Delivering Adventure (Chris Kaipio & Jordy Shepherd)

What are some of the key strategies to managing risk while we are leading adventure and delivering it to ourselves? Grant Statham is back to continue this discussion with Jordy and Chris. Grant taps into his experience as a well respected thought leader on mountain risk and understanding. Grant is an ACMG / IFMGA mountain Guide, Parks Canada Visitor Safety Specialist, avalanche forecaster and a risk consultant.

Key Takeaways

List of options: A good decision is one where we pick the best option. Identifying all of the options beforehand, is a crucial step to making good decisions.

Understanding intuition: If you get a feeling that you should increase the risk, you need to be able to justify your decision to do so, with hard facts.

Avoiding overconfidence: Beware the expert opinion; often wrong, but rarely in doubt. We often think that we know more than we do, but we rarely want to admit this.

We can reduce our risk with knowledge: The more information we have, the easier it is to pick the best option.

Build yourself a buffer: Building in a bigger margin of error can protect us from mistakes, or simply misjudging a situation.

Slow down: Slowing down gives us more time to process the information coming at us.

Guest Links & Resources

Instagram: @stathamgrant

Ted talk on Risk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGZu5Lzgv1A

Thinking in Risk: https://thepowdercloud.com/learn/avalanche-education/thinking-in-risk/

Avalanche Canada Ice Climbing Avalanche Atlas: https://www.avalanche.ca/resources/ice-climbing/atlas

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In this episode, Curtis Pawliuk joins Chris and Jordy to talk about how he has helped to create adventure through the development of a mountain bike park in Valemount, BC. Curtis Pawliuk is the Executive Director of the Valemount and Area Recreation Development Association (VARDA). Curtis shares some of the challenges and successes that VARDA has had developing the Valemount trail system. He also touches on its impacts on the local economy and what other communities could learn.

Key Takeaways

Think big: It’s okay to dream, in fact we need to. This helps us to keep ourselves and others motivated to keep going.

Creating adventure facilities takes resources: It takes time, money, support, and energy. Curtis mentioned the STP Committees– the same ten people that are always working on driving an organization forward. You need to find the people who can spend time to build whatever you are creating.

Build what people want: If you want to be successful at creating adventure, you have to build experiences that people want. This can be different than the experiences that you might want to deliver.

Guest Links & Resources

Valemount Mountain Biking: https://ridevalemount.com/mountain-biking/

VARDA: https://ridevalemount.com/

Frozen Pirate: https://linktr.ee/frozenpirate

Instagram: @frozenpirate

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When it comes to delivering adventure, you will only go as far as your body allows. The challenge for many of us is that in our quest for adventure we can neglect our own self care.

When this happens our performance can decline, our decision-making abilities can be compromised, and we are more prone to making mistakes that can lead to misadventure. This makes the ability to effectively manage self care an essential adventure skill.

One person that knows this all too well is Sarah Janin. Sarah is a type 1 insulin dependent diabetic who guides split boarding, skiing, rock and alpine climbing. Sarah is on the final leg of working towards becoming the first IFMGA certified Mountain Guide who has type 1 diabetes. Based in Boulder Colorado, Sarah currently works as a full-time guide and one of the head guides at the Colorado Mountain School.

As someone who didn’t start rock climbing until she was in her mid-thirties, Sarah is well aware of the importance of self-care. Her dedication to self-care allowed her to pursue a guiding designation in her forties when most people start down this path in their twenties. Being diabetic, failing to practice effective self-care while leading such an active life can literally lead to fatal consequences.

In this discussion, we discuss what it takes to manage our self care and why it’s so hard to do it well. Sarah gives us an extremely candid account of what it takes to manage our self-care as leaders and how to manage it for others. She also gives us a unique insight into the life of someone who delivers adventure as an insulin dependent diabetic.

Key Takeaways

It takes discipline: This includes being diligent about preparing ourselves beforehand and following up with recovery such as stretching, strengthening and rehabilitative care such as physiotherapy afterwards.

The importance of pacing: Sarah touched on the value of taking breaks to recharge, taking rest days, and varying activity. Taking rest days and doing different activity can keep us fresh and give different muscles a break while others get a workout.

Being vigilante: This includes staying situationally aware of ourselves and the people we might be leading. This may require us to check in with people and ourselves regularly.

Educating ourselves and others: On what to look for to keep everyone operating at their peak. This can add value to the overall experience. Who doesn’t like to learn how to perform better?

Scaling back to pace energy is not a loss, it’s a win: It can allow us to perform better, enjoy what we are doing and ultimately to go farther. As the saying goes, Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

Guest Bio

Sarah Janin is a full-time mountain guide at Colorado Mountain School located in Boulder Colorado. She is the only full-time female guide at this time and one of their head guides. Sarah became one of the first certified female splitboard guides in America this March of 2024 making history.

Sarah is on the AMGA track with one more exam to complete this summer. Her goal is to become the 19th certified female American Mountain Guide. Sarah will then have to pass a ski movement test in order to become IFMGA certified which will be her focus this winter.

Sarah has worked as a guide for a decade after getting to experience a few different careers before settling on her true passion. Sarah is also a type 1 insulin dependent diabetic and has been for over 43 years. She will potentially become the first diabetic certified guide this year.

Guest Links

Colorado Mountain School: https://coloradomountainschool.com/guide/sarah-janin/

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How can we improve our performance in a crisis? We spend a lot of time talking on Delivering Adventure about how we can avoid finding ourselves in crisis. However, despite our best efforts, we can all end up finding ourselves in situations where either ourselves or the people we are with end up in a crisis. In this episode, André-Jean Maheu helps us to explore how we can improve our performance when stressful situations cause us or others to lose control.

AJ has worked as an adventure guide, ski patroller, avalanche forecaster, first aid instructor, and paramedic. He is also active in Search and Rescue and operates the North Shore Snowpack YouTube channel.

Guest Bio

AJ Maheu began his career in the outdoor industry over 30 years ago. After spending a decade instructing, guiding river trips in Québec, and hikes from Alaska to the Andes he shifted his focus to emergency response in remote settings. He worked as a paramedic on worksites on Baffin Island and began a 20-year-career teaching wilderness first aid. He has taught emergency preparedness and first aid in multiple adventure travel guide programs in 6 different colleges and universities across the country.

AJ Maheu is an avalanche professional and member of the Canadian Ski Guides Association. He has also worked as a professional ski patroller for the past 20 years. He is active in many spheres of the avalanche industry including forecasting for industrial operations, search and rescue, and ski resorts as well as instructing and guiding.

AJ runs the North Shore Snowpack YouTube channel, providing weekly snowpack information to backcountry users and is a brand ambassador for Nano Traino, manufacturer of high quality, packable emergency evacuation toboggans. When not working, he is busy delivering adventures for his 2 boys, taking them on family adventures.

Guest Links

North Shore Snowpack YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/@northshoresnowpack?si=eZClzV6KePi3hYwb

Nano Traino: https://nanotraino.com/en/

Key Takeaways:

Managing performance effectively in a crisis: Best strategy is to keep yourself out of the crisis zone. When we are gripped with a crisis, it becomes very hard to counter our instincts of fight or flight. Our ability to think straight also becomes quite compromised. This means the best strategy to manage a crisis is to avoid losing control to begin with.

To prepare for a crisis: You need to practice. Preparation can pull you through stressful situations.

When you practice, make sure it’s meaningful. This means it has to have specific objectives.

Make it realistic, go through all the steps with no short cuts. Practicing should outline what is difficult. It should have an element of stress.

Reduce your vulnerability: Vulnerability is your inability to withstand a hostile environment or consequences. It is important to realize how vulnerable you are.

Spending a lot of time looking at the foreseeable can help to recognize when you are going to be more vulnerable. This can help us to identify the things that can cause us to lose control to begin.

Stay focused on building momentum: Adopt a proactive mindset where you focus on the things that you can do.

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Why is it so hard to make good decisions? One of the factors has to do with what are called the human factors. These include cognitive biases, heuristics, personal motivations, and preferences.

One person who sees the human factors in high consequence environments is Mike Adolph. Mike is an ACMG / IFMGA Mountain Guide and the current Technical Director of the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides.

In this episode, Mike helps us to understand what human factors are, what some of the more common ones are and what we can do to reduce their negative impact on our decision-making abilities.

Guest Bio

Mike Adolph is an ACMG / IFMGA Mountain Guide and the current technical director of the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides. In addition to guiding custom outdoor adventures for small groups, Mike also works as a guide trainer and examiner for the ACMG’s Training and Assessment Program.

Mike started in the outdoor industry in 1994 after his family, in a joint venture, opened the Sheiling Mountain Lodge and the Center for Outdoor Education in Nordegg, Alberta. He completed his final ACMG exam and received his IFMGA International Federation of Mountain Guides Association Mountain Guide designation in 2009. He always admired his instructors and examiners, even if they were a bit harsh at times, which lead to him getting involved with the instructor/examiner team in 2012. When the job posting for the interim ACMG technical director came up in 2018, he thought, why not? 

The mountains have taught him to be open to all possibilities, have several options and go with the flow. I feel lucky to have this as a career and am extremely grateful to my loving and understanding wife Jennifer and our two boys Lucas and Tyler.

Guest Links

Association of Mountain Guides: www.acmg.ca

David Thomson Via Ferratas: www.viaferratacanada.com

Mike Adolph Email: msadolph@gmail.com

Mike Adolph Instagram: @mikeatcoe

Avalanche Hour with Mike Adolph: https://soundcloud.com/user-23585762/avalanche-hour-podcast-mike-adolph-acmg-10

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Managing Misadventure with Moose Mutlow

Can misadventure be turned into a positive experience? In this episode we are joined by Moose Mutlow who helps us to better understand what misadventure is, and how we can find value in it.

Moose has nearly forty years of experience as a guide, outdoor educator, and in Search and Rescue. He has worked around the world from the Kalahari Desert to the Florida Everglades, to Yosemite where he now lives. He is the author of two books and has extensive experience in family liaison and incident command.

Key Takeaways

Defining Misadventure: Misadventure is something that doesn’t go well but you can end up with a good story to tell afterwards.

Misadventure has a range: They can go from being funny stories of bad decisions to catastrophic disasters. It goes without saying that we are trying to avoid the latter as they can be very traumatic.

Story telling component: Both adventures and misadventures are defined by the stories that we can tell about them afterwards. Containable misadventures often have much more engaging stories to tell than adventures that go perfectly well.

Course correction: Being able to take a step back and look at the situation is often what stops things becoming an epic misadventure.

Taking a pause can help us to slow things down so that we can articulate the decision-making process effectively, instead of just getting caught reacting to situations. This can often lead to worse outcomes.

Reasons for misadventure: People underestimate the challenge and overestimate their ability and fail to plan and prepare ahead.

Keep people in the Challenge Zone: You have your best gains when you operate just outside your comfort zone. Taking people right the edge of the extreme is counterproductive and is rarely that beneficial. Instead, we should be trying to put people in what I call the challenge zone which is where we feel excitement, but we aren’t so overwhelmed that we develop tunnel vision and are gripped with stress.

Managing Misadventure: Realize when people are stressed, own mistakes that are made and draw attention to lessons learned along the way and try to keep it fun. Careful use of humour can be a useful tool on this last point.

Guest Bio

Moose Mutlow has nearly 4 decades of traditional and alternative education experience around the globe. He has course directed 58-day Outward Bound instructor trainings in Appalachia, been a deputy headmaster in the Kalahari Desert, managed a beach concession on the Mediterranean, slogged through Australian rain forests with middle school students, has more than 2000 days of field instruction in a wilderness setting, spent four months as the Interim Head for an elite ski academy, and returned to Outward Bound to instruct a canoe program for Veterans on the Gulf of Mexico.

Since 2002 Moose has been a member and senior trainer of Yosemite Search and Rescue, working as a technician and within Incident Command, at one of the busiest SAR operations in the world. 

Moose currently works for NatureBridge in Yosemite National Park as the Senior Projects Director for planning, design and construction of the National Environmental Science Center. 

Moose has written two books, Searching: Finding Purpose, Laughter & Distraction Through Search & Rescue and When Accidents Happen: Managing Crisis Communication as a Family Liaison Officer.

Guest Links

Moose Mutlow: www.moosemutlow.com

Searching: Finding Purpose, Laughter & Distraction Through Search & Rescue:

At the heart of every adventure, is a degree of risk taking. Being able to communicate the level of risk that people can expect to be exposed to is an important component of delivering adventure to others recreationally and professionally.

There is nothing worse than exposing someone to a situation that has an elevated level of risk or challenge and having them turn around and tell us that this is not what they expected. When this happens, the blame almost always lands on the leader.

Helping us to examine how we can communicate risk more effectively, is friend of the show, Will Gadd. Will is a world class climbing, paragliding and white-water kayaking athlete. In addition to undertaking many adventures around the world as a professional athlete, Will also guides others professionally and is a certified ACMG Alpine Guide.

