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Lifelong friends further bonded by goal of English Channel swim
- Klas Stolpe
- 17 hours ago
- 12 min read
2008 JDHS graduate Kristin Jones, 2007 Petersburg grad Abbey Jackson Ferree find friendship through the water
By Klas Stolpe
Juneau Independent
Kristin Jones’ bright pink swim cap broke through a slight chop in the water as she swam toward Taku Harbor.
At first glance, it appeared she also wore pink gloves, but that was just the color of her hands as they cut through the water, the temperature just one of the many difficulties that Jones, a 2008 Juneau-Douglas High School graduate, may face as she prepares to swim the English Channel. She faces a narrow weather window — between June 21 and 30 — for the attempt.
“Cold water is the primary concern,” Jones, 36, said. “55 degrees Fahrenheit over many hours is genuinely challenging for an unprotected swimmer. Chop is a close second. I have been practicing in whatever rough water Juneau offers, including a recent session at Amalga Harbor, working to straighten my arms to reduce their surface area against oncoming waves.”
And there will be jellyfish stings, common in the English Channel.
“Simply something to swim through,” Jones said. She also noted the potential for saltwater ingestion causing mouth swelling and discomfort, managing chafing with zinc oxide or Desitin, and sun exposure over a full day on open water.
“At an estimated 14 hours, part of my swim will take place before sunrise,” Jones said. “I will wear lights attached to my suit and the escort boat will be lit as well. If my pace is slower than expected, tidal timing becomes a factor — a longer swim means more cold, more fatigue and a finish line that keeps moving.”
Jones will not be alone in the attempt. Abbey Jackson Ferree, 36, formally Jackson, a 2007 Petersburg High School graduate, also will be there. The two met as club swimmers, Jones for Juneau’s Glacier Swim Club and Jackson Ferree for Petersburg’s Viking Swim Club.
“You know, there are very few people in my life that I have met who are like Kristin Jones,” Jackson Ferree said. “We met as kids at a Ketchikan swim meet. I had just swam and she was in the heat right after me. She hopped into the warm-down pool — that old Ketchikan pool with the small, warm, saltwater warm-down pool. She swam across the pool and hopped out where I was drying off and putting on my deck clothes. She sat next to me and said, ‘How do you dolphin kick so fast? How can I get better at that?’ She just wanted to learn. She was so happy and funny, and I don’t know — we have been good friends ever since. She is so kind, a little quirky and unashamed. She is genuinely one of the best people I have had the pleasure of knowing most of my life. I think that more and more as I age and realize how unique our friendship is.”
That friendship blossomed through high school and beyond. Jones swam at Division I Northern Arizona University from 2009-2013, Jackson Ferree at the University of Alaska Fairbanks from 2008-2012. Their bond has continued through the years, not culminating with the English Channel, but instead strengthening a bond of living through adversities.
“It was never one single moment,” Jones said of the channel quest. “It was always there, quietly, like a dream I carried in the back of my mind for years. I have been doing open water swimming since I was 16, and the channel was always something I envisioned doing someday without knowing exactly when or how.”
Said Jackson Ferree, “It is something I imagined doing in my wildest dreams. Swimming has always been home for me. I spent a lot of time at the pool growing up, and I remember swimming any chance the pool was open. I enjoyed reading about swimming when I was younger, but a lot of the books about swimming were pretty cheesy. Then I found a book written by Lynn Cox, and it changed my world. I remember, even back then, I liked the way she talked about swimming.”
Said Jones, “What finally turned the dream into a commitment was my dear friend Abbey, someone I have known since I was 12, swam with and against in high school, and have remained close to through the hardest chapters of both our lives. Two years ago she asked me to do it with her. I didn't even think about it. I said yes immediately, and we worked to book the same boat captain within the same weather window.”
That was in July 2024. They reserved an English Channel boat pilot at that time through the Channel Swimming Association — Masterpiece Charters (a link to the live boat tracker will be posted to the GSC Masters group closer to the swim date).
“It is funny,” Jackson Ferree said. “Neither of us really remembers who asked whom, but I am almost certain she asked to join along. We mostly talked about training, training progressions, breakthroughs, feeds, our experiences, our ailments, how we are tired and how we have a million other things to worry about. But after every time we swim, no matter what, it is pure bliss...We had visited each other back and forth to Juneau for years, to the point where each other’s moms kind of feel like second moms to both of us. She has always been a positive force in my life, and she is a friend I truly want nothing but the best for. To share this journey with her means so much. It is the cherry on top. Not only do I get to go after my biggest dream, but I also get to watch one of my favorite swimmers do it a couple days after me.”
