Definition of Adventure

When your sonar says your boat is on land, 
you better be sharp! As chadd said while navigating the boat over shallow water with his head out the window, “Who needs video games when you have this!”

What makes an adventure?  We all enjoy a good adventure movie. A perilous quest. A daring expedition. A life changing venture. This recent goat hunt (attempt) was iconic of adventure, with a little more misery and a little less triumph. But what makes it an adventure verses just a journey?

My husband and I have been in enough true adventures to come up with this definition of the necessary attributes of what makes an adventure:

1. Fear. Danger. 

Crazy man. And you expect me to do that next??

Grizzly tracks.

In Alaska adventure injury and death are not just a possibility, they are at the forefront of every step and decision.  Alaska will kill the unprepared: Fresh Grizzly tracks in berry covered banks of a salmon spawned creek, hypothermia, drowning, falling down a cliff and cracking a skull, breaking a leg and not being able to get back, wolf packs, angry moose, landslides,  flash floods, frostbite, drastic tidal changes… did I miss any?

Obviously none of these dangers should be a result of your own poor judgement  or at least if so, you will learn from it and make a different mistake next time  

2. Travel

You can’t really have an adventure in your back yard  I mean, maybe create one for your 5 yr old  but not a REAL adventure. You have to go somewhere. It may utilize a boat, four wheeler, side by side, dirt bike, 3rd world public transportation, bike, canoe, or your own two legs.   But it definitely includes getting OUT. 

3. Natural Beauty

Your eyes behold grandeur, gorgeous seascapes,  impressive mountain ranges, or water cut gorges. You see herds of giant moose browsing, a wolf stalking, wales blowing, porpoises jumping, eagles diving or salmon jumping up cascading falls. Sometimes it’s in the tiny

Salmon spawning. They swam and jumped around us

each time we crossed the creek.

 details, a drop go dew on a giant leaf, the coolest pattern in a rock, a bright red salmonberry beckoning you to pick it, or a perfect mushroom that makes you wonder if it’s edible or poisonous  

3. Pain and suffering. 

Meet: Devil's Club.
This plant is so aptly named I think Hell must be decorated
with hoards of them. Every inch is covered with 
toxic thorns, included the leaves, berries, even the roots!
You'll only make the mistake of trying to grab
 the branch when slipping once. The thorns don't just stab you,
they leave a rash that stings for the next several hours and or break off 
and remain embedded to fester for days.

Devil's Club poisonous berries. Don't let the beauty fool you.

Trekking through fields of Devil's Club that stab through
any pants, jacket or gloves.

After a night of rain, North Creek became a rushing
river, making staying dry impossible. We waded most of the way back
with XtraTuff boots sloshing and weighing 5 lbs more water logged. 
Keep in mind that water is FRIGID.

Ok this might not be frost bite, but my entire foot
was numb yet had stabbing pains. You know it's pretty bad
when you start to think about what it takes to cause 
permanent tissue damage.

Weather it be a scratch, a bruise, swarms of no-see-ums and mosquitos, icy threatening cold, frozen numb hands and feet, sopping wet clothes and boots filled with freezing cold water, thorns and thistles stabbing you and coming along for the ride in your skin, impossibly steep climbs with a pack on your back slipping 2-4 steps back every other step and your foot or pack get snagged by an evil willow branch just when you almost made it, and exhaustion… Think about Frodo stranded in the middle of flowing Lava, Peter in the epic battle to defeat the evil army, Dori getting stung by a jellyfish. One key when you know that what you are currently living in will be an adventure you tell stories of later is when you really wish you were back on your soft couch with a nice fuzzy blanket watching other people have adventures on a big screen. We call this Type 2 Fun: Not fun in the moment, but epic retelling later. Some adventures include way more of this than others.

4. Strategy

My indomitable man digging out our stuck boat. This time he
really thought we might be stuck for good. But
he never gives up! With strategy, ingenuity, tenacity, and brawn 
we made it out once more.
 I have no idea how his body churns out 
enough heat in ice cold water, while it's raining, 
after trudging through temperate rain forest river water.

This looks so docile in a photo. His pack weighed 60lbs+
and that ledge had about 1/2 inch of grip space. 
But there is something so raw about the sensation of the 
cold rock on your hands, the sound of the rushing waterfall
below you, and the chill of the cold spray threatening
if you should slip. 

The stern of our boat was lodged into the mud. 
Chadd came up with this brilliant idea to shove our 
pack raft under the prop and lower the prop back down. 
This effectively raised the stern just enough that we could
crank and push it a few more inches. Repeat times 50
and we FINALLY got it to deeper water.

This was in 2020 back in the MatSu Valley during
moose hunting. Yes, we got it out (or I should say
Chadd got it out).

In every adventure you face a problem that you don’t know how to solve. You have to use your brain to come up with a solution. Our problems have included: getting heavily ladin ATVs up a muddy Suicide Hill; malfunctioning vehicles; working for an hour to dig, come-along wrenching, pushing and pulling a boat out of shallow water for over an hour; navigating the Stikine River that changes channels every week in a prop boat (bad idea); winching and gunning a side by side out of a thigh deep mud hole; climbing up waterfalls with all gear packs on our backs; and figuring out which would be less miserable: climbing a briar and Devils Club covered 45degree slippery mountain or risking an unknown path. 

5. A Mission

This is what we were going for, Alaskan mountain goat. 
We didn't even get high enough to look for them, 
this time...

You must cast the ring into burning lava, rescue the lost girl, escape from the loosed dinosaurs, defeat the White Witch or shoot the prize mountain goat. Even if you don’t succeed, the mission remains, until next time…

Most of the time we ARE successful.
My Caribou from 2018. 

Chadd's Black Bear earlier this year.

6. Friends

What is an adventure if you’re all alone? It may include the above 5, but who would you share it with when you’re telling the stories for years later. True adventure is experienced with friends or family. 

And there you have it. If you want an adventure, make sure to include all of these features. Or just come visit us in Alaska and come on a goat hunt. We could use the help packing down the meat  ;)