In this episode we explore why it’s important to communicate risk and discuss some of the strategies that allow us to do it more effectively.

Guest Bio:

Will Gadd is a world class climbing, paragliding and white-water kayaking athlete. In addition to undertaking many adventures around the world as a professional athlete, Will also guides others professionally and is a certified ACMG Alpine Guide.

Some of Will’s career highlights include:

• Establishing the hardest mixed ice climbing lines in the world.
• Setting the world distance record for paragliding. Twice. 423 km (263 miles) the second time.
• Kayaking down dozens of first ascents across North America.
• Winning the Canadian National Sport-Climbing Championships. Four times.
• Winning three gold medals at the X Games.

Will has also been recognized as a mountain hero by the United Nations for his efforts to raise awareness for environmental issues including how climate change is affecting the mountain environment.

Guest Links:

Contact Will to be your Guide, Instructor or Speaker: https://willgadd.com/

Instagram: @realwillgadd

The Last Ascent, Kilimanjaro: https://www.redbull.com/ca-en/films/the-last-ascent-will-gadds-return-to-kilimanjaro

A Fun Ted Talk: Three Simple Tools to Manage Risk, Fear and Children: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTdFkPTTnsA

Key Takeaways:

The role of risk communication is to: Inform everyone of what to expect, so that people know what can happen, how likely it is and how risks will be managed, can provide the leader with informed consent.

Getting informed consent: Getting informed consent involves communicating the risks that will be faced in a way that people can understand and process accurately.  Only when people have an understanding of what can happen to them, can they give informed consent to undertake that activity. 

The challenge with getting informed consent is that in some circumstances it can be difficult and even impossible to inform people effectively. 

When it comes to communicating risk: Do it at the start, end and during an event. You should be informing people any time you are going to be taking on an increased level of risk or you are about to do something that is completely new to them.

Involving people in the decision-making process: Anytime there is going to be an elevated level of risk, or there is a new situation that people have not encountered, leader should probably consider involving their group in the decision-making process. 

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Backcountry ski racer, athlete, and ski guide Greg Hill talks about what it takes to make adventure more sustainable for us. In this episode Greg Shares the secrets to how he was able to keep himself motivated so that he could climb 2 million vertical feet in a single year while backcountry skiing, and much more…

Key Takeaways

Being Sustainable Includes: Maintaining our mental, emotional, and physical well being. It also includes managing our time wisely and keeping our relationships healthy.

Protecting Relationships: To maintain relationships, everyone should adopt an Adventurer’s Pact. This is where everyone accepts that things can go wrong – even if they have someone guiding them.

Setting Attainable Goals: If our goals are not attainable, we will likely just give up.

We get what we measure: Setting goals and tracking our progress is a good way to keep us motivated.

Look back to keep you moving forward: It is helpful to look back at how far we have come and consider what we achieved instead of always looking forward at the obstacles that lay ahead of us.

Guest Links

You can find out more about Greg Hill by visiting greghill.ca

Watch Greg Hill talk about his 5 Rules: Here

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Pro athlete, ACMG Alpine Guide and adventure influencer Will Gadd continues to share his philosophies risk taking. Will reflects on experiences from climbing Niagara Falls, a near misadventure with Sara Hueniken and a funny story from an adventure in the Cirque of the Unclimbables.

Key Takeaways

Reflecting on the decision-making process: Focus on the quality of the decision-making process instead of solely focussing on the outcomes. A good outcome is not always the result of a good decision.

Gaining experience by learning from mistakes: Every situation we experience is an opportunity to learn and grow. Experience is only good if you can learn from it.

Managing risk by lowering the consequences: One of the keys to avoiding misadventure is to take steps to lower the consequences if something were to go wrong.

Identifying risk tolerance beforehand: Everyone needs to determine in advance the level of risk they are comfortable taking. Helping people through this process is extremely important for anyone that finds themselves guiding others.

Guest Links

You can find out more about Will Gadd at willgadd.com

Watch Will Gadd talk about climate change: Here

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The line between an adventure and a misadventure is often defined by our decisions, how we manage the challenges that we face and how the experience is remembered afterwards. In this episode, Bruce Wilson returns to share a story that seriously tested his skills to deliver adventure. This is a story from early in his sea kayak guiding career. Afterward, Chris and Jordy share their insights into the lessons that we can all learn from Bruce’s experience and how he ultimately turned what could have been a disaster into an exciting adventure for his clients.

Key takeaways:

Human factors can compromise judgement: These factors include bias, blindness and a lack of foresight.

Pressure to deliver: Every guide can succumb to the pressure to deliver an amazing adventure, even when they have concerns about about the wisdom of doing so.

Letting people suffer to convince them: Sometimes, a leader has to expose people to a small measure of the adversity they are going to face, so they can understand why following a course of action is not in their best interest.

Practice failure: Spending time to practice rescue, recovery and reactions skills effectively, can save time and stress in a moment of crisis.

Debrief: Taking time to talk about challenging and traumatic experiences can be the difference between whether a situation is remembered as an adventure or a misadventure.

Guest Links

You can contact Bruce through Wolf Warrior Guide Services

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How should a leader communicate to people when they are under stress? One of the hardest situations that a leader can find themselves in, is managing a group that isn’t doing what the leader wants. It could be kids who forgot what their instructor told them, teenagers who are ignoring their teacher on purpose, or adults who misunderstood what their guide said. Regardless of the reason, these situations can be frustrating for leaders and can pose safety risks to everyone in dangerous situations.

In this episode, CSGA Ski Guide Erin Tierney shares a stressful situation from her guiding career where the communication style she chose to use led to conflict with the group she was leading. Using this story, Chris and Jordy then share some strategies and discuss leadership communication styles that leaders can use to avoid conflict.

Key Takeaways

Lead with a soft touch: When we lead this way, we rely on gentle persuasion and selling to start. This can involve including people in decision making, subtlety guiding them towards choices you want them to make and generally being flexible and showing some tolerance for mistakes.

Try to follow with a firm edge, instead of leading with one: If a soft touch doesn’t work, or there isn’t time to be polite, we may need to resort to a more autocratic, telling style.

Explain why we want people to do certain things: When people understand why they are doing things a certain way, there is less chance of there being a misunderstanding or conflict.

Taking ownership of the initial instructions: We need to remember that we can’t always just blame the receiver of the message if they don’t understand. We need to be aware of the fact that if people don’t understand or do what we want, we may not have communicated things as well as we could.

People tend to remember the last thing they hear more than anything else: If we want people to focus on certain instructions, especially ones that relate to directions and safety, we need to position them last.

Investigate why people did what they did: Avoid jumping to conclusions by taking time to investigate why people made the decisions they made.

Guest Links

Whistler Heli-Skiing: https://www.whistlerblackcomb.com/explore-the-resort/activities-and-events/whistler-heli-skiing/whistler-heli-skiing.aspx

Canadian Ski Guide Association: https://canskiguide.com/

The Avalanche Hour Podcast with Erin Tierney: https://soundcloud.com/user-23585762/tah-erin-tierney-csga-10

Guest Bio

Erin is a certified CSGA ski guide and the current President of the Canadian Ski Guide Association. In addition, to guiding in the Heli-ski industry since 1999, Erin is also a guide trainer and examiner with the Canadian Ski Guide Institute. Erin currently works as the General manager of Whistler Heli-skiing.

Erin has worked extensively with teams of guests and guides in a number of roles, which makes her a perfect person to give us some insights on being a leader!

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How do you stay positive under duress? It doesn’t matter how adventurous, fit, risk tolerant or determined you are. At some point, you will find yourself in a situation where it becomes hard to stay positive or even to find the will to keep going. It could be as simple as sitting on a cold wet chairlift, riding your bike on a long climb that feels endless or out on a hike that seems to go on forever.

Joining us in this episode to explore how we can effectively manage our mental state in the face of discomfort is Cyril Derreamaux. Cyril is a long-distance solo kayaker, adventurer and speaker.

Cyril has just completed solo kayaking, unassisted across the Atlantic Ocean on his way from the Canary Islands to Martinique. This 3000-mile journey took Cyril 71 days, 14 hours and 57 minutes.

Cyril has also paddled his custom-made kayak solo from California to Hawaii. This is a trip that took him 91 days which he completed in 2022.

Cyril is a two-time World Record Holder who has several other long-distance trips under his belt including being part of a four-member rowing team that also paddled from California to Hawaii.

Cyril is an epic speaker and is perhaps one of the most passionate guests we have had on our show and he offers some excellent advice!

Key Takeaways

How do you maintain a positive mindset in the face of adversity:

Self-Awareness: If we want to coach ourselves, we need to be able to recognize when our discomfort is becoming an anchor that is dragging us down and what is needed to push us forward.

Being the Self Critic: Requires us to ask ourselves if the pattern of behaviour that we have is good or bad. For example, is how we feel negatively impacting our performance and becoming a barrier to success?

Getting a Third-party Opinion: This means asking others for their feedback. Sometimes we need to reach outside ourselves to get an objective assessment of how we are doing. This can involve asking our friends, colleagues or even feeling out our guests.

Reframing: This involves confronting the situation in a way that helps us to change our perception from something that might be negative to something that is more positive. This can help us to adapt more effectively mentally.

Adapt and Execute: Means putting all of this into action and moving forward. Once we recognize this, we can start to take steps to manage our mental and emotional state so that we can better cope with our situation and keep us going in the direction that we need to be headed.

Guest Bio

French born, now American citizen, Cyril Derreumaux considers himself a citizen of the world. Fluent speaker of 6 languages (and counting!) Cyril is attracted to learning and discovering new cultures and places all the time.

This natural curiosity of people and places led Cyril to backpack around the world at 25 for one year. With $7,000 and a can-do attitude Cyril embarked on this life changing experience that permanently changed his outlook on life and how he wanted to live it.

A move to California following his profession in the wine business led Cyril to begin exploring the world of outrigger canoeing and kayaking and reignited a childhood passion for windsurfing and all things water related. He soon began pushing his limits further and further in ultra-endurance water events. A serendipitous find of the Great Pacific Race which advertised “you don’t need to be a rower to row an ocean” led Cyril to embark on his biggest challenge at the time, rowing in a team of 4 men from California to Hawaii which resulted in in a Guinness Record for the fastest ocean rowing crossing of a team in 39 days and again changing Cyril’s perspective on what was possible.

Always a dreamer, Cyril soon found himself thinking about his next expedition. Inspired by the stories of maverick ocean explorers, Cyril began to...

Top CSIA Level 4 ski instructor trainer Tracey Fraser shares how we can improve people’s performance. Being better at anything makes those tasks more enjoyable. Not only that, improving skill is an essential risk management tool. The better we are at anything, the less likely we are to make mistakes. Tracey is one of Canada’s most highly certified ski instructors and technical skiers.

Key Takeaways

Take a student specific / centered approach: Everyone is different and will need a different approach. A coach needs to be ready to use different approach that is based on how their student learns best.

Pace the delivery of information: People can get frustrated if we give them too many things to work on or to think about at one time.

Get buy in to change behavior patterns: You can’t change someone’s performance if they don’t see a problem with what they are doing.

Avoiding Frustration: People need to be given something new, work through that challenge, feel that they are accomplishing something, spend some time in that zone.

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How can we help others when they are experiencing distress? We have all been in situations with friends, family or clients who are experiencing distress due to adversity. These challenging moments can come when people have suffered an injury, illness, or are working through physical or mental discomfort.

When we find ourselves in these situations, knowing what to say, what to avoid saying, or how to act can be difficult regardless of how well intentioned we are.

In this episode we are joined again by Jill Wheatley who is going to walk us through some strategies that we can use to help people through distress and adversity.

Jill Wheatley is no stranger to experiencing distress herself. Jill experienced a freak accident while on a teaching assignment that resulted in a traumatic brain injury. This resulted in her losing 70% of her vision as well as a life-threatening eating disorder.

More recently, Jill’s resiliency has been tested once again when a fall ice climbing last winter led to multiple breaks in her leg and ankle.

Jill reflects on the lessons learned on climbing expeditions in the Himalayas and recovering from injury on how we can help others when they are suffering.

This is the second episode with Jill, and she continues to be candid and remarkable.

Key Takeaways

How can we help people through distress whether it be from injury, illness, discomfort or challenge:

Be empathetic: This means putting yourself on their position and trying to see the situation through their eyes

Recognizing Empathy Versus Sympathy: Empathy is understanding what someone might be going through while sympathy is feeling sorry or pitying them. Leading with empathy is a far more effective strategy to help people than sympathy.

Listening can be a Very Powerful Tool: We can often want to try to solve people’s problems when simply listening to what people have to say would be far more beneficial. Sometimes people just want to share their pain, stress and discomfort and be heard.

Acknowledge Reality: Acknowledging that people are suffering can also be beneficial. As Jill pointed out, when we are in a weakened state, we don’t necessarily want to hear that we are fragile, or under-performing. We also don’t want to hear that everything is fine.

Everyone is Different: When it comes to dealing with people, there is really no one size fits all strategy.

