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LuckyPink
climber
the last bivy
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Nov 19, 2014 - 01:41pm PT
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Adventure takes place once the outcome is unknown.
+1 Doug's book
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 19, 2014 - 01:52pm PT
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"Adventure takes place once the outcome is unknown"
"Adventure begins when things start going wrong"
Adventure finds you
One thing these ideas have in common is the uncertainty principle of adventure.
Adventure can come in many guises
but one thing for sure
it isn't scripted
it doesn't come in a can
and it doesn't come with a label.
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Willoughby
Social climber
Truckee, CA
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Nov 19, 2014 - 02:20pm PT
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Utterly scripted (and the opening sequence involves a fight scene on rappel, ooh la la. Haven't watched beyond that, so proceed at your own risk):
[Click to View YouTube Video]
In my opinion, adventure needn't involve anything necessarily going wrong, but simply an element of the unknown. To me, that is the principal ingredient. Hazard and perhaps a little excitement don't hurt either.
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crøtch
climber
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Nov 20, 2014 - 12:38pm PT
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Got this advertisement for a scale in my email today and thought of this thread.
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Fossil climber
Trad climber
Atlin, B. C.
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Nov 20, 2014 - 08:58pm PT
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If you want to read some remarkable adventure writing, Google 'Kate Harris blog' and read her essay "Contours of Cold". Absolutely the best outdoor writing I've ever read.
What a delight to know this adventurer.
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aguacaliente
climber
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Nov 21, 2014 - 12:31am PT
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"Quarks, kooks,
Heretics, lunatics,
Lovers and defilers of God,
Set off in leaky vessels
Towards the holes on the horizon ..."
 opening lines of "The Voyage" by Philip Glass and D.H. Hwang, sung by a Hawking-like scientist figure
Adventure doesn't have to be synonymous with physical danger, less so high risk. Seeking to understand the unknown can itself be an adventure. And minimizing risk is good planning.
I do sympathize with donini's point that you gotta make your own adventure and not buy it fully packaged.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Nov 21, 2014 - 01:24am PT
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NED LIKED HIS SLED
Ned had a yen for adventure,
He planned them the best way he knew.
It was not 'Mother Nature' that got him,
He was shot in his tent through and through.
A ski traverse with sleds of the Brooks Range with Fossil Climber and one other, whose name escapes me, back in 1972, was Ned Gillette's first major adventure, unless skiing in the Winter Olympics qualifies as such.
http://publications.americanalpineclub.org/articles/12199947100/Ned-Gillette-1945-1998
From this link--
He defined his outlook in a piece called “The Meaning of Life,” in which he said, “If life is to have any meaning, it’s essential to carve out your own niche, to become special. Special things happen to special people. Climbing, skiing, and ocean voyages to remote comers of the world are often so gnarly and so scary that you wish you’d never left home. But eventually the sun shines again. You must be an optimist.”
Here's another link to the TRULY adventurous ventures that Ned's activities helped spawn.
http://everestbookreport.blogspot.com/2010/12/everest-grand-cirlce-by-gillette-and.html
HAVE FUN AT YOUR OWN RISK.
"But who's gonna pay for all this shiv, Ned?"
"THE NORTH FACE. Oh, and Clif Bars."
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Don Paul
Big Wall climber
Aurora Colorado
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Nov 21, 2014 - 08:56am PT
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^ sad story about Ned. When I travel in the third world, people are always afraid to go to remote areas for this reason. One of my friends in NYC once told me she thought it was dangerous to go out in the woods, since criminals might be hiding there. It sounds ridiculous but in many parts of the world it's true. In Colombia, if the guerrillas thought you were spies looking for their camp, they might kidnap you or kill you no questions asked. There would be no way to defend yourself no matter how you were armed. That's why you always need guides who are known to those kinds of groups.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 21, 2014 - 09:03am PT
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Funny....it's been my experience when you travel that the remote regions are safest.
The Karakorum is far safer than the cities in Pakistan, even with the anomaly of the Nanga Parbat incident.
Nairobi is by far the most dangerous part of Kenya and i certainly feel much safer in the mountains of Peru than i do in Lima.
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Nov 21, 2014 - 09:48am PT
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Could it also be that adventure is a state of mind....not an activity?
Bingo!
For the win!
Woot!
Hoo Yah!
I've had adventures in a track vehicle in the remote Brooks Range.
I've had adventures in a canoe on the Susitna River.
I've had adventures playing in the woods with my kids.
I've had adventures in downtown Manila.
I've had adventures on El Cap.
No one will ever convince me that my life isn't an adventure. It has nothing to do with advertisers, or YOUR definition.
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chappy
Social climber
ventura
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Nov 21, 2014 - 09:49am PT
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Jim, It seems some of those businesses you mention just want to keep the Ad in adventure.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Nov 21, 2014 - 09:50am PT
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Survival:
... and then, and then... keep on, keep on... What about ST ^^^^
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AP
Trad climber
Calgary
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Nov 21, 2014 - 10:57am PT
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You want adventure? Visit a Canadian Rockies North Face.
