmont Hot Springs, BC
Place of Birth: Bassano, AB
Couldn’t live without: Chocolate hazelnut spread
Strengths: Rafting, guiding, playing guitar, running, driving, navigating
Fears/Phobias: Spiders, eating living things, swimming in deep water when I can’t see what’s beneath me (even though I’m a lifeguard!)
Favourite travel destination: A road trip anywhere there are roads
TEAM BIO
Friends describe this adventurous duo as equally dorky and very cute, super supportive, and always challenging each other to reach new levels. They share a passion for positive thinking and a love of all living things, but they also know how to compete. These world travellers also share an affinity for sustainable living.
As avid outdoor enthusiasts, Kristen and Darren keep in top physical condition, complemented by their well rounded and worldly intelligence. Kristen knew they’d be a real threat on THE AMAZING RACE CANADA, as she explains that “Every obstacle, every experience good and bad, have helped us learn new lessons.” “Darren is pretty detail oriented,” says Kristen, while he describes her as “The most selfless person...she is up for anything. She is incredibly motivated and ACTUALLY can do anything she sets her mind to!”
Kristen was an MVP basketball player in her scholastic years and can make her own clothes, while Darren is extremely resourceful on little to no money.
Motto: “We believe strongly in equity for all living creatures and creating our own realities through positive thinking and sharing love everywhere we go.”
How will they plan to win The Race: “Using our fitness level, logic, resourcefulness, and maintaining a positive attitude towards each challenge.”
Number one roadblock as team: “Remembering to use our differences to our advantage instead of getting frustrated with each other.”
READ MORE: World travellers and outdoor enthusiasts Kristen and Darren ready for anything 'The Amazing Race Canada' can throw at them
walkingpneumonia:
Team photos
georgiapeach:
Amazing Race Canada hippies show competitive side
The team from Alaska is here,” the Amazing Race Canada production assistant called into his radio, momentarily confusing Fairmont, B.C., with Fairmont, Alaska.
If Kristen Idiens and Darren Trapp minded, they didn't let it show.
Idiens and Trapp are identified in Amazing Race argot as Dating Couple, but their other Amazing Race tag, The Hippies, has stuck — in part because of their look, and in part because of their unconventional lifestyle.
Idiens and Trapp, whitewater river guides who call Fairmont Hot Springs home in B.C., not Alaska are determined to live off the grid. They use recycled materials for building homes, so-called Earth Ships. They have travelled the world, doing volunteer work in Africa while promoting a sustainable lifestyle. They’re into yoga — not that there’is anything wrong with that and, at this early stage in the Race, were determined to stay mellow and not let the TV cameras and constantly crackling radios harsh their buzz.
Their mantra may be, “We believe in equity for all living creatures and creating our own realities, through positive thinking and sharing love everywhere we go but sharing love does not extend to saying, You go first, when it comes to The Amazing Race Canada.
They may be determined to live off the grid, but that doesn't make them technophobes: Their Twitter handle is @KristenDarrenBC; their hash tag is #kristenanddarren.
At the pit stop of the second leg of the Race, they were optimistic about the road ahead, “using our fitness level, logic, resourcefulness and maintaining a positive attitude toward each challenge.”
The Amazing Race prize if they win is $250,000 in cash, the opportunity to fly free for a year anywhere Air Canada flies worldwide — in Executive First Class, no less and a pair of Chevrolet Corvette Stingrays. It’s hard to imagine hippies flying first class, let alone burning rubber in a Chevy Stingray, but that’s what altruism and friends are for.
Idiens is serious about living off the grid, despite the optics of competing in The Amazing Race.
“It takes a little effort and some planning, but it can be done,”she said, and laughed at the irony of promoting a green, sustainable lifestyle while competing in a summer TV reality show.
“I found out about it through her,” Trapp said, gesturing toward Idiens. “She dragged me into this.”
“I don’t know how I found out about it,” Idiens said, for her part. “I think I just saw it online, to be honest.”
Welcome to TV in the modern age, where river guides determined to live off the grid learn about a reality TV show by surfing online and deciding to dive in.
Idiens first learned of The Amazing Race while living overseas, in Mongolia, when she stumbled across Amazing Race Asia with her roommate one night while watching TV. The Amazing Race Asia has run for four seasons; The Amazing Race Canada is in its first season.
“The moment I saw it, I said, ‘Let’s do it!’” Idiens recalled. “We wanted to apply but then I found out, we’re not Asian so we can’t actually apply. So when this came up, I was, like, ‘Ohhhh!’ Let’s do this.”
“We want to see the whole country,” Trapp said, in explaining what he and Idiens hope to get out of Amazing Race. “To win, you get to do that. But also, we already have a plan for the money, if we win. We want to put it towards developing a sustainable living community somewhere in BC.”
Presumably one that includes TV signals.
The Amazing Race Canada airs Monday, 9 p.m. ET/MT/PT, on CTV
© Copyright (c) Postmedia News
http://www.canada.com/entertainment/Amazing+Race+Canada+hippies+show+competitive+side/8647446/story.html
Leafsfan.:
Kristen and Darren persevering through Amazing Race Canada
If you’ve been watching The Amazing Race Canada, then you know to root for Kristen Idiens and Darren Trapp from Fairmont Hot Springs.