Guest Bio

Following a traumatic brain injury that resulted in life threatening complications and 70% vision loss which required 26 months spent between 7 different health care facilities in 3 countries, Canadian Jill Wheatley was dropped at Denver International Airport with no direction. The only sign she could see pointed to mountains. Despite such compromised eyesight, Jill chose to spend one year alone with Mother Nature in an attempt to find light on life’s trail. Her search led through 13 different massifs and upon running in the Annapurnas in Nepal, she knew that she wanted to spend more time among Himalayan giants. Essentially she has gone from being bedridden, to a wheelchair, then on to walking, navigating hospital parking lots to hiking, trail running, mountain running and skiing before climbing 5, 6, and then seven 8000 m peaks and spending the past 5 years based in Nepal. 

In a story made for movies, Jill’s trail has recently connected to another type of climb when she had a lead fall ice climbing in February 2024 not long after shifting home from the Himalayas to the comforts of Canmore in the Canadian Rockies. With multiple breaks in her leg and ankle, she is committed to a full recovery and getting back to breaking down the stigma associated with brain injury, vision loss and eating disorders while encouraging and helping others get out to do wild things in wild places. 

Guest...

Delivering Adventure returns with Season 2. In this season, we continue to explore what it really takes to share adventure like a pro - with yourself, your family, your friends and as a profession.

Listen as top adventure guides, instructors, managers and marketers share their best stories, insights and trade secrets on how you can take yourself and others further.

This second season focusses on introducing the essential adventure skills like decision making, communicating risk, leadership, skill improvement, and so much more.

Your hosts Chris Kaipio and Jordy Shepherd use their extensive knowledge to supplement the lessons that their expert guests bring. Each episode explores a new topic with the goal being to tell the story of what it takes to deliver adventure at a pro level.

Go further, become better and achieve more. That's Delivering Adventure.

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Mountain Bike Tour Company owner Sara Archer joins Chris and Jordy to talk about what it means to deliver adventure like a pro. Sara shares her experiences as the Managing Director of the RideHub in Squamish, BC. She shares some of the secrets of what it takes to deliver adventures that inspire people to keep coming back again and again.

Key Takeaways:

Attention to detail: What often separates a true pro from an amateur is their attention to every detail.

Making sure it is about them and not you: We need to ensure that we see the experience through the eyes of the people we are helping, instead of our own. This applies to their expectations, level of interest, skills, energy, and risk tolerance.

Pulling it all together: There are many organizations that play essential roles in the adventure industry that most people are not aware of.

Guest Links

You can find Sara Archer at RideHub in Squamish, BC:  ridehub.ca

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Increasing Situational Awareness with Jerome David

How can we improve our situational awareness so that we don’t miss important information? Situational awareness is the ability to perceive, understand, and effectively respond to one’s situation. This includes being able to recognize the hazards around us, the state of ourselves and the people we are with, changing conditions, and the overall direction that the situation we are in is likely to go.

When it comes to delivering adventure, a lack of situational awareness can impact our judgment in ways that can either boost or degrade our decision making and our ability to react to the situations that we are in.

In this episode of Delivering Adventure, ACMG Ski Guide Jerome David joins us to explore how we can boost our situational awareness. Jerome shares some examples from his career as a Heli ski guide and bike park patroller as well as some practical strategies we can all use.

Jerome currently works at Whistler Heli skiing as the lead guide and guide manager. He has also worked as a ski and bike patroller and trail builder.

Key Takeaways

To improve our situational awareness we can:

Take Time to Refocus (When Needed): Living in the moment by concentrating on the task at hand can reduce distraction and complacency. It can also help us to switch from system 2 thinking where slower reasoned thinking can consume our bandwidth at the expense of being able to process information and react faster with our system 1 thinking.

Boosting Bandwidth: People are like computers, they only have so much processing power at anyone time. To boost our ability to process everything around us, we may need to slow things down.

Be aware of Transitions: When we switch activities or change the intensity of tasks, we need to make sure that we refocus. Failing to do so can cause our minds to become focused on what we were just doing, instead of paying attention to what we are doing in that moment.

An example of a transitions to be aware of include going from low risk to high-risk situations or vice versa.

Reduce External Distractions: This can include storing phones, giving people less instruction in complex situations or waiting for other people to pass you on a trail or climb so that you can stay focused.

Plan Ahead: This can include making lists so that you don’t miss anything. Briefing people on what to expect, what they should look for or be aware of can also help to switch people on.

Guest Bio

Jerome David has been working on Snow and Dirt in Whistler since 1998. On the road to becoming an ACMG ski guide, he worked 11 years with Whistler Blackcomb Patrol. He has been ski guiding for the past 7 years. In the summers, Jerome has previously had a long career working as Whistler Mountain Bike Park patrol. The last years he has been building and maintaining Mountain Bike trails. Currently, he works for AlpX and oversees the summer program there. In the Winter Jerome is lead guide and guide manager at Whistler Heli-Skiing.

Guest Links

Thinking Fast and Slow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow

Whistler Heli Skiing: https://www.whistlerblackcomb.com/explore-the-resort/activities-and-events/whistler-heli-skiing/whistler-heli-skiing.aspx

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How can we ever know when we should turn back or keep going? On paper, the safest decision to make is often to turn around or choose the route that takes on less risk. However, in reality, delivering adventure isn’t always about picking the safest choice. At the core of every adventure is an element of risk taking. Being able to decide when to go for it, and when not to, is a defining trait of professional adventure guides and instructors.

Helping us to identify when it’s okay to keep going is Mike Adolph. Mike is an ACMG / IFMGA Mountain Guide and the current technical director of the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides. There are a number of factors that can hold us back from continuing onwards towards an objective including self doubt, fear, and uncertainty.

We discuss some key strategies with Mike that we can use that can help us to determine if we should abort a plan or whether we are well positioned to keep going.

Key Takeaways:

How can we know when we should push forward and keep going with a plan when we may feel like doing the opposite? A few of the strategies that can help to guide our decision making include:

Set goals around experiences: Instead of hard destinations or milestones, make it about the experience. When it comes to delivering adventure, we can box ourselves in by setting our expectations around achieving certain objectives.

Identifying data points that support the decision to continue: This includes the amount of time taken to accomplish a task, competency level of skills, the interest level of group, the weather, the conditions, the amount of risk and the amount risk tolerance within the group.

Remove pressure from the leader: Talk to the group for their feedback to ensure you are not the one driving the group or holding them back.

If uncertainty is rising, ask yourself why: This uncertainty could include self doubt, the ability level of yourself or the group to handle the situation, the interest level of everyone involved, the conditions, and the actual route or path you want to take.

Don’t make a decision until you have to: This allows us the opportunity to collect as much information as possible before making a commitment.

 Guest Bio

Mike Adolph is an ACMG / IFMGA Mountain Guide and the current technical director of the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides. In addition to guiding custom outdoor adventures for small groups, Mike also works as a guide trainer and examiner for the ACMG’s Training and Assessment Program.

Mike started in the outdoor industry in 1994 after his family, in a joint venture, opened the Sheiling Mountain Lodge and the Center for Outdoor Education in Nordegg, Alberta. He completed his final ACMG exam and received his IFMGA International Federation of Mountain Guides Association Mountain Guide designation in 2009. He always admired his instructors and examiners, even if they were a bit harsh at times, which lead to him getting involved with the instructor/examiner team in 2012. When the job posting for the interim ACMG technical director came up in 2018, he thought, why not? 

The mountains have taught him to be open to all possibilities, have several options and go with the flow. I feel lucky to have this as a career and am extremely grateful to my loving and understanding wife Jennifer and our two boys Lucas and Tyler.

Guest Links

ACMG Technical Manuals: https://www.acmg.ca/03public/resources/publications.aspx

Association of Mountain Guides: www.acmg.ca

David Thomson Via Ferratas: www.viaferratacanada.com

Mike Adolph Email:

In this episode, Ken Bélanger shares a funny Heli skiing story that highlights the challenges of trying to talk people out of doing something that will probably not meet their needs in the long run. We look at some of the lessons learned from Ken’s story and offer some strategies to manage these types of situations.

Ken Bélanger is an ACMG Ski and Hiking Guide and the owner of Elevation Guides. Ken’s story highlights the difficulties that leaders can face when they are trying to balance giving people what they want versus what they really need but may not realize it.

Key takeaways

How can we sell someone into do something they need, when they don’t think they want it? Here are four options:

Try Persuasion: Strategies include reasoning with them, offering to do something better, tell them that what they won’t enjoy whatever it is they want to do. Avoid telling people they can’t do it, this can just sound like a challenge to some people.

Use Force: When the level of risk is high, you may have to force them to do something they may not think they want to do. Strategies include a hard no, cresting and sighting rules, and having to attain a skills-based objective or proficiency level before doing something harder.

Let them Suffer: If there is a low risk of serious consequences, it is possible to give people a taste of how hard of uncomfortable a situation will be if they don’t do what you are suggesting. This only works if it is safe and there is an escape route.

Hope that it works out: When there is a low risk, they refuse to change course or listen to you, the damage can be contained or there are no other options, you may have to just hope things work out!

Guest Links

Elevation Guides: www.elevationguides.ca

Ken Bélanger on Instagram: @elevationguides

Guest Bio

Ken Bélanger is an ACMG Ski, Hiking, and Via Ferrata Guide, CAA Professional Member, CANSI Level 1 Nordic Ski & Telemark instructor, CSIA level 1, and Advanced Wilderness Adventure Medic.

Although Ken grew up in Calgary not far from the mountains with his single father and two brothers, they didn’t have the financial means to explore them. It wasn’t until his late teens when he could self-fund trips that he finally discovered skiing and hiking.

He was immediately hooked. It was a steep learning curve to overcome his fear of heights and water, but within a few years he was instructing and guiding water-sports, climbing, cycling, and nordic and telemark skiing.

Ken considers himself extremely fortunate to have learned under some fantastic guides and instructors along the way.

Now operating Elevation Guides with nearly 30 years of guiding experience in 23 countries, he couldn’t imagine a better career. Ken resides in Canmore, Alberta at the doorstep of beautiful Banff National.

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Is good judgment the most important skill to have when it comes to delivering adventure? In this episode, professional adventure guide and athlete Will Gadd returns to help us to make the case that it is. The power of good judgment is often the difference between delivering exceptional adventures and catastrophic misadventures. Mastering this skill is a must for anyone who wants to deliver adventure to themselves or others effectively.

Will Gadd is one of the perfect people to help us to explore this topic. Will is used to making high consequence decisions for himself and others from ice climbing Niagara Falls, to setting world records for paragliding, to elite-level white water kayaking.

Guest Bio

Will Gadd is a professional sponsored athlete and ACMG Alpine Guide. Among many of Will’s feats are first accents ice climbing Niagara Falls, Helmcken Falls, Icebergs and many other ice climbs around the world including on the top of Mt Kilimanjaro. Will is also a world-class white-water kayaker and paraglider. He has twice set the world record for the longest paragliding flight.

As an elite athlete and professional guide, Will is extremely experienced when it comes to evaluating risk and making decisions that could have serious consequences for himself and the people he is leading, or working with. This makes Will one of the perfect people to talk about the power of judgment.

Guest Links

Contact Will to be your Guide, Instructor or Speaker: https://willgadd.com/

Instagram: @realwillgadd

The Last Ascent, Kilimanjaro: https://www.redbull.com/ca-en/films/the-last-ascent-will-gadds-return-to-kilimanjaro

A Fun Ted Talk: Three Simple Tools to Manage Risk, Fear and Children: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTdFkPTTnsA

Key Takeaways

Why decision making is the most important skill to have and how we can be better at it:

The Difference Maker: Good decisions are what separate great adventures from mishaps and misadventures.

Outcome Versus Process: A good decision and a good outcome are not always the same thing. Just because something worked out doesn’t mean we made a good decision. It could be that we were just lucky.

Power of judgement: Good judgment increases our chances of getting good outcomes, while poor judgment can increase our chances of getting bad outcomes, also known in adventure circles as misadventures.

Self-Awareness: One of the keys to being able to exercise good judgment and make good decisions is the ability to be self aware. A lack of self awareness leads to not knowing what is going on in our own head.  That can lead to us not recognizing what others are thinking.  On the other hand, an abundance of self awareness helps to us know our weaknesses and capabilities. It also helps us to recognize and manage human factors like bias.

Why decision-making is hard: We are often making very consequential decisions with limited information.  Adding to this is the fact that adventure guides and adventure instructors are often making decisions in complex environments with hard to predict weather, and changeable conditions. It can also be hard to know how the people they are working with will perform under stress.

Decision Making Strategies: These include collecting as much information as possible, slowing things down, and stepping away from people so that we can process information. It can also be helpful to avoid setting objectives that can be hard to change, although this isn’t always...

When it comes to adventure, a crisis can come in many forms ranging from getting lost, getting injured, pushing well past our capabilities and being faced with the prospect of disaster. It’s fair to say that being able to navigate through a crisis if one happens, is an essential skill for delivering adventure.

