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,...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...