In 2008 I was asked to join Will Steger on a dogsledding expedition to Ellesmere Island for National Geographic. We spent two months traveling in -40 temperatures. We slept in tents. Much of the land we crossed hadn’t seen visitors in recorded history. I’m sure native people had traveled there, but global warming has revealed land that hasn’t been exposed in thousands of years. It was the closest I’ve ever come to truly exploring the unexplored.
Paddle boarding is rooted in the ocean, but more and more we’re finding that these boards are the perfect way to adventure on rivers, too. On this trip, we went down the Colorado River as it passed through Moab, Utah. I brought along Kelly Potts from Maui, and teamed her up with river expert Ken Hoeve for an eclectic mix of skills and personalities. This trip was sponsored by Surftech, Bluesmiths and Olukai.
I spent a good portion of my life just down the road from this world famous icefall. It’s known as “The Fang” and at one point was considered a test piece. Climbing ice is not at all like climbing rock, at least not to me. It’s more about your ability to judge the quality of the ice, and to stay calm. Mistakes are not an option I shot this on a job for Outdoor Research.
Exploring the Amazon was always a dream of mine, so when I found myself on a job in Peru I knew I needed to take time to go hike through the jungle. Here, my guide is helping me look for anaconda in a seldom-visited swamp near Tambopata. We didn’t find any, and I’m not sure what we would have done if we had.
Sometimes a photograph can make something look idyllic and calm, when the reality is that it was neither. I had been traveling by horseback through some very remote parts of Mongolia, and had been battling swarming horse flies, bot flies, mosquitos, and when the bugs were gone, there was weather. Here, we were pushing our tired horses to escape a swarm of horse flies after a 12 hour ride through a rain storm.
I’m afraid of heights, but I love rock climbing. To me it’s because I have the opportunity to overcome my personal limitations. I always tell people who call it an “adrenaline sport” that if you are experiencing a rush, you’re doing it wrong. That said, climbing in Yosemite National Park often puts you in positions like this one on top of the Lost Arrow Spire that’ll make you triple check your gear regardless of how experienced you are.
The West Coast of New Zealand’s South Island is one of the most dramatic landscapes in the world. As my first true solo adventure, I moved there at 18 and spent my time guiding heli-access kayaking trips to the remote rivers that descend from the Southern Alps. Kayak is the only way to explore these gorges. I’m sure New Zealand will always be the first place I think of when I consider my greatest adventures.
Three hundred miles off the Costa Rican coast is an island. It’s beautiful, and it’s one of the most difficult places to find comfort that I’ve been. I was there for months at a time, surviving on coconuts and rice. Every day I’d swim out as far as I could and dive down in search of the hammerhead sharks that school by the thousands just off shore. I was there for National Geographic, covering a story on shark poachers that would sneak into the protected waters.
My girlfriend and I did an 8000-mile road trip around the western half of the US for REI. Along the way we visited as many National Parks as we could, and spent as many nights sleeping in a tent as we could handle. Adventuring doesn’t require traveling to a foreign country, sometimes it just requires a little motivation.