In this episode, we are joined by AJ Maheu to gain a deeper understanding of what happens to us in a crisis and how that affects our performance. AJ taps into his extensive adventure industry experience as a ski patroller, guide, first aid instructor, paramedic, avalanche forecaster and adventure educator.

Guest Bio

AJ Maheu began his career in the outdoor industry over 30 years ago. After spending a decade instructing, guiding river trips in Québec, and hikes from Alaska to the Andes he shifted his focus to emergency response in remote settings. He worked as a paramedic on worksites on Baffin Island and began a 20-year-career teaching wilderness first aid. He has taught emergency preparedness and first aid in multiple adventure travel guide programs in 6 different colleges and universities across the country.

AJ Maheu is an avalanche professional and member of the Canadian Ski Guides Association. He has also worked as a professional ski patroller for the past 20 years. He is active in many spheres of the avalanche industry including forecasting for industrial operations, search and rescue, and ski resorts as well as instructing and guiding.

AJ runs the North Shore Snowpack YouTube channel, providing weekly snowpack information to backcountry users and is a brand ambassador for Nano Traino, manufacturer of high quality, packable emergency evacuation toboggans. When not working, he is busy delivering adventures for his 2 boys, taking them on family adventures.

Guest Links

North Shore Snowpack YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/@northshoresnowpack?si=eZClzV6KePi3hYwb

Nano Traino: https://nanotraino.com/en/

Key Takeaways:

Definition: According to AJ, a crisis is when we lose control. We may have had a critical period before we lost control where we were holding things together. During this critical period there is usually an element at risk like our physical well-being, or the safety of others. However, if that situation deteriorates, that element at risk is compromised and we can no longer keep things together and we can end up in a crisis.

Subjective: A crisis is a very subjective event. Two people can be in the same event and have a crisis for different reasons. Of course, two people can also be in the same incident and maybe only one of them has a crisis.

During a crisis: Physiologically we get a surge of adrenaline which prepares us for action. This puts us in a state of fight or flight. This causes our muscles to tense up and leads to tunnel vision. It becomes hard to analyze mentally as our capacity to process everything that is going on is reduced. Eventually we can become physically incapacitated.

Managing others: It can be very difficult to manage people when they are experiencing a crisis. 10-20% of people are predisposed to act appropriately in a crisis. That means that when people are faced with a crisis, 80-90% of people will experience some level of paralysis or loss of performance.

Unreasonable: When people have adrenaline flowing through their bodies and they are gripped with panic, it is impossible to reason with them. This means that people may need time to process things before debriefing them Also, trying to downplay their feelings can backfire on you as AJ learned.

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What does it take to coach someone through danger? When it comes to taking risks, danger can come in the form of real and perceived threats to our safety and well being. Regardless of whether the danger is real or imagined, when people feel threatened, even on a sub conscious level, they can inadvertently move into their survival zone. When this happens, performance can suffer, and people can find themselves increasing the probability of experiencing the very consequences they are hoping to avoid.

Helping us to explore what it takes to coach people through danger effectively is Derek Foose. Derek is the founder and head coach of the Whistler Free Ride Club. He guides and works as a staff trainer for Extremely Canadian. Derek is also a Course Conductor and Course Developer for the Professional Ski Instructors of Canada’s Big Mountain Pathway. 

In addition to coaching and guiding, Derek has tapped into his extensive experience as a broadcast host for the Freeride World tour. He is on the Board of Directors Coaches Chair for International Freeskiers and Snowboarders Association.

In this engaging episode, we discuss the key strategies that adventure coaches, instructors and guides can employ to help the people they are coaching succeed in the face of danger.

Key Takeaways

Preparation: Preparing people before they are put in a high-risk situation – regardless of whether it is perceived or real – is key. It is very difficult to teach someone how to handle high risk situations, in high-risk situations. The skills needed to perform in the face of danger have to learned and practiced where people can make mistakes with low consequences.

Build trust: Letting people talk, showing people that you care and helping people to succeed are key components of building trust. When people trust their coach, they are more likely to believe in themselves. Conversely, when their coach believes in them, they are more likely to stay with their coach.

Give people control, where you can: A coach can do this by letting people talk themselves into or out of situations as much as possible. It is almost always better to let people come to the right conclusion on their own. What a coach wants to avoid is talking someone into doing something when they don’t feel ready, and then having that person fail. When this happens, the failure is going to be on the coach. This will erode trust and damage relationships.

Stay Calm: Calmness creates calmness. But no one has ever calmed down by being told to calm down!  If a coach shows signs of stress or a lack of confidence, the people they are coaching are likely to follow suit. Using a reassuring tone, positive language and keeping people focused on believing success is possible, are key elements of creating s calm atmosphere.

Keeping people close: When danger and stress levels increase, bringing people closer to the coach – when it’s safe – can help to reassure people. It can also help to show people what they need to do to succeed.

Keep feedback simple: The more complex the situation, the simpler the instructions need to be. When people are faced with high-risk situations, feedback needs to be simple, relatable and familiar. Now is not the time for complex explanations or new skills.

Beware of Emotion: When people are stressed, it is common for them to lash out. This is especially true when you know each other well. As much as possible, try to stay focused on what needs to happen and avoid taking things personally should things get heated.

Guest Bio

Derek Foose is the founder and head coach of the Whistler Free Ride Club. He guides and works as a staff trainer for Extremely Canadian. Derek is also a Course Conductor and Course Developer for the Professional Ski Instructors of Canada’s Big Mountain Pathway. 

In addition to coaching and

Sylvia Forest joins us to explore her path into the adventure delivery industry from being a park warden to becoming an ACMG / IFMGA Mountain Guide. Sylvia shares some of her challenges, successes, and a few key pieces of wisdom that we can all learn from.

In addition to guiding, Sylvia is a guide trainer and examiner and is also the current President of the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides.

Key Takeaways

How to help yourself and others on the path to adventure includes:

Knowing yourself: Figuring out what you want to do in life starts with knowing yourself and what you are capable of.

Knowing your audience: it is hard to get the best out of people if you don’t know what they can do, their expectations, how they react under duress, and who they are as people.

The first one is to learn to embrace failure: Failures help to make us more resilient. 

Avoid punishing people for mistakes: While some people thrive on constant critiquing, most people don’t perform at their best when they are forced to dwell on their missteps. 

Help others to find value in failure: Some strategies that we can use include: highlighting lessons learned, successful strategies that were used, processes and what could be done to get a better result in the future, are all ways of turning a negative experience into a valuable one. Another important component is to draw attention to what went right.

Guest Links & Resources

Association of Canadian Mountain Guides: Website

Guardians of the Peaks by Kathy Calvert and Dave Portman: Available Here

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Who regulates adventure? Who trains guides and professionals? Who advocates for access or promotes safety and skill development? The answer to all of these questions are organizations. Jordy and Chris are joined by Angela Hawse to explore the role of organizations in the delivery of adventure. Angela shares her perspective as the President of the American Mountain Guides Association. She discusses what everyone should know about how some of these organizations work, their challenges and the value that they bring to everyone.

Key Takeaways

Start small and evolve: Organizations tend to start with a group of people that band together to push forward a small number of objectives and then grow.

Anyone can help them to evolve: Everyone has the ability to use the power of their influence to drive change within these organizations by jointing boards, committees, and lobbying membership with solutions.

Organizations are groups of people: They are not faceless corporations. They can be contacted, influenced, and they often appreciate positive feedback!

These organizations are essential: They can play important roles in educating the public, creating and sharing best accepted practices, accrediting and regulating guides and instructors, and lobbying for protection, development and access.

Guest Links & Resources

American Mountain Guides Association: https://amga.com/

Angela’s Instagram @alpinist007

IRIS: https://irisalpine.com/about/guides/

The Power to Influence: how to get the best out of yourself and others - find it here

Partner Podcast

The Avalanche Hour: https://www.theavalanchehour.com

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ACMG / IFMGA Mountain Guide Barry Blanchard continues sharing what it takes to deliver adventure to others and achieve it for ourselves. Barry recounts some tough guiding situations, close calls with bears, how to balance risk taking and his hopes for his legacy.

Key Takeaways

Respecting Bears: Bears generally avoid people. However, they are wild animals and they can be unpredictable. Managing this hazard safely requires awareness, preparation, and respect.

Managing Breaking Points: Everyone has a point where the adversity in a given situation can become too much. Coaching people forward when they have hit this point may require a firm hand or a soft touch, depending on the person and the situation.

Respecting risk: Risk taking can become normalized the more we are exposed to it. This can cause us to become complacent in the face of situations that have high amounts of risk taking. When it comes to taking risks, we need to tread lightly.

 Guest Links

You can hire Barry Blanchard to be your guide by contacting Yamnuska Mountain Adventures

Check out Barry’s book: The Calling, a Life Rocked by Mountains

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How do you design adventure experiences for success? It is easy to plan big adventures but getting them to be epic for the right reasons isn’t always as easy as it looks. This is especially true when we are building experiences to deliver to paying clients, our friends or family.

Designing experiences that have the right pacing of adventure, and the right flow, can be the difference between epic disaster or exceptional experience.

Joining us to explore what it takes to design the perfect adventure experience is Chris Winter. Chris is the owner or Big Mountain Adventures which offers mountain bike adventures in 14 countries around the world. Chris also teaches and guides steep skiing clinics for Extremely Canadian in Whistler, BC.

Chris shares some of his experiences and insights into how we can structure amazing adventure experiences that we are delivering to others. He also shares some very funny stories along the way.

Key Insights

Designing amazing adventure experiences requires us to:

Know our audience: Who are you actually building your experiences for? What are their needs, interests and capabilities?

Align expectations early: This means ensuring everyone knows what they are getting themselves into. This includes aligning goals, identifying risk tolerance, addressing needs and so on.

It has to be about them: There are experiences that guides, instructors and companies may want to deliver and there are experiences that people want to experience. These two things are not always the same thing. If you want to be successful, build experiences that people want to do.

Get the Right Pacing and challenge: We want to ease into it, build in the challenge in the middle and finish with flow. This allows people to warm up and then consolidate their experience at the end.

Remember the Purpose: The goal of adventure is to push ourselves outside our comfort zone. Adventure is important and sometimes we can forget why it is so valuable. Yes, adventure is often fun, but it serves a pretty important role in our lives. This makes the ability to deliver adventure a key life skill to have.

Guest Bio

Chris Winter is a former ski racer. Level IV CSIA ski instructor, level III high-performance ski coach, celebrated technical skier, sponsored big mountain skier featured in magazines and films. Currently teaching steep skiing clinics at Whistler Blackcomb for Extremely Canadian.

Chris is the Owner and Founder of Big Mountain Adventures. Chris founded Big Mountain Adventures in 2002. During this time, he has built his tour company into the leader in guided mountain bike travel featuring award-winning adventures in 14 countries. Check out their new eMTB trips!

Chris is also the owner of the Bralorne Adventure Lodge. Ready for a boutique mountain experience? Step out the door to spectacular wilderness & endless adventures…then recharge at our backyard spa.

In addition to operating adventure-based businesses, Chris has also created and developed Zero Ceiling. This is an innovative and respected registered non-profit that hosts disadvantaged youth to the slopes of Whistler Blackcomb. From local First Nations to street youth to youth from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, participants benefit from a day of snowboard lessons, or if chosen to participate in a year-long program that teaches them to become employees at Whistler Blackcomb and give them life-long life skills.

Guest Links

Big Mountain Adventures: https://www.ridebig.com

Bralorne Adventure Lodge: https://www.bralorneadventurelodge.com

Zero Ceiling:

When it comes to adventure sports, one of the best ways to manage risk is to ensure that you are as physically durable as possible. Being physically durable allows you to withstand physical challenges, mistakes and mishaps like falls. 

In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Leslie Desrosiers. Dr. Leslie is the founder of ACL Strong. ACL Strong is a comprehensive online strength training and exercise program. While the focus of ACL Strong is on preventing knee injuries through targeted exercises and stretching, it encompasses a full body approach.

Dr. Leslie shares some of the keys to improving our physical durability from warming up properly to being more efficient with our training. Increasing our physical durability doesn’t have to take long. Dr. Leslie tells us how we can work smarter, not harder!

Key Takeaways:

Diversify Training: This includes neuromuscular training, cardio, stretching and strengthening. Strengthening includes weight training to build your muscle mass. Cross training and using training programs will help to prevent injuries and enhance performance. 

Time Commitment: It doesn’t have to take long if you are efficient. Using the right exercises and stretches and doing things correctly can save you time.

Whole Body: Because your entire body works together, you need to work on your whole body to improve durability. Many outdoor activities focus on specific muscle groups, while training programs offer a wider benefit.

Insurance Policy: Increasing your durability is like an insurance policy that will reduce your chance of injury and will increase your chances of enjoyment.

Avoiding Flare ups: If you feel stiff or things don’t feel right, address it early. This can help to reduce the chance of an overuse injury. It is easy to ignore inflammation or discomfort and try to work through it, but this isn’t a very good long-term approach.

