AN intrepid adventurer battled temperatures of minus 60C and slept with an axe at his side to fend off wolves as he completed the world’s toughest dog sled race.

Rob Cooke, a former Upton-upon-Severn Primary and Hanley Castle High School pupil who now lives in Canada, was pushed to the limits in the Yukon Quest race across 1,000 miles of icy wilderness.

Mr Cooke and his team of 14 Siberian huskies finished in 18th place after a gruelling 11 days and 17 hours.

Just finishing the race is a huge achievement in itself.

It is customary for less than half the starters to reach the finish while the event’s history is littered with tales of teams being airlifted out.

With most of the race spent miles away from civilisation and even other competitors, Mr Cooke was very much alone in the wilds. This led to an anxious moment on one particularly isolated stop.

“As I was mixing the dog food a pack of wolves started howling just up the river bank from where we had stopped,” he said.

“Having fed the dogs I got my axe out of my sleeping bag and lay down on my sled with it clasped to my side.

“I’m not sure though how many wolves I would have beaten off with a blunt axe.”

Sleep deprivation was another huge challenge for the 46-year-old, particularly in the early stages of the race when a few minutes under the stars or a quick nap added up to just 17 hours of sleep in six days.

“At one stage waking up on the trail in the middle of a 200-mile unsupported run I was convinced that the dogs were going to quit on me and I was going to freeze to death out in the bush. It took me hours to shake that feeling.”

But despite all the challenges, Mr Cooke said just lining up for the race was an amazing experience.

“As we were released I had a huge rush of adrenaline, nine years of work and effort came rushing out and I couldn’t stop smiling, punching the air and whooping and hollering in a very un-British manner,” he said.

“Just being able to run dogs virtually non-stop for 12 hours a day was fantastic.”

Mr Cooke and his wife Louise first kept huskies in the UK entering them in races and even winning the best Siberian rosette at Crufts in 2003.

He first went to Canada in 2005 when he was sent by the Royal Navy on an exchange and he first started thinking about training his dogs for the Yukon Quest after he left the Navy in 2008.