Jackson Ferree is pursuing the second leg of the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming. She completed the New York Open Water 20 Bridges swim around Manhattan Island last August, 28.5 miles in 8:51:58. After England she is scheduled to swim California’s 20-mile Catalina Channel in September. In 2025, she attended Ireland’s Cork Distance Week and found many like-minded open-water swimming friends. She feels “like I have an army behind me.”
Jones has twice swum the SCAR — Saguaro, Canyon, Apache and Roosevelt swim — a four-day, four-lake open water event in Arizona totaling over 40 freshwater miles. She’s also swum the 13-mile route around Key West, and around Ketchikan’s Pennock Island and the Change Your Attitude swim in Sitka. Her longest swim was racing Pittsburgh’s three central rivers, five kilometers up and five kilometers down, for a total of 30 kilometers that took close to nine hours.
Yes, the two swim for the love and excitement of swimming. But underneath the adventure are deeper meanings.
Jones lost two brothers, Ryan and Owen Jones, in 2019 and 2024, respectively, to Friedrich’s Ataxia, a progressive and debilitating neurological disease with no cure. She hopes people will honor the swim by donating to the Friedrich's Ataxia Research Alliance (FARA) at www.curefa.org — the foundation working to find a cure for the disease. The team donation name is Juneau Joneses. Brother Trevor and his girlfriend will be in the UK for the swim, along with Kristine’s partner, Marcus, and daughter, Aubrey, 9, and Jones’ parents, Charlie and Lisa.
“I think often in the water about people who don't get the option to quit,” Jones said. “They have to keep going, regardless of how hard things become. The fact that I am in a place in my life where I can choose to do something really hard and challenging, because I have the support to do it — that is a great gift. That is a privilege.”
Jones noted the importance Marcus and Aubrey have had in this endeavor and in her life.
“I also want to show my daughter — in real time, on the water — that doing something hard is hard, but it can be done with preparation, commitment and the right people around you,” Jones said. “None of this happens without enablers — the people who made sure I got enough sleep, who got me to the pool before sunrise, who dragged me into 43-degree Fahrenheit ocean water on a cold spring morning and called it training. I want her to witness the struggle, the discomfort and the determination. But I also want her to see that you don't have to do hard things alone. I want her to see what all of that looks like.”
Jackson Ferree lost her love of swimming in college and stepped away from it for a long period. She then suffered a debilitating illness, a story she doesn’t like to share, that nearly took her life. She relied on her mother and in-laws, slowing returning to endurance sports by first learning to just stand in a shower without losing balance.
“One of the things I thought about in the hospital bed was that I might never run again,” she said. “I got into endurance sports to help myself along after my illness. I ran my first marathon in September 2023, did my first Ironman in 2024, and after that, I started thinking seriously about the English Channel. Swimming came back slowly, but when it came back, it felt different. It was not just exercise anymore. It became this outlet where I let myself dream and work toward something I have wanted since I was 16…I immediately thought of the book ‘Swimming to Antarctica.’ I knew that as long as the English Channel was around, and I was still breathing, I would attempt to swim that thing. If I ever ended up in a hospital again, I knew that would be my deepest regret if I never tried going after my big one.”
Jackson Ferree will be joined in the UK by husband Eric. Her support crew will also include Elizabeth “Liz” Fry who has completed the world’s seven toughest open-water channels (at age 60), has swam all five Great Lakes and the English Channel six times.
“My rock has been my husband,” she said. “I joke that he doesn’t like doing the crazy things, but he likes being crazy-adjacent. He has been amazing crew for this entire experience, although he doesn’t understand the enjoyment we get from cold water, and he isn’t convinced this isn’t a cult. But he has been a very good support. He wants me to win as much as I do, his support has been unwavering. He has watched me for countless hours during my training swims in the brisk early mornings. He has been my travel agent, my shoulder to whine on, my sous chef, the best dishwasher, coffee maker, and most importantly, he applies my Boudreaux’s Butt Paste all over my shoulders (an open water swimmer’s sunscreen and anti-chafe) and makes sure I have something warm to drink afterwards. He has been the little voice inside my head, reminding me to be reasonable. I sometimes have had some unreasonable expectations...Kristin’s daughter will be there with us. It is exactly the kind of thing I want to be remembered by and an example for: doing what we love with our dearest ones, with all the heart, integrity and grit we can muster. I hope her daughter remembers this trip, and I hope she knows she has a really strong mom who will be there rooting for her in anything that brings her joy the way swimming does to Kristin. It is something I am really proud to be part of.”