Aging Bodies: The older we get, the more important all of this becomes.

Guest Bio:

Dr. Leslie Desrosiers, PT, DPT, OCS, CSCS is a Doctor of Physical Therapy and Orthopedic Specialist, currently residing and operating a private physical therapy practice in San Marcos, CA. As an injury prevention specialist, Dr. Leslie and her team developed ACL Strong, an ACL injury prevention program, helping athletes and active people protect their knees and prevent major ligament injuries so they can excel in sports and add years to their career. She is a mom of two, enjoys an active lifestyle, and loves helping people with her knowledge and expertise.

Guest Links:

ACL Strong: www.aclstrong.com

ACL Strong Membership: https://training.aclstrong.com/membership-pricing

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Risk is an essential part of any adventure experience, but what is risk and what does it mean to manage it? In this episode, ACMG / IFMGA Mountain guide Grant Statham joins Chris and Jordy to explore the topic of managing risk. Grant currently works for Parks Canada as a visitor safety specialist doing mountain. Rescue and avalanche forecasting. He also works as a risk consultant, and as a mountain guide.

Key Takeaways

A risk is a chance: When we take risks, we have a chance of losing something, but we also have a chance of gaining something. The uncertainty of not knowing which will happen is the risk.

Not taking a risk, comes with risk: It is impossible to live a life without risk. Not taking risks comes with a danger of missing out.

You can’t have adventure without taking risks: Challenge, adversity and risk taking are essential components of any adventure experience.

Have a process that helps guide you in your risk taking: This can be a decision-making tool, framework, philosophy or a list. The process that we use to make decisions will increase your chances of having a positive outcome.

Reserve your decision until you have as much information as possible: Waiting until you have to make a decision keeps your options open. This means that if new information becomes available, you haven’t committed yourself to a course of action that may be hard to reverse.

Guest Links & Resources

Instagram: @stathamgrant

Ted talk on Risk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGZu5Lzgv1A

Thinking in Risk: https://thepowdercloud.com/learn/avalanche-education/thinking-in-risk/

Avalanche Canada Ice Climbing Avalanche Atlas: https://www.avalanche.ca/resources/ice-climbing/atlas

Gordon Graham: Video

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What does it take to deliver adventure to yourself? Barry Blanchard talks about what it takes to achieve adventure. Listen as he shares his views on adventure, testing your metal, and climbing some of the world’s highest peaks. Barry is a world-renowned alpine climber, IMFGA Mountain Guide, author and brilliant storyteller.

Key Takeaways:

Adventure has discomfort and involves risk: You can’t achieve an adventure without pushing through some level of discomfort, risk or challenge.

Personal evolution: Experiencing and overcoming discomfort and challenge leads to personal evolution. Testing our metal allows us to see what we are capable of.

We all need help: While adventure is often a personal thing, we all need help to achieve it. This help can be inspiration, coaching, guiding, instruction or simply following someone.

Guest Links

You can hire Barry Blanchard to be your guide by contacting Yamnuska Mountain Adventures

Check out Barry’s book: The Calling, a Life Rocked by Mountains

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How to Prepare for Big Adventures with Cyril Derreumaux

What does it take to prepare for a really big adventure? One of the main reasons people get themselves into trouble and have a misadventure is a lack of preparation. You can have all the skills in the world, the best equipment and the best intentions, but if you aren’t prepared, you may quickly find that what you thought was a perfect plan has a gaping hole in it.

Joining us is Cyril Derreumaux. Cyril is a long-distance solo kayaker, adventurer and speaker. Cyril is a two-time World Record holder. He has paddled his specially built kayak unassisted from California to Hawaii. This trip took him two attempts and 91 days to complete. Using that experience, Cyril is about to embark on another trip in a bid to cross the Atlantic. He hopes this trip will take him from the Canary Islands to Martinique. This is a distance of 4800 kilometres.

Cyril shares with us how he prepares for his epic trips operationally, logistically, physically, and emotionally. We look at how we can apply the lessons learned preparing for big expeditions to adventures of any length.

Key Takeaways

How to prepare for big adventures:

The Key to Success is Preparation: Cyril was extremely prepared. He spends more time preparing than the length of the actual trip. If you want to ensure you succeed you need to be prepared to put on the time and energy beforehand.

All in Approach Beforehand: Small trips provide practice for longer more challenging excursions. Practicing skills, taking courses, and preparing for emergencies are all important steps that contribute towards success.

Family Members: It is important to remember that family members share the risk when people are on adventures. There are often sacrifices and compromises made by both the adventurer (or person delivering adventure) and their families.

On the Adventure: It is important to maintain rhythm and routine as much as possible. On some trips it is easy to have routine during an approach. But then when we are on the route or in more difficult or hazardous parts of the trip, we need to break the routine and move quickly. But we must still remain vigilant and make good decisions. As Cyril said, an injury can easily result in rescue and mark the end of the adventure.

Reflect and Learn: Most adventurers and those delivering adventure strive to become consciously competent, as Cyril has done. This requires us to reflect on our experiences in a way that allows us to learn and develop. As Mark Twain said: "Good judgement is the result of experience and experience the result of bad judgement."

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Cover Photo by Tom Gores

What is a guide? What does it take to be a great guide? In this episode we explore these questions with master guide and guide educator Bruce Wilson. Bruce is a sea kayak guide a guide trainer, avalanche educator, hiking guide, University Instructor, leadership and vision quest coach, and owner of Warrior Wolf Guide Services.

Key Takeaways

What is a guide: A guide is anyone who offers advice, guidance, role modelling, inspiration, help, instruction, or direction to someone. This means that we are all guides at one time or another.

To be a great guide you need to adopt the right mindset: This includes always striving to be your best, working to become better, and being empathetic to others.

Manage your ego so you can be confident: Having humility and being open to learning from your mistakes are i portent traits of great guides. Great guides are also confident. Great guides believe in themselves under pressure and duress.

Evolution: Becoming a guide is the quintessential evolution of a human being. We don’t become great guides overnight, and others may not trust us until we have proven ourselves to them.

Guest Links

You can contact Bruce through Wolf Warrior Guide Services

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Adventure guides Jordy Shepherd and Chris Kaipio explore what it means to deliver adventure, how their new podcast can help you, and what you can expect to hear going forward. Jordy Shepherd is an ACMG / IFMGA Mountain Guide, rescue specialist and former park warden. Chris Kaipio is an ACMG Hiking Guide, CSIA Level 3 Ski Instructor, Canoe Guide trainer and the author of Power to Influence: how to get the best out of yourself and others.

Key Takeaways

Defining Adventure: An adventure is a challenging experience that pushes us outside our comfort zone that ends well.

Delivering Adventure: Helping people to achieve the feeling of wow that comes from pushing ourselves and succeeding.

This podcast: Shares the secrets of how you can deliver adventure to your friends, family and as a profession. What makes this podcast unique, is that it involves experts interviewing experts to find out the “how” of adventure.

Going forward: Jordy and Chris are going to be interviewing top adventure experts to get the backstage pass perspective of the adventure industry. These experts aren’t just their guests, they are their peers. 

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Pro freestyle and big mountain skier Lynsey Dyer shares her perspective on adventure as an athlete, adventurer, podcaster and soon to be mother. Hear her talk about what it’s like to ski off a seventy-five-foot cliff, the mindset that is required to overcome big challenges, and where she hopes adventure will take us.

Key Takeaways

Adventure personality: Mix of humility, determination, perseverance, preparation and assertiveness. You have to see yourself succeeding.

Assertive mindset: If you want to overcome big challenges, you need to adopt an attack mindset.

Power of high-end awareness: One trait of high-end athletes is their ability to process their environment and make good decisions quickly.

Adventure is for everyone: You don’t have to be jumping off of huge cliffs and be taking on super high-risk situations to have an adventure. Adventure is a state that any of us can experience.

Guest Links

You can find Lynsey Dyer at lynseydyer.com

Check out her Podcast: Showing UP with Lynsey Dyer

Check out: Unicorn Picnic and She Jumps

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Master climber and ACMG Alpine Guide Sarah Hueniken talks about her path to becoming an adventurer, guide and guide examiner. Sarah shares how she got into climbing and you can too. She also reflects on her experiences and reveals some of the key principles to being able to deliver adventure like a pro.

Key Takeaways

Guided Discovery Approach: It is important to step back and let people learn from themselves.

Balancing being aware while appreciating the moment: When you are delivering adventure, you need to be switched on all of the time while balancing the need to appreciate the experience in the moment.

Balance honest feedback versus positive reinforcement: - Sometimes when people ask for feedback, they are just hoping for some praise.

Look after yourself first: 5 priorities, first 3 are me, me, me, and then the clients and then others. Safety to self before service for others. Your needs always come first, because it is hard to make other people happy if you are not happy.

Guest Links

You can find out more about Sarah Hueniken by visiting: sarahhueniken.com

Watch Sarah Hueniken climbing an M12: Here 

Watch Sarah ice climbing in the Ghost: Here 

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This is the podcast for people who want to share adventure like a pro – with their friends, family, or as a profession.

Each episode explores a different aspect of adventure delivery with top experts to get their best stories, insights, and trade secrets.

Learn what it takes to deliver epic experiences to yourself and others, from the mountains to the office, and beyond. Go farther, become better and achieve more.

Chris Kaipio and Jordy Shepherd explore the essential skills and techniques that adventure industry experts use to delivery personal growth. Listen as adventure guides, managers, and promoters share their best advice on leadership, managing risk, coaching, and how to achieve experiences worth remembering. 

Topics include risk assessment, decision making, leadership, emergency response, crisis management, trip planning, memory building, marketing, capturing experiences, teaching new skills, improving performance, overcoming challenge, resiliency, communicating risk, and experience delivery.

Whether you are leading people up the corporate ladder or to the tops of the world’s highest peaks, Delivering Adventure can help you to take yourself and others farther.

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How can technology enhance our adventure experiences on skis? Is it possible that ski coaches, instructors and guides can be replaced by technology all together?

In this episode we touch on these questions as we explore Carv with Morgan Engel and Alex Jackson. Carv is a small device that skiers can affix to their ski boots that analyzes their movement patterns as they ski. The data that Carv collects is uploaded to a user-friendly app on a Smart Phone. From here, users can either analyze the data and metrics themselves. Users can also select one of the coaching modes that provides targeted feedback. This makes Carv the largest ski school in the world by hours taught!

Alex Jackson is the VP of Marketing for Carv and is based in the UK. Morgan Engel is a PSIC Level 4, CSIA Level 4 and PSIA Level 3 ski instructor and a PSIC Level 4 Licensed Professional Trainer in Whistler, British Columbia. Morgan has been working with Carv as an Ambassador and Advisor for the past six years. Morgan has also helped develop the Carv Instructor Certification offered through the Professional Ski Instructors of Canada.

Morgan has been working with Carv as an Ambassador and Advisor for the past six years. Morgan has also helped develop the Carv Instructor Certification offered through the Professional Ski Instructors of Canada.

Alex Jackson and Morgan Engel share their insights on what Carv is and how it can be used as a development tool for not just skiers, but by instructors, guides and coaches.

Takeaways

Innovative: Carv is definitely a well thought out skill development tool for skiers that adds the possibility of gamifying skiing by trying to reach higher and higher scores. It is also nice to have a tool that measures your performance objectively with weight being placed on your performance instead of your style.

Does Not Replace Snow Sports Professionals: There is still an important role for instructors when it comes to interpreting and communicating the data and structuring development. Carv also isn’t going to tell you where the best snow is on a given run or how to prepare for what you are going to encounter before you get there.

Adventure Enhancer: Carv is an excellent example of where technology can enhance the user experience. Other technologies that I can think of are apps like Stava and Gaia and devices like GoPros and even Smart Phones.

Importance of Milestones: To keep us motivated and in a positive space, we need be able to break progress into small pieces. The one thing that Carv does well that other similar technologies should take note of is pointing out each time the user has reached a new level. It might be improving a certain metric or achieving an improved score. 

Guest Bio

Alex Jackson is based in London, UK and is the co-founder and VP of Marketing for Carv. Alex has enjoyed a very successful career in technology. His passion is products that can change the way people behave.

Morgan Engel is a PSIC Level 4, CSIA level 4 and PSIA Level 3 ski instructor who has over 35 years of teaching and instructor training experience. Morgan started his ski teaching career at Hidden Valley in Alberta. He is currently teaching at Whistler Blackcomb. In addition to teaching, Morgan is also PSIC Level 4 Licensed Professional Trainer.

Morgan has been working with Carv for the past six years as a Carv ambassador and advisor. He has also used his experience with Carv to develop the Carv Instructor Certification for the PSIC. 

Guest Links

Carv Website: https://getcarv.com/

Carv Pro Deal for Professionals: https://getcarv.com/lp/pro-deal-2024

PSIC Carv Instructor...

Krissy Montgomery from the Surf Sister Surf School in Tofino, BC joins Chris and Jordy to talk about what it means to deliver adventure like a pro. Krissy shares her experiences teaching surfing and running a world class surf school.

