High Sierra Topix

Any trip is/was a good adventure.. Met any challenge and came home to remember it..

I dropped acid in Dusy Basin many years ago. Now THAT was an adventure.

Did your gnar get shredded?
Yes.
Did you die?
No.
It was a good adventure.

oldranger wrote:Sounds like you have to be incompetent to have an adventure.

Aye. For example, a mountain guide I once hired told me that bivouac is a French word that means "poor planning."

simonov wrote:

oldranger wrote:Sounds like you have to be incompetent to have an adventure.

Aye. For example, a mountain guide I once hired told me that bivouac is a French word that means "poor planning."

Sounds about right. Years ago, I was told that the word vegetarian was an olde English term that meant one who can't shoot straight.

limpingcrab wrote:I think the term "adventure" is overused. It's great if a trip has unexpected elements or is great for one reason or another, but "adventure" should be reserved for something really out there. I'm not saying other types of "trips" or "vacations" or "explorations" are something less than adventure, but only different. For the most part adventure should include risk, big unknowns or suffering because that's what is implied when a trip is labeled as an adventure.

I agree with this. I think when people say adventure they usually mean exploring something new for them, something uncertain in what they'll see or do or hear. That's the watered down version of the word. If I randomly pick a channel on my TV without looking at the TV listing in advance, it's an "adventure".

Sailing to the Antarctic in the 19th century was an adventure in the bigger sense in that there was a real possibility of not returning. I think that's the key element: significant risk of death.

Amundsen, the stoic Norwegian, stated it as such: 'Adventure is simply bad planning' (eventyr er bare resultatet av dårlig planlegging).

Off course Roald, always obsessed with even the tiniest of details, had a few things at stake, men to protect, and a vast continent ahead. He wasn't merely out seeking a reset from the daily grind, a case in which adventure in it's truest sense may be exactly what we should be seeking.