Through it all, Jones and Jackson Ferree have found a ritual in the perceived madness of elite athletics. They squeeze in training in mornings before light, in evenings that only blacken and on weekends when family time follows them to a body of water.
Jones spent the first year of this two-year odyssey in “light training” with a masters group in Juneau.
“Last summer I ramped up my open water work in Auke Lake, swimming without a wetsuit weekly — sometimes multiple times a week — well into the fall,” Jones said. “In mid-August I completed my mandatory six-hour qualifying swim in Auke Lake, supported by fellow masters swimmers who paddled alongside and managed my feeds throughout. By fall I was swimming five days a week, by December, six — sometimes seven. At my peak in early May, I was logging roughly 45,000 yards per week, approximately 26 miles, over 12-13 hours of pool time.”
Swimming, lifting, feeding practice, recovery, sleep and nutrition all begin to matter. The athletes and their families have become scientists, biologists, masseuses, meteorologists and nutritionists. Neighbors have become support crew, fellow swimmers have paddled alongside them in encouragement.
“I planned the biggest training week I thought I would need in order to accomplish the swim, and then I built backward from there,” Jackson Ferree said. “I broke it down into hours and days per week, then adjusted as needed around daily life. Training isn’t always seven days a week of hard workouts, but it does become part of your life seven days a week. After my season last year, I honestly didn’t know what to do with my spare time once I was done training long hours for a couple of months. I do complain sometimes that I wish I had more time for friends, breakfasts, movies and other miscellaneous activities, but I’ve also learned to really enjoy the time alone with my thoughts. It resets me.”
They have searched for bodies of water outside of pools where they can test themselves with and without wetsuits. Jackson Ferree has found lakes in Fairbanks. Jones has trained in Auke Lake and in the ocean in full thermal wet suit gear with water temperatures ranging from 43 to 49 degrees.
“Last month I also swam in a lake in Petersburg with Abbey, without a wetsuit in water that was a perfect 55 degrees,” Jones said. “Which, as it happens, is right around what I can expect in the channel...For nutrition during heavy training my philosophy has been simple — eat what I want and never feel hungry. Cold water is a significant factor in channel swims and carrying a little extra body weight provides real physiological insulation at 55-degree water temperatures.”
They have matched physical training with mental preparedness and visualization.
“It was something that was taught to me as a young swimmer in high school and college,” Jones said. “Five minutes before practice, you simply see yourself being successful. It sounds simple, but it is incredibly powerful. It builds neurological pathways in your brain that actually mimic the physical action itself. Your brain doesn't fully distinguish between vividly imagining something and doing it. It is legitimate training, and it has been part of my preparation from the very beginning.”
Their swim is governed by the Channel Swimming Association (www.channelswimmingassociation.com). The rules are strict. Swimmers wear a plain swimsuit, plain cap and plain goggles — nothing else. They cannot touch the escort boat at any time, may not rest on it and no one is permitted to assist them in the water. Nutrition is delivered by attaching food or a bottle to a line and lowering it, but it must be retrieved and consumed entirely by the swimmer. An official CSA observer rides aboard the boat for the entire crossing to certify compliance. Upon completion it will be logged as a certified English Channel crossing. Each swimmer goes individually. They are sharing a boat but are assigned their own day during a 10-day weather window based on conditions.
“Both of us found this journey when we were in serious need of remembering the joy of anything,” Jackson Ferree said. “Swimming just happened to be the thing that reminded us. I think the most difficult thing was finding time to talk to one another on the phone without a deadline, meeting or a someone or something needing attention. And not being able to train together. She trains in Juneau, and I train in Fairbanks. Kristin and I draw a lot of crazy off one another, so we tend to be braver and bold. It has all worked out so far and there were times when I needed that in my training. I wish she lived closer.”
Said Jones, “This swim has already given me so much before I ever reach Dover. It has reminded me of my love for the water and reminded me of what I need to do to cope. It has brought me back to something I love deeply, something that grounds me and puts life into perspective. That alone has been worth everything. I am already so blessed...When the hardest miles come, and I know they will, I will think of Ryan and Owen. I will think of the people who don’t get the option to quit, who have to keep going no matter what, and I will keep going too...The mental preparation for this swim has been woven into every single open-water session. Each time I enter the water, I visualize what I will feel on the day I swim the channel. As I step in, I imagine the anticipation, the first few minutes of acclimating to the cold. I repeat my mantra — settle in — and I start to swim. And each time I approach the shore to exit, I search for the bottom. I imagine that moment when the bottom appears in clear water as I approach the French coast and I imagine how I might feel — relieved, dizzy, reorienting myself to land after so many hours in the sea.”
• Contact Klas Stolpe at sports@juneauindependent.com
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