Key Takeaways

Making the experience fun: Krissy makes learning to surf sound like a lot of fun, this is an essential part of an adventure.

Giving people control where you can: When we don’t give people control, they can become resistant to our feedback. They can also feel pressured to do things that they may not feel comfortable or interested in. To avoid this, try to give people as much control as you can.

Being inclusive: It doesn’t matter who you are, adventure is for everyone. An inclusive environment is one that is free of judgement, and one where people feel supported and cared for. If you want to get the best out of people, they need to feel physically, mentally and emotionally safe.

Guest Links

You can find out more about Krissy Montgomery and Surf Sister Surf School by visiting surfsister.com.

Watch Krissy teach Rick Mercer how to surf: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvosJJPfFPU

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What does it take to deliver adventure to ourselves? What are some of the key skills that great adventures possess? Angela Hawse joins Jordy and Chris to explore these questions and much more. Angela is an AMGA / IFMGA Mountain Guide who has travelled and guided extensively. Some of her many accomplishments include guiding trips in the Himalaya, Karakoram, the Caucasus, Andes, Alaska, Norway, and Antarctica. In this episode, Angela talks about her recent adventures and what it took to achieve them.

Key Takeaways

Navigation: To experience adventure, we have to be able to find our way both literally and figuratively. 

Prepare: Being prepared can mean spending more time practicing, developing skills, planning, and researching.

Adaptable: To become adaptable we need to be flexible, we need to be open to changing our expectations, we have to be creative and solution oriented. 

Adventure is for everyone: Adventure is something that anyone can experience. We can tell you that with the right instruction, coaching, encouragement, and mindset, anyone can push their limits and achieve adventure that they believe are beyond their abilities.

Guest Links & Resources

Angela’s Instagram @alpinist007

IRIS: https://irisalpine.com/about/guides/

Partner Podcast

The Avalanche Hour: https://www.theavalanchehour.com

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How do you create adventure? We continue to explore this question with snowmobile guide, avalanche educator, entrepreneur, and adventure innovator Curtis Pawliuk. In part 2, Curtis talks about creating North America’s first snowmobile assisted ski area, Crystal Ridge. He also touches on how he started his snowmobile instructional services company Frozen Pirate as well as his involvement in creating a snowmobile guide association. Curtis is based in Valemount, British Columbia.

Key Takeaways

Be Collaborative: Being willing to work with all groups and being respectful of all stakeholders is a far more sustainable approach than going it alone.

Be Creative: Every adventure experience has evolved into what it is now, over time. Creating adventure can require us to think outside the box and to try new things and ways of doing them.

Be Structured: This involves creating a plan, and therefore you will need a process to develop that plan. Using the snowmobile guiding association as an example they have a plan, and are enacting that plan in an organized way

Presentation Skills: Creating anything requires that you be good at influencing people in a positive way.

Guest Links & Resources

Valemount Mountain Biking: https://ridevalemount.com/mountain-biking/

VARDA: https://ridevalemount.com/

Frozen Pirate: https://linktr.ee/frozenpirate

Instagram: @frozenpirate

Chris’s Book: Power to Influence: how to get the best out of yourself and others – available at Amazon Here

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Pro athlete, ACMG Alpine Guide and adventure influencer Will Gadd shares his thoughts on adventure, misadventure and the line in between. Will has ice climbed Niagara Falls and Helmcken Falls, the last glacier on Mt Kilamjaro, as well as icebergs and many other places.

Key Takeaways

Avoiding misadventure takes preparation: High risk-taking endeavors like ice climbing Niagara Falls can look reckless, but there is actually a lot of preparation that true professionals put into doing them that makes them much safer than many people may realize.

Harnessing the positive power of negative thinking: Another way to avoid misadventure is to always ask ourselves; What can go wrong and can we deal with that or not?

Listening to your fear: It is normal for a client to be stressed, but the guide / leader shouldn’t be that stressed. If they are, they may be taking too much risk, they may have missed something or they haven’t prepared enough.

Guest Links

You can find more about Will Gadd at willgadd.com

Watch Will Gadd climbing Niagara Falls: Here 

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At some point in time, we all find ourselves in the role of being someone else’s guide. We could be guiding our friends, family or doing it professionally for strangers. In this episode, we try to answer the question of how guides provide exceptional value to the people they are leading? Joining us is Ken Bélanger.

Ken has been operating skiing, hiking, and cycling trips around the world through his company Elevation Guides. Ken taps into his extensive experience leading high end custom trips to share some of the secrets that go into delivering exceptional guided experiences.

Key Takeaways

To provide value as a guide:

Identify What People Really Want: Just because they might be asking for one thing doesn’t mean that is what they really want. This is where you have to be a curious detective. Remember, you can’t give people what they want if you don’t know what it is.

Make it Special for Them: This might be something you have done many times, but it could be the first time the people you are with have ever done. Ask yourself, how can I make this feel fresh? Are there aspects of this experience I can provide that they couldn’t get on their own or with someone else? Ken talked a lot about custom trips. In a way, every trip should be a custom trip.

Check in with People: Ask, is this what they want? Are they happy? Are they aware of the other options available to them? There is nothing worse than having someone go away from an experience feeling like they missed doing something better. It’s way better to uncover that early.

Great Guides are Selfless: A great guide puts service to others ahead of serving themselves. Regardless of whether you are being pay to be the leader, or you are leading your friends or family, you would be wise to adopt the mindset that the people you are with are your customers. As such, you may need to put your own aspirations aside if they conflict with the needs and goals of the people you are guiding.

Remember guiding family, friends and peers is harder than guiding strangers: The closer we are to people, the harder it can be for them so see us as being credible, regardless of how well intentioned, how professional, or how qualified we might be. Try not to take it personally.

Have sympathy: People can be scared, they can struggle to do things that are easy for us, they may not be as resilient, and they may not grasp information as well as we want them to. This last point is especially true when they are under duress. They may also struggle to imagine what you are telling them if they have no experience with that situation. This is where it is important to try to view the situation through their eyes.

Guest Links

Elevation Guides: www.elevationguides.ca

Ken Bélanger on Instagram: @elevationguides

Guest Bio

Ken Bélanger is an ACMG Ski, Hiking, and Via Ferrata Guide, CAA Professional Member, CANSI Level 1 Nordic Ski & Telemark instructor, CSIA level 1, and Advanced Wilderness Adventure Medic.

Although Ken grew up in Calgary not far from the mountains with his single father and two brothers, they didn’t have the financial means to explore them. It wasn’t until his late teens when he could self-fund trips that he finally discovered skiing and hiking.

He was immediately hooked. It was a steep learning curve to overcome his fear of heights and water, but within a few years he was instructing and guiding watersports, climbing, cycling, and nordic and telemark skiing.

Ken considers himself extremely fortunate to have learned under some fantastic guides and instructors along the way.

Now operating Elevation Guides with nearly 30 years of guiding experience in 23 countries, he couldn’t imagine a better career. Ken...

Why should anyone hire a guide? If you are in the role of being a guide, do you know why people would want your help? These are two of the topics that we explore with Ken Bélanger. Ken is the owner of Elevation Guides, and works around the world as a ski, hiking and cycling guide. Using his unique perspective as someone who has had a lot of guides and who has guided a lot of people, Ken shares with us why people hire guides and why having a guide is valuable.

Key Takeaways

Reasons why People Hire a Guide: They want to go somewhere they either can’t or don’t think they can access on their own. They want to improve their skills or learn something so they can be better at what they are doing. They want to get more out of the experience by having someone else there with them, who can help to structure the experience in a positive way.

Guides help us with all the little details: These are things we might not have thought of or known about.

Guides help us to fast-track improvement:  They do this by showing us the short cuts, the better way to do things, they can help us to become better technically and show us how to be more efficient.

Guides can maximize the experience: By making the most of the time we have and helping us to manage the risks more effectively.

Help to build connections: They can connect us to the place and the activity by increasing understanding of where we are and what we are doing. This boosts our sense of place and purpose.

Guides and instructors help us to go farther: than they otherwise could or believed they could on their own thanks to coaching, support, knowing where to go and how to do it.

Guest Links

Elevation Guides: www.elevationguides.ca

Ken Bélanger on Instagram: @elevationguides

Guest Bio

Ken Bélanger is an ACMG Ski, Hiking, and Via Ferrata Guide, CAA Professional Member, CANSI Level 1 Nordic Ski & Telemark instructor, CSIA level 1, and Advanced Wilderness Adventure Medic.

Although Ken grew up in Calgary not far from the mountains with his single father and two brothers, they didn’t have the financial means to explore them. It wasn’t until his late teens when he could self-fund trips that he finally discovered skiing and hiking.

He was immediately hooked. It was a steep learning curve to overcome his fear of heights and water, but within a few years he was instructing and guiding watersports, climbing, cycling, and nordic and telemark skiing.

Ken considers himself extremely fortunate to have learned under some fantastic guides and instructors along the way.

Now operating Elevation Guides with nearly 30 years of guiding experience in 23 countries, he couldn’t imagine a better career. Ken resides in Canmore, Alberta at the doorstep of beautiful Banff National.

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How can you build a resilient team? Building effective teams is an art in itself. Building teams that are resilient enough to withstand the challenges that come with adventure, takes this art to another level. When it comes to adventure, teams can come in many forms. They can be a group of guided guests, friends on a trip together, families, or a group of guides or instructors who are working together.

In this episode, we are joined by Brenna Kelleher to explore what it takes to build resilient teams out of groups of individuals from the mountains to the office and beyond.

Brenna currently teaches and guides advanced women’s and youth-specific skiing clinics at Big Sky Resort. She is a former member of the Professional Ski Instructors of America’s (PSIA) National Alpine Team and is a PSIA course examiner

Brenna has also coached and competed in freestyle kayaking, she has guided horseback trips in Yellowstone, and she has led a group of girls on a semester program in Africa.

Brenna taps into her extensive experience as a team member and team leader to share how we can build and develop teams that can perform well in the face of challenge and adversity.

Key Takeaways

How to build resilient teams:

Communication: This needs to happen often. It also needs to happen in a way that helps people to feel safe to express how they are feeling.

Building trust: This needs to start early.

Organization: This needs to take into consideration what role each team member is going to play in a way that allows everyone to compliment each other.

Allowing others to shine: Sometimes we can all be guilty of wanting to hog the limelight. A good strategy for leaders is to use opportunities to let others spend time in the spotlight. This means allowing others to take the lead, give briefings, lead meetings, and potentially take the credit.

Top Reasons Teams can Struggle: People didn’t feel they had a chance to express their concerns or fears. Leaders were not able to keep their egos in check. The goals that were set may not have been realistic or attainable. When there were issues, they may not have been dealt with early enough. This caused negativity to spread through the group.

People may have felt they were being micromanaged.

Resilient teams: Trust each other, share in each other’s success, and these two things together allow everyone to feel valued. When people feel valued, they will be better positioned to perform at their best.

Guest Bio

Brenna Kelleher has developed a highly successful career as an outdoor athlete, instructor, guide and realtor. She has been an NCAA ski racer for Montana State University and claimed the 2001 Junior World Championship as a freestyle kayaker. 

She has guided horseback trips in Yellowstone Park and has coached freestyle kayaking. Brenna has traveled to Africa leading a group of high school girls, as an educator in a semester abroad program. She has been a member of the Professional Ski Instructors of America’s (PSIA) National Alpine Team.

In addition to being a PSIA Examiner, Brenna is a ski instructor and guide at Big Sky Resort where she leads advanced women’s and youth-specific clinics.

Guest Links

Brenna’s website: www.bigskybrenna.com

Instagram: @brennakelleher

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Adventures have risks. It doesn’t matter how much you plan, or how well you manage situations, if you are having an adventure, something can go wrong. It is impossible to make adventures 100% safe. If they really are safe, then there isn’t any risk which means they aren’t going to be adventures!

For this reason, planning for mishaps, emergencies and surprises is another essential step when it comes to delivering adventure.

In this episode, we share a story from ACMG Alpine Guide and professional athlete Will Gadd to highlight the importance of planning for mishap. Will’s story takes place on the Fuhrmann Ledges in Banff National Park and is an excellent example of the value of planning for mishaps, even when you think there is a low risk of something going wrong.

Will Gadd has a long list of accomplishments including first ice climbing ascents of Niagara Falls and on Mt. Kilamjaro, winning three gold medals at the X Games, and setting the paragliding world distance record twice.

Key Takeaways

Here are a few things that Will did very well:

Communicating the Risks: This includes Will communicating what could happen to his clients and himself. In this instance it’s a given that Will would have had his clients sign a waiver and would have talked to them beforehand about the risks they could face.

Discussing the Plan in the Event of a Crisis: This put the idea in their heads that rock fall could happen. More importantly it helped to prepare them for the moment when it actually did happen.

If you fail to plan you plan to fail.

Being Situationally Aware: Even though Will felt that there wasn’t a high probability of rockfall, he still went through the process of preparing everyone, looking for signs that rockfall had occurred recently, and encouraging his clients to do the same.