Hometown viewers rejoiced after witnessing Kristen and Darren dominate their competition and take first place on day one, which awarded the couple with a trip to Sydney, Australia and a head start on the next challenge.
“That was a good feeling,” Kristen told The Pioneer. “We had no idea that there would be prizes for each leg — it was so exciting.”
But since, their strong performance has been met with a couple of hiccups, stirring back-and-forth
action early on.
On the second leg, unexpected mishaps occurred. Their hard-earned early start was rendered moot when the teams discovered a flight from Kelowna to Vancouver was required and five of the teams, including Kristen and Darren, were all able to make it on the earliest possible flight.
Once in Vancouver, public transit let Kristen and Darren down as they exited Vancouver’s SkyTrain too early, and then failed them again when a cabbie delivered them to the wrong location.
To the camera, after citing Fairmont’s population of roughly 300 people, Kristen said, “We’re used to deer crossings, not human crossings.”
Both have spent time living in and navigating through cities, “but our confidence is definitely there when we’re in physical challenges in the mountains or in the forest,” Kristen said. “In the city, you have to rely on other people like when you’re taking taxis, which clearly didn’t work for us.”
However, Kristen and Darren weren’t deterred by the challenges, and landed in fourth place after the second episode. Only seven teams remain.
“After all the challenges we came across and the constant frustration that we felt, we’re pretty proud of ourselves to be able to persevere through all of it and come in fourth,” she said.
For viewers who can hardly wait for the next show, Kristen hinted at what’s coming up on July 29th: “You
will see Darren get back to his Alberta roots and you’ll see him in purple bellbottom pants — a dreaded cowboy, what more could you ask for?”
She said they keep in touch with other contestants over email, and hope to travel to Ontario at some point to visit Body Break’s Hal Johnson and Joanne McLeod.
The local contestants, who are now back home, have attended the Bear’s Paw Bar and Grill at Fairmont Hot Springs Resort for the airing of the first two episodes. While other obligations will prevent them from watching every new episode at the Bear’s Paw on Monday nights, the two are going to be there for as many shows as they can.
The next Amazing Race Canada show airs on CTV on Monday, July 29th at 9 p.m. MST.
http://www.columbiavalleypioneer.com/?p=9873
Alenaveda:
FROM THE CALGARY HERALD
http://blogs.calgaryherald.com/2013/08/06/ruth-myles-kristen-and-darren-dont-regret-not-using-the-express-pass-on-the-amazing-race-canada/
Kristen and Darren don’t regret not using the Express Pass on The Amazing Race Canadaby Ruth Myles.
If they had the chance to do it all over again, Kristen Idiens and Darren Trapp still wouldn’t use their Express Pass on The Amazing Race Canada.
The couple was eliminated on Monday night’s episode after being the last team to reach the Pit Stop in Carcross, the Yukon. Their Express Pass, which allows teams to bypass any challenge of their choosing, remained tucked away in their backpacks. They chose to complete the task of building a raft and paddling out to retrieve a clue, seeing as they both work as river guides.
“We really didn’t think about it, because we were never planning on using it (the Express Pass). Ideally, we would have just thrown it in the garbage,” Idiens says on a conference call Tuesday to discuss their elimination. “We were there to have all the experiences that we could have. We didn’t want to miss out on any of the challenges.”
That decision means they are out of the running for the grand prize of $250,000, a pair of Corvette Stingrays and two yearlong passes anywhere Air Canada flies. (Given the couple’s eco-friendly background, it would seem likely the cars would be sold off to finance their current project. They working on creating a sustainable off-the-grid community “with all the luxuries of modern-day living” in B.C.)
The duo from Fairmont Hot Springs, B.C. would do one thing differently, though. Rather than giving their second Express Pass to the sister act of Celina Mziray and Vanessa Morgan, they would have gifted it to another team, or thrown it in the garbage “to even the playing field,” Trapp says.
You could say there was a bit of karmic comeuppance in their elimination. In Kelowna, the couple entered into an alliance with three other teams, agreeing to give the Express Pass to the next team in the group to reach the first Pit Stop. That ended up being married doctors Brett Burstein and Holly Agostino.
But Trapp and Idiens gave the pass to the sisters instead, seeing them as less of a threat. The sisters, however, used that Express Pass in the Yukon to land in fourth place.
“We did go back on our word,” Idiens admits. “It was tough for us, tough for them.”
That said, she finds it “unbelievable” that Burstein questioned her integrity about the pass given that he and his wife hid all the Alberta maps at the store in the Vancouver airport just before the teams flew to Calgary. Still, the couple has no regrets about their time on The Amazing Race Canada and have gained a new appreciation for the vastness and diversity of the landscape. And their relationship also survived the intense pressure that comes from being on the reality series.
“I think the strain would be the fact that you have to communicate, co-operate with each other,” Trapp says. “But with us, we had an end goal in mind. There was no time to bicker about the small things, just get it done.”
Idiens agrees: “You will have a stronger relationship (after the race), if it doesn’t fall apart.”
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