My brother Mike recently flew out to Park City from his home in Maine for a weeklong visit. He was waiting for his buddy Andy, also from Maine, who was driving out here to drop off his son, a freshman at the University of Utah. Andy and his son were driving their Jeep and towing a U-Haul that held two motorcycles. The plan was for Mike and Andy to embark on an epic crosscountry moto trip back to Maine.
Then the wheels came off.
Figuratively and literally. Well, I should say, wheel. About 24 hours into the drive out west, the Jeep’s rear tire and rim completely blew out. The fact that Andy and his son were towing the U-Haul likely saved them from a serious accident. It also marked the first leg of Mike and Andy’s most excellent adventure.
As Yvon Chouinard — rock climber, environmentalist and founder of the outdoor retail giant Patagonia (and, coincidentally, native of Maine) — said, “Adventure is when everything goes wrong. That’s when the adventure starts.”
So what’s the big deal about adventure? I asked my friend Ben White, who is one of the most adventurous people I know. Ben had the grand idea to ski all 48 of New Hampshire’s 4,000-footers in a single ski season when he was just 17. Since then, he’s been a paragliding instructor, gotten first tracks on a few of the biggest lines in North America and started his own business, White Cloud Concierge.
Ben recalls one of his earliest adventures, when he was about 7. His dad had taken him up to ski Tuckerman’s Ravine. The two of them spent the night in one of the lean-tos near the bottom of the ravine, feasting on freeze-dried beef stroganoff before crawling into their down sleeping bags for the night. That was when Ben learned that he was deathly allergic to goosefeathers. But, he said, “It’s also when I got my first taste of being really small in big alpine terrain,” a feeling so powerful he continues to chase it to this day.
Of course, adventure is relative. Even for a professional big mountain skier like Madison Rose Ostegren, who spent a decade in the Wasatch before relocating to Jackson, Wyoming. Judging from her Instagram @madisonnnrose, she has adventures on daily.
You can spot Madison and her wild mane of flaming red hair and snowflake eyelashes in Warren Miller’s “Daymaker” and “Winter Starts Now.” She’s kind of a bad-assier version of Pippi Longstocking — fearless, resilient, witty and strong. A four-season athlete, she finds as much adventure skiing, trail running and climbing as she does ukulele playing, dancing and baking muffins.
An adventurous life is “something you get to create,” Madison said. It’s “being spontaneous and present where you are, embracing the culture when you travel, being excited for new experiences and people, being comfortable being uncomfortable.”
Her Instagram stories prove the point. There’s Madison and some old guy rocking out on the dance floor while a crowd of people looks on. Hey, even for a super athlete like Madison Ostergren, adventure is what you make of it.
Just ask Jeremy Roberts, who’s experienced the ultimate adventure — climbing Mount Everest. He didn’t just do it because it was there.
Before his Everest expedition, Jeremy raised funds for Radiating Hope, a cancer foundation located in Kathmandu. “It’s one thing to have a crack at Everest,” he said. But it’s everything else if by doing so, he could help raise money for an adventure we can all live without — cancer.
Jeremy has passed his notion of altruistic adventure on to his kids. His son has co-piloted with him at least 30 missions for Angel Flight West, which provides free, non-emergency medical transport for people who live in the world’s most remote places. One of his daughters traveled to Thailand as a high school junior to build a road to a village.
“The quote that really sums up the adventure mindset for me is from the movie ‘Braveheart,’” Jeremy said. “Every man dies. Not every man really lives.”
As it turns out, adventure can actually make you feel like you’re living longer. Research shows when you do the same things over and over, you perceive time moving faster. But trying something totally new — hello, adventure! — can make the passage of time feel slower in a good way. You’re living in the moment. Totally aware and alive. Like when you were a kid and it felt like summer lasted forever; every day a new adventure.
I stand in the middle of the road behind my condo and watch my brother rolling out of the garage on his Suzuki V-Strom 650. He’s meeting up with his buddy Andy just off the 80 for their initial run up to Jackson Hole. It’s day one of a 10-day motorcycle odyssey. The sky is azure blue and the sun is blazing overhead as he disappears around the corner. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’m a little worried about the journey. But heck, the wheels already came off. What else could possibly go wrong?
Minutes later, the sky turns black and it’s a full-on Noah’s Ark deluge, complete with heart-stopping thunder boomers and lightning bolts. I nervously text my brother, trying to sound calm. “Nothing like a big storm to start your ride! Hope you guys are OK!”
“We’re stuck for the moment,” he texts back. “Gonna hole up here and head to Jackson tomorrow.”
Let the adventure begin.
After sustaining a bunch of injuries from various skiing and biking adventures, Kate Sonnick occasionally considers her sister’s advice: “I just lay on the couch and nothing ever happens to me.”