Five Hazardous Attitudes: At least one of the Five Hazardous Attitudes that is always present in human caused accidents. They are Anti-Authority, Impulsivity, Invulnerability, Macho and Resignation.

Guest Bio

Will Gadd is a professional sponsored athlete and ACMG Alpine Guide. Among many of Will’s feats are first accents ice climbing Niagara Falls, Helmcken Falls, Icebergs and many other ice climbs around the world including on the top of Mt Kilimanjaro. Will is also a world-class white-water kayaker and paraglider. He has twice set the world record for the longest paragliding flight.

As an elite athlete and professional guide, Will is extremely experienced when it comes to evaluating risk and making decisions that could have serious consequences for himself and the people he is leading or working with. This makes Will one of the perfect people to talk about the power of judgment.

Guest Links

Contact Will to be your Guide, Instructor or Speaker: https://willgadd.com/

Instagram: @realwillgadd

The Last Ascent, Kilimanjaro: https://www.redbull.com/ca-en/films/the-last-ascent-will-gadds-return-to-kilimanjaro

A Fun Ted Talk: Three Simple Tools to Manage Risk, Fear and Children: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTdFkPTTnsA

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What does it take to build and operate a successful adventure company? In this episode, Chris Winter joins Chris and Jordy to discuss how he has built Big Mountain Adventures, from the ground up. Chris shares some of his successes and challenges and the mindset that goes into running a successful adventure company.

Chris Winter grew up bike touring in Europe with his parents, who ran a road cycling tour company. After a career as a professional skier competing and participating in ski films, Chris followed his parents' footsteps and founded Big Mountain Adventures. Launched in 2002, Whistler based Big Mountain Adventures has grown to employ 25 guides running mountain bike trips and courses in 14 countries.

In addition to owning and operating Big Mountain Adventures, Chris Winter teaches steep skiing clinics for Extremely Canadian at Whistler Blackcomb. He has also founded the not for profit Zero Ceiling that hosts disadvantaged youth on the slopes of Whistler Blackcomb.

Guest Bio

Chris Winter is a former ski racer. Level IV CSIA ski instructor, level III high-performance ski coach, celebrated technical skier, sponsored big mountain skier featured in magazines and films. Currently teaching steep skiing clinics at Whistler Blackcomb for Extremely Canadian.

Chris is the Owner and Founder of Big Mountain Adventures. Chris founded Big Mountain Adventures in 2002. During this time, he has built his tour company into the leader in guided mountain bike travel featuring award-winning adventures in 14 countries. Check out their new eMTB trips!

Chris is also the owner of the Bralorne Adventure Lodge. Ready for a boutique mountain experience? Step out the door to spectacular wilderness & endless adventures…then recharge at our backyard spa.

In addition to operating adventure-based businesses, Chris has also created and developed Zero Ceiling. This is an innovative and respected registered non-profit that hosts disadvantaged youth to the slopes of Whistler Blackcomb. From local First Nations to street youth to youth from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, participants benefit from a day of snowboard lessons, or if chosen participate in a year-long program that teaches them to become employees at Whistler Blackcomb and give them life-long life skills.

Guest Links

Big Mountain Adventures: https://www.ridebig.com

Bralorne Adventure Lodge: https://www.bralorneadventurelodge.com

Zero Ceiling: https://zeroceiling.org

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What is adventure and how can we deliver it? These are just two of the topics that Mark Sedgwick and Jeff Marks help us to explore as we talk about adventure and the challenge zone. Mark and Jeff are two of the founders of the newly launched Professional Ski Instructors of Canada (PSIC). The PSIC has delivering “the adventure” at the core of its mission. Mark and Jeff walk through what “the adventure” is and how it relates to our challenge zone.

Key Takeaways

Interesting new Organization: Promoting the delivery of the entire experience, free of judgment, promoting development, recognizing that delivering these experiences requires a diverse skill set that includes both hard and soft skills.

Components of Adventure: Fun, safe, learning were three key components of adventure for the PSIC. To achieve an adventure, it has to be remembered as being enjoyable either in the moment or later, the experience has to fit inside people’s risk tolerance, and people generally want to feel like they have improved in some way.

The Challenge Zone: Tis the performance zone you are in when you are excited and can perform well, without being overwhelmed or bored. When we go above your challenge zone, we can become stressed, and our survival instincts can kick in. When we go below our challenge zone, we can become complacent and lose interest. The level of adversity we are exposed to determines where we are operating.

Adventure Happens in the Challenge Zone: This is where we are stimulated and can try new things without becoming frustrated. To deliver an adventure we need to create an environment here people can operate in their challenge zone.

Guest Links

Professional Ski Instructors of Canada (PSIC): www.psic.pro

Model of the Challenge Zone: https://deliveringadventure.com/the-adventure-zone/

Guest Bio

Mark Sedgwick is a proud product of the ski industry – skiing is his passion, and he is an obsessed student of the sport. His career spans over 35 years in the industry. He is currently President and co-founder of both the Professional ski instructors of Canada (PSIC) and 2XO Ski Consulting, offering his expertise as an industry advisor. He is a recognized and respected global thought leader and author in the ski space.

Mark spent 16 years as a senior executive with Whistler Blackcomb and played a strategic role in all aspects of the resort’s journey and growth as it became the most visited resort on the planet. During his tenure at Whistler Blackcomb, he was involved in the delivery of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, a successful Initial Public Offering (IPO), leading to the establishment of Whistler Blackcomb as a publicly traded company. This series of achievements culminated in Whistler Blackcomb’s significant acquisition by Vail Resorts.

Mark's ski education spans three pathways: Austrian, Australian, and Canadian. Mark participated at two Interski events, representing Australia in 1995 and Canada as Technical Lead and Coach in 2023.

Like Mark, Jeff has worked extensively in the ski industry. Jeff was born and raised in the Canadian Rockies in Jasper and currently lives in Banff Alberta.

Jeff has had various leadership roles in the ski industry including Director of the Club Ski program in Banff and the Niseko Village Snow School in Japan as well as 12 years as Program Coordinator and National Program Director for the Canadian Ski Instructors Alliance.

Jeff has represented Canada at three Interski events including as Head Coach of the Canadian team in March, 2023 in Levi, Finland. 

Now being involved with the Professional Ski Instructors of Canada, Jeff finds himself again in a creative new challenge zone with an opportunity to do his best to support an industry and profession that he loves. ...

In this episode, we continue speaking with Peter Weiland on how we can help people to embrace adversity. Peter reveals some of his biggest challenges owning a bike tour company, some of the pressures of raising kids in a mountain resort town, his philosophy to coaching kids to play soccer, and the secrets to how to help people to push their limits.

Peter is a former semi-pro adventure racer, former owner of Rocky Mountain Cycle Tours and currently manages a youth soccer program. Peter is also a ski instructor at Whistler Blackcomb.

Key Takeaways

The value of having a sense of humor: Having a sense of humor can really help us to power through difficult moments.

Getting people through adversity can involve setting small milestones: Nothing builds confidence like success and sometimes people need small successes. This applies to finishing long journeys and learning new skills.

Kids and not pushing them:. Everyone has a limit, for kids that limit is lower. Just because someone can do something doesn’t mean they will enjoy it. Just because they can finish something doesn’t mean they will want to do it again

Just Recognizing the value of adversity and communicating it: Sometimes, just letting people know that what they are doing is hard - while reminding them that it will be worth it - can be enough to help them to keep going.

Guest Link

You can find Rocky Mountain Cycle Tours here: https://rockymountaincycle.com/

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How can we help people to succeed when they are faced with the challenges that come with adventure? In this episode, Sylvia Forest draws upon her experience to share some of the key strategies that have allowed her to help others to succeed.

Sylvia has worked as a national park warden, mountain guide, guide trainer and examiner and is the current President of the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides.

Key Takeaways

Safe environment: Anyone in a leadership position can work to create an environment that is as physically safe as possible, free of judgment and harassment, and full of support.

Involve people where you can:  Involving people in the decision making process can help to give them ownership over the experience.

Create a team atmosphere: People want to feel like they belong. Involving people in the decision-making process, in leadership positions, and in tasks helps to create this.

Accept that people won’t always like what you are doing: Despite your best actions and intentions, you can’t be all things to all people. Knowing when to listen, when to push back and when to tune it out, is a hallmark of a great leader.

Guest Links & Resources

Association of Canadian Mountain Guides: Website

Guardians of the Peaks by Kathy Calvert and Dave Portman: Available Here

Understanding Group Formation: More Info Here

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One of the essential elements to managing risk when we are delivering adventure to others, is understanding and managing people’s risk tolerance. Our risk tolerance is the level of comfort that we have with loss or injury. Being able to determine a person’s risk tolerance in a given moment is a key component to building trust, improving their performance, coaching them through danger and helping them to control their fear.

One person who has made a successful career of managing her own risk tolerance, and the risk tolerance of others is Robin Barnes. Robin is the Director of Skier Services at Heavenly Mountain Resort. Her current role is to oversee the operations of the Heavenly Snow School. In addition to working at Heavenly, Robin has previously spent 31 seasons working at Portillo Chile as an instructor and the ski and snowboard school director. She has also been a four-time Alpine Team Member with the Professional Ski Instructors of America (PSIA).

In this episode of Delivering Adventure, we discuss what goes into evaluating and managing the risk tolerance of ourselves and the people we may be leading.

Key Takeaways

Risk Tolerance: What you are comfortable losing or giving up. Essentially, it is out appetite for taking risk.

Subjective and Perception Based: Each of us views risk differently and this perception can change throughout an activity or during the day. For this reason, it’s important to be able to identify what a person’s risk tolerance is up front and to keep evaluating it as we go along.

Determining Risk Tolerance: We can use a number scale to gauge people’s level of tolerance. For example, 10 could mean a person is terrified while 1 means they are bored. Part of doing this successfully is to learn what a person’s rating means to them.

More confidence than knowledge: When this happens, people may only see the win, not the chance of loss. One situation where this can occur is with kids who may not have the ability to judge the consequences of following a specific path or the ability to calculate the potential for suffering those consequences. This is the classic example where the people we may be leading don’t know what they don’t know.

Spotting People When They are Outside Their Risk Tolerance: We can see this when performance deteriorates, body position becomes defensive, and people may become quieter or more talkative than normal. We have to keep checking in with people, asking him how they are doing, communicating the risks, giving people options and watching their reactions carefully.

Importance: Exposing people to too much risk can overwhelm them by causing stress and anxiety. What is worse is that it can lead to injury. On the other hand, exposing people to too little risk or challenge can leave them bored. Both of these things can damage relationships and ruin the experience.

Guest Bio

Robin Barnes is the Director of Skier Services at Heavenly Mountain Resort. Her current role is to oversee the operations of the Heavenly Snow School. In addition to working at Heavenly, Robin has previously spent 31 seasons working at Portillo Chile as an instructor and the ski and snowboard school director. She has also been a four-time Alpine Team Member with the Professional Ski Instructors of America (PSIA).

In addition to skiing, she is a fitness trainer, mountain biker, has worked as a Ski tester for a ski Magazine and is fluent in English, Spanish and Portuguese. Robin basically does it all!

People aren’t always truthful or forthcoming: People may misrepresent their goals and expectations, they may not know what they want, they may also be too embarrassed to tell you what they really want.

Guest Links

Heavenly Ski Resort: https://www.skiheavenly.com/

Article about Robin:...

Peter Weiland shares his perspective on why we need adversity and what takes to overcome it. Peter is a former semi-pro adventure racer, former owner of Rocky Mountain Cycle Tours and currently manages a youth soccer program. Using stories from some of his most epic moments, Peter reveals what it takes to power through adversity both for ourselves and how to help others.

Key Takeaways

You don’t have to go far to test yourself: Adventure can be close to home.

Starting people off with a little bit of adversity is better than too much: When exposing people to challenge, danger, and discomfort, start slowly and build up, instead of diving straight into the deep end. This is especially important when people have lower risk tolerance and resiliency.

It is often easier to increase adversity than it is to dial it down: It is easier to go faster, harder, farther, and to increase the complexity than it is slow things down.

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An essential adventure and life skill is the ability to be adaptable. Being adaptable allows us to adjust to change and to keep our cool when we find ourselves in adverse or stressful situations.

In 2005, Wells Jones set out to retrace the path of the famous soldier and adventurer TE Lawrence - also known as Lawrence of Arabia. The goal of this trip was to prepare for an acting role.

On that trip, Wells and his friend Miles went through 39 border check points, trekked through the desert by camel and dared to go where few westerners were willing to travel in the wake of 9/11. All the while they had to vigilante to avoid being kidnapped.

Wells and Miles have recently released a book that they wrote based on this trip called A Line in the Sand.

In this episode, Wells shares his philosophy of adventure in a candid and at times deeply personal and intense way as well as key strategies that we can use to increase our adaptability.

Key Takeaways

How we can increase our adaptability:

You are More Adaptable Than you Think: All of us are already adapting to many different situations that we may take for granted.

