Should the adventure community continue to create get-famous-quick adventurers?

Yesterday ExplorersWeb colleague Angela Benavides wrote an interesting short piece on the news that Kristin Harila announced that after climbing all the 14×8,000’ers in three months and one day, she has no further climbing plans. She told the media she is done with high-altitude mountaineering.

Those who have followed this world for a while, like me, probably let out a sigh and chuckled at the seemingly transactional nature of this swift transition from the worlds highest mountains to talk shows, motivational speaking gigs, book writing, and a push to bag a TV show.

Of course Harila needs to earn a living and foot the bill for an expensive few years on the world’s highest mountains. And stepping back from the dicey game of high altitude climbing is entirely understandable if one wants to prolong the chances of living to older age.

That said a growing number of the well publicised protagonists in the adventure world seem to have followed this path. Relative beginner takes on a record, get’s a lot of guided help, breaks the record, and leverages the publicity for commercial gain. See for example Colin O’Brady who went from polar beginner to “record breaker”, to speaker and book writer in a few short years.

And again, that’s fine. Adventure and wilderness travel are open to all to live out their dreams. But as such “transactional adventurers” jostle for the limelight, the richness of the experience, the landscape, and even the challenge itself become secondary to the need to claim a “record” and to sell their story to the highest bidder.

Telling stories and courting publicity is nothing new in the adventure community. The likes of Amundsen and Shackleton over a hundred years ago gave public lectures and wrote books and newspaper articles on their expeditions. But they were bringing back something quite significant to the tribe - first hand accounts and imagery from untouched and uncharted lands. They were the first humans to set eyes on the frozen interior of Antarctica.

When Kristin Harila sits down to pen her memoirs she will have a hard task ahead. What else is left to say about being guided up an 8000m peak? The most compelling adventure books steer clear of formulaic first-person narratives of adventurer versus record breaking challenge. They weave in historical context, and breathe life into the people, landscape and cultures which they engage with along their journey.

Likewise, there are hundreds of motivational speakers who fly across the world to impart their wisdom from the mountain world. At any hog farming convention across North America, for example, you might find a retired climber trying to convince the audience that they too can climb their own personal Everest (a little quip borrowed from Pat Morrow). There are excellent inspirational speakers out there, but they often have a unique message crafted from years on the circuit, or from a particularly colourful life story.

The get-famous-quick adventurers who follow this lucrative path have earned their right to do so. But I do wonder at what point the wider adventure media, brands, and sponsors, might reflect on the impact of this trend. Are these the type of protagonists who should be thrust into hallowed status? Do we want the sponsorship and book deals to go to those who are just at the party for their own gain? Has something in the soul/philosophy of adventure been lost if it can be commodified so readily?

Most of all though, I wonder if the adventure community should continue to so prolifically create/facilitate get-famous-quick adventurers?

I don’t know the answer. But I do know that when I grapple with these questions I harken back to the figures and literature that inspired me to live a more adventurous life. Those with a true lifelong love of their pursuit. Here’s a favourite passage that might help you in pondering these issues for yourself.

Throughout my life I’ve been drawn forcefully to the outdoors, to forests and mountains, seacoasts and oceans - drawn by both a conscious delight in the grandeur and diversity of the planet and an unconscious spiritual yearning to be in the natural world. It is in the wild places, in the damp clean air of an ancient forest, on a heaving ocean in unpredictable winds, on a snowy summit on the top of the world, that I enter my own personal cathedral and know where I fit in the vastness of creation.

Jim Whittaker - American climber and mountain guide