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Nov 21, 2014 - 11:21am PT
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Tell us a story, Survival! ;)
I'm sorry bro, that is beyond the security clearance of this site, at least for the moment. Let me think on it for a bit. I hate to besmirch the good name of Filipino gang bangers, prostitutes and cab drivers all in one swoop.
Maybe I will tell a sanitized version?
Hmmmmm....
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survival
Big Wall climber
Terrapin Station
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Nov 21, 2014 - 11:35am PT
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So what actually "happened" on the jump Karina was hurt on?
The film is great, but describes nothing at all about the crux of the biscuit.
Edit: DMT, it was barely a knife fight at all. They showed their knives, I showed mine, they backed down just enough for me to get into the cab thief's car with the prostitute.
A real adventure? Well, the outcome was uncertain. So by that definition, it qualifies.
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drljefe
climber
El Presidio San Augustin del Tucson
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Nov 21, 2014 - 11:50am PT
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Chuckling that donini's thread got spammed by a trekking company.
Klassik!!!
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Nov 21, 2014 - 12:37pm PT
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I must disagree with those who think that the WTC jumpers were placing others at risk.
On down low building jumps, you do things on the extreme down low. I've stood on the exit with my pilot chute in hand watching for pedestrians and traffic for minutes, many times. You can see people walking on the sidewalk, even at that height. The notion that you are gonna bounce onto them is typical criticism from people who don't understand procedures. Jumpers wait for them to leave before exiting.
If you bring attention to it, that is considered bad. People have had their asses kicked for screwing up certain objects.
The best building jumps are the tall ones. You almost always have to do them when under construction, because roof access is easy. It all gets locked down when the building is finished.
As far back as 1985, there was a big building in Houston that was going up. To do it, you checked in with the locals, and they would take you along. They were all at 2:00am when the streets were deserted, and nobody was ever even seen. If they had caught on that it was getting jumped 2 or 3 nights per week, security would have been upped.
Anyway, it was the first building to get jumped 100 times, showing that the developing ethics worked. Nobody ever got hurt.
I remember when the Library Tower, the highest building in L.A. was going up. It got jumped nigh every night after the structure reached 40 or 50 stories. You might jump out of your getaway car with your rig, and then notice 5 jumpers taking off while you watched. The L.A. cops would hang out and watch as well. Lord knows how many jumps that sucker saw.
Anyway, it doesn't take long from exit to landing, and if you make sure no traffic is coming, it is normally no big deal.
Fun times. Great friends. The scene was almost exactly like climbing back then other than the physical fitness part. Everyone who was anyone in the whole world knew each other back then. It is now much larger, but I watched those guys' video, and they did it safely.
I'm sure many of you won't get this, but BASE, at least back then, was similar to climbing. There were hard rules. We weren't worried about hitting a pedestrian. We were worried that we would be SEEN. So if there was a street person wandering around, we would wait, for long periods, for it to be all clear. Then bang, bang, bang, everone goes in a single minute.
The really choice buildings had to be protected. If you dayblazed it, it would get shut down and no more fun. And really big buildings are kinda rare.
Nowadays there are the huge BASE events in downtown Kuala Lumper. There are hundreds of legal jumps, and bystanders are at zero risk.
In the U.S., it is different from other countries. The laws are there to prevent you from risking your own bones here, while in other countries you are quite free to risk your own life. While the trespass charge was always waiting if we got caught, we accepted it.
These guys knew what would happen if they got caught, but the way that they actually did the jump did not put anyone on the ground at risk.
You are wrong, Ed.
Out of all of the urban jumps, even the ones which went bad, I can't recall any bystander being hurt. At the most, they are surprised. Very surprised.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Nov 23, 2014 - 09:15pm PT
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Jimmy Buffett from A Salty Piece of Land, Back Bay Books, 2004.
"So many people live such dull, predictable lives these days that the real adventurers are becoming a thing of the past--
but their stories are like channel markers for the stormy waters of the future."
As usual, a fine novel from JB.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Nov 23, 2014 - 09:26pm PT
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wrong? perhaps I overstated it...
but are you saying that the risk decreases with every jump? no one got hurt this time, so the probability of someone getting hurt is smaller...
that's the same logic the NASA managers used to justify launching the Challenger...
there is an inherent risk to jumping... and the risk is not just to the jumper, but to the people standing in the landing zone... (or fall zone).
Those people do not choose to engage in that risk, the jumpers assume the risk for themselves and the people (and property) in the fall zone.
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deuce4
climber
Hobart, Australia
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Nov 24, 2014 - 12:38am PT
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Good judgement comes from experience.
Experience comes from lack of judgement.
Adventure fits in there somewhere...
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