Yes, I Can Mindset: When you are faced with a situation that pushes you outside your comfort and challenge zone, and you aren’t sure whether you can adapt, it can be really helpful to adopt a mindset where you say to yourself, yes I can do it. Focussing on success instead of failure, and believing in yourself can be the difference makers between adapting to new and challenging situations and potentially overcoming adversity - and giving in.

Prepare to Relinquish Control: Adapting to new situations may require you to let go of control. Trying new things requires us to go against status quo bias where we may choose familiar patterns where we feel we have control. This can require us to have an open mind and simply embrace the adventure. Embrace change.

Adopt an Adaptable Mindset: An adaptable mindset is one where we embrace even the difficult moments in a way that allows us to find value. Happy people find value in every moment, while unhappy people tend to go looking for problems. To adapt, we need to look for value.

Guest Bio

Wells Jones started his career as a US Navy Antarctic Pararescue Team Member. This included precision skydiving, technical training mountain/glacier/crevasse rescue, Antarctic survival, advanced to instructor.

Wells went on to graduate from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. He has since worked in plays, commercials, TV series and films. His acting name is Tad Jones.

In addition to acting, Wells has also worked as a producer and director.

In 2005, Wells and his friend Miles Spencer set out to retrace the steps of TE Lawrence through the Middle East. The goal of this trip was to prepare Wells for an acting role.

On that trip, Wells and his friend Miles went through 39 border check points, trekked through the desert by camel and dared to go where few westerners were willing to travel in the wake of 9/11. All the while they had to vigilante to avoid being kidnapped.

Wells and Miles have recently released a book that they wrote based on this trip called A Line in the Sand. A Line in the Sand is an excellent read and can be found on Amazon.

Guest Links

A Line in the Sand: Available at Amazon Here

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Every group needs a leader. If you are a professional adventure guide or instructor, there is an expectation that you can be the leader. While being the leader can be fun, it isn’t always easy for everyone.

In this episode, we explore what it takes to be the leader and how to do it effectively. Joining us to share her unique insight on leadership is Erin Tierney. Erin has had many leadership roles within the adventure industry. These include leading and managing teams of guides and guests as a ski guide and ski guide examiner. She is also the current President of the Canadian Ski Guides Association (CSGA) and the General Manager of Whistler Heli-Skiing.

Guest Links

Whistler Heli-Skiing: https://www.whistlerblackcomb.com/explore-the-resort/activities-and-events/whistler-heli-skiing/whistler-heli-skiing.aspx

Canadian Ski Guide Association: https://canskiguide.com/

The Avalanche Hour Podcast with Erin Tierney: https://soundcloud.com/user-23585762/tah-erin-tierney-csga-10

Guest Bio

Erin is a certified CSGA ski guide and the current President of the Canadian Ski Guide Association. In addition, to guiding in the Heli-ski industry since 1999, Erin is also a guide trainer and examiner with the Canadian Ski Guide Institute. Erin currently works as the General manager of Whistler Heli-skiing.

Erin has worked extensively with teams of guests and guides in a number of roles, which makes her a perfect person to give us some insights on being a leader!

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Professional backcountry skier, athlete, explorer and guide Greg Hill continues sharing his perspective on what it takes to keep adventure sustainable. In this episode, Greg talks about the importance of physical sustainability, and how we can reduce our environmental foot print by practicing small things.

Key Takeaways

Look after your body: This means keeping on top of strength training stretching, taking breaks when needed, good nutrition and hydration, getting sleep, and addressing problems when they come up.

Do what you can: Small choices can make a real difference when it comes to reducing our impact on the environment.

You don’t have to travel far away: The adventures that we have closer to home – especially in the places that we can see regularly, can end up being remembered more often than ones that happen in far away places that we never see again.

No substitute for formal outdoor education: This can help us to be more efficient, save time and save energy.

Guest Links

You can find out more about Greg Hill by visiting greghill.ca

Check out one of Greg’s Electric Adventures: Here 

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Have you ever pushed forward with something even when it became clear that you should probably change your plan or abort? If so, you may have succumbed to plan continuation bias. When this happens, we can become predisposed to continue towards completing our original plan, even when conditions change, or new information becomes known that indicates that continuing on is not advisable.

Mike Adolph joins us to discuss some of the strategies that we can use to recognize and manage plan continuation bias. Mike Adolph is an ACMG / IFMGA Mountain Guide and is the current Technical Director of the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides.

Mike dips into his extensive guiding and instructing experience to share some great examples and advice.

Key Takeaways

What is plan continuation bias: It is when a person ignores the fact that conditions or the situation has changed in a way that should cause them to rethink their initial plan, but the person decides to push on towards their objective anyway.

Reasons for plan continuation bias: There are often a number of human factors at play including pressure to keep going from others, a need or desire to make money if you are getting paid to keep going, and a belief that we are more likely to experience a positive outcome. We may also end up ignoring or downplaying information that indicates that we should change course.

Set key decisions points beforehand: For example, we will decide if we continue once we reach the ridge, or after lunch, or once we have worked on this skill.

Removing pressures beforehand: Examples of this can include communicating expectations, decision points and the overall plan beforehand.

Guest Bio

Mike Adolph is an ACMG / IFMGA Mountain Guide and the current technical director of the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides. In addition to guiding custom outdoor adventures for small groups, Mike also works as a guide trainer and examiner for the ACMG’s Training and Assessment Program.

Mike started in the outdoor industry in 1994 after his family, in a joint venture, opened the Sheiling Mountain Lodge and the Center for Outdoor Education in Nordegg, Alberta. He completed his final ACMG exam and received his IFMGA International Federation of Mountain Guides Association Mountain Guide designation in 2009. He always admired his instructors and examiners, even if they were a bit harsh at times, which lead to him getting involved with the instructor/examiner team in 2012. When the job posting for the interim ACMG technical director came up in 2018, he thought, why not? 

The mountains have taught him to be open to all possibilities, have several options and go with the flow. I feel lucky to have this as a career and am extremely grateful to my loving and understanding wife Jennifer and our two boys Lucas and Tyler.

Guest Links

ACMG Technical Manuals: https://www.acmg.ca/03public/resources/publications.aspx

Association of Mountain Guides: www.acmg.ca

David Thomson Via Ferratas: www.viaferratacanada.com

Mike Adolph Email: msadolph@gmail.com

Mike Adolph Instagram: @ mikeatcoe

Avalanche Hour with Mike Adolph: https://soundcloud.com/user-23585762/avalanche-hour-podcast-mike-adolph-acmg-10

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What does it take to work through adversity? What happens when that adversity is coming from an injury that has transformed our life? These are two of the questions that Jill Wheatley helps us to explore thanks to her extensive personal experience.

Jill shares how she handled her recovery from a traumatic brain injury she suffered from a freak accident while on a teaching assignment in Europe. Being near death, having lost 70 percent of her eyesight, she details how she coped with months of recovery, much of it in a foreign country and alone.

Jill tells us how goal setting and keeping perspective helped her to recover and go on to do ultra marathons in Nepal and climb seven of the fourteen 8000m plus peaks. While her sight is still limited, she has not stopped adventuring and pushing her limits.

In this episode of Delivering Adventure, we hear what it took for her to succeed, what the rest of us can take away to apply to our lives, and how she is handling another recent climbing accident which has badly damaged her ankle.

Key Takeaways

How can we work through adversity due to injury:

Keep perspective: Whatever situation you are in, it won’t last forever, even though in the moment it might start to feel like it. This is really important to remember when we are dealing with an injury that has negatively impacted our ability to enjoy life to the point where we start to wonder if we will ever get back to the way things were.

Set goals: Setting goals can help to give us something to work towards. In Jill’s case, she set the goal of climbing all of the 8000m peaks on the planet as a motivator. It’s fair to say that the rest of us can get away with setting more moderate goals and still reap the same benefits.

Get out in nature: Getting out in nature gets us moving, can take our focus off pain, and is fantastic for our mental health.

Don’t be a hermit: Connecting with others is really important. If you know someone who is recovering from an injury, reaching out to them to let them know that they aren’t alone can be very beneficial to their well being.

Enlist a team: Take full advantage of resources such as different health practitioners, strategies, and tools. Each health practitioner can help to address different problems and each has a different approach. Different people in the healing process can help to give you a clearer overall understanding of what is going on.

When people are recovering from injury, they can suffer from status quo bias where they tend to prefer to keep doing the same thing. This mean sticking with only physiotherapy when also going to see a chiropractor or even an acupuncturist could provide for a quicker and a more well-rounded recovery strategy.

Listening to the experiences of how others have recovered from the same situation can also be very beneficial.

Guest Bio

Following a traumatic brain injury that resulted in life threatening complications and 70% vision loss which required 26 months spent between 7 different health care facilities in 3 countries, Canadian Jill Wheatley was dropped at Denver International Airport with no direction. The only sign she could see pointed to mountains. Despite such compromised eyesight, Jill chose to spend one year alone with Mother Nature in an attempt to find light on life’s trail.  Her search led through 13 different massifs and upon running in the Annapurnas in Nepal, she knew that she wanted to spend more time among Himalayan giants. Essentially she has gone from being bedridden, to a wheelchair, then on to walking, navigating hospital parking lots to hiking, trail running, mountain running and skiing before climbing 5, 6, and then seven 8000 m peaks and spending the past 5 years based in Nepal. 

In a story made for movies, Jill’s trail has recently connected to another type of climb...

How can you control your fear? What can you do to help other people to control their fear? These are the questions that psychologist, author, and adventurer Geoff Powter answers in this episode. In addition to psychology, Geoff draws upon his experience as the former editor of the Polar Circus Magazine and the Canadian Alpine Journalist, as well as being a respected mountaineer and adventurer.

Key Takeaways:

Basiks Model of managing fear: The six steps are belief, action, support, intention, knowledge and skills.

Calming down: It is impossible to be mentally calm and physically anxious at the same time or physically calm and mentally anxious at the same time. It is easier to control our physical side than our mental side. This is where the value of breathing comes in to help to relax us in times of high stress.

About them: What we think will be good for someone else, might not be good for them.

Guest Links

You can find more about Geoff Powter’s books Inner Ranges and Strange and Dangerous Dreams: The Fine Line Between Adventure and Madness: Here

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What does it take to build an effective expedition team? In this episode, we are joined by master guide, guide trainer and author Colby Brokvist to discuss what goes into building successful expedition teams and how we can apply some of these lessons to any group of people we may find ourselves leading.

While groups of people are each made up of a collection of unique individuals, there are commonalities to the way groups themselves develop. Colby shares some of his key strategies for team building and some of the challenges he has faced.

Colby Brokvist is a professional guide who leads worldwide expeditions for some of the most acclaimed companies in adventure travel. He has guided trips around the world including in Greenland, Antarctica, Africa, and Patagonia, as well as throughout the United States and Canada. Colby currently serves as the Chair of the Polar Tourism Guides Association.

Using his expertise and extensive experience, Colby has written The Professional Guides Handbook – How to lead adventure travel trips and expeditions. This is a great resource for anyone leading others.

Key Takeaways

What goes into building an effective expedition team?

Forming: This is when people first meet for the first time. Keys to success are enabling everyone to feel welcome and to align expectations early.

Storming: This is when people are working to find their place in the group. Keys to success are to make everyone feel included and to model the behaviours that a leader needs to see from everyone.

Norming: This is when people have found their place in a group and are starting to perform. Keys to success include having the leader continue role model behaviours and recognize good practices. 

Performing: This where the group can start to take on risks as a team. Key to success is to ensure everyone is able to follow all the steps.

Adjourning and transforming: This is where a group is reflecting on the experience together. Key to success is being able to connect everyone to what they have accomplished.

Unmet needs: We all have needs that must be met if we are to become an effective member of a team. If people have unmet needs, it becomes very difficult for them to perform at their best. Identifying and meeting these needs are a key to success for a leader.

Guest Bio

Colby Brokvist is a professional guide who leads worldwide expeditions for some of the most acclaimed companies in adventure travel. He was inspired to pursue guiding as a career during a through-hike of the Appalachian Trail in the summer of 2000. Since then, he has led hundreds of adventure travel departures as an Expedition Leader, ranging from backpacking and trekking adventures to mountaineering and rock-climbing trips, sea kayaking and sailing voyages, and wildlife safaris. His work has taken him to destinations as far-flung as Greenland, Antarctica, Africa, and Patagonia, as well as throughout the United States and Canada. His current basecamp is Boulder, Colorado.

When not actively leading trips in the field, Colby assumes a variety of managerial, operational, and consulting roles within the adventure travel sphere. His work centers on developing and facilitating guide training courses and programs as well as trip program consulting and field-based guide team management. Colby also serves on the board of directors for the Polar Tourism Guides Association and is a certified Senior Polar Guide through the same organization.

Guest Links

The Professional Guides Handbook – How to lead adventure travel trips and expeditions - https://www.guideshandbook.com

https://linktr.ee/colbyoutdoors

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