Delivering Adventure

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, adventurer and speaker. Cyril is a two-time World Record holder. He has paddled his specially built kayak unassisted from California to Hawaii. This trip took him two attempts and 91 days to complete. Using that experience, Cyril is about to embark on another trip in a bid to cross the Atlantic. He hopes this trip will take him from the Canary Islands to Martinique. This is a distance of 4800 kilometres.

Cyril shares with us how he prepares for his epic trips operationally, logistically, physically, and emotionally. We look at how we can apply the lessons learned preparing for big expeditions to adventures of any length.

Key Takeaways

How to prepare for big adventures:

The Key to Success is Preparation: Cyril was extremely prepared. He spends more time preparing than the length of the actual trip. If you want to ensure you succeed you need to be prepared to put on the time and energy beforehand.

All in Approach Beforehand: Small trips provide practice for longer more challenging excursions. Practicing skills, taking courses, and preparing for emergencies are all important steps that contribute towards success.

Family Members: It is important to remember that family members share the risk when people are on adventures. There are often sacrifices and compromises made by both the adventurer (or person delivering adventure) and their families.

On the Adventure: It is important to maintain rhythm and routine as much as possible. On some trips it is easy to have routine during an approach. But then when we are on the route or in more difficult or hazardous parts of the trip, we need to break the routine and move quickly. But we must still remain vigilant and make good decisions. As Cyril said, an injury can easily result in rescue and mark the end of the adventure.

Reflect and Learn: Most adventurers and those delivering adventure strive to become consciously competent, as Cyril has done. This requires us to reflect on our experiences in a way that allows us to learn and develop. As Mark Twain said: "Good judgement is the result of experience and experience the result of bad judgement."

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Cover Photo by Tom Gores

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 building and some of the challenges he has faced.

Colby Brokvist is a professional guide who leads worldwide expeditions for some of the most acclaimed companies in adventure travel. He has guided trips around the world including in Greenland, Antarctica, Africa, and Patagonia, as well as throughout the United States and Canada. Colby currently serves as the Chair of the Polar Tourism Guides Association.

Using his expertise and extensive experience, Colby has written The Professional Guides Handbook – How to lead adventure travel trips and expeditions. This is a great resource for anyone leading others.

Key Takeaways

What goes into building an effective expedition team?

Forming: This is when people first meet for the first time. Keys to success are enabling everyone to feel welcome and to align expectations early.

Storming: This is when people are working to find their place in the group. Keys to success are to make everyone feel included and to model the behaviours that a leader needs to see from everyone.

Norming: This is when people have found their place in a group and are starting to perform. Keys to success include having the leader continue role model behaviours and recognize good practices. 

Performing: This where the group can start to take on risks as a team. Key to success is to ensure everyone is able to follow all the steps.

Adjourning and transforming: This is where a group is reflecting on the experience together. Key to success is being able to connect everyone to what they have accomplished.

Unmet needs: We all have needs that must be met if we are to become an effective member of a team. If people have unmet needs, it becomes very difficult for them to perform at their best. Identifying and meeting these needs are a key to success for a leader.

Guest Bio

Colby Brokvist is a professional guide who leads worldwide expeditions for some of the most acclaimed companies in adventure travel. He was inspired to pursue guiding as a career during a through-hike of the Appalachian Trail in the summer of 2000. Since then, he has led hundreds of adventure travel departures as an Expedition Leader, ranging from backpacking and trekking adventures to mountaineering and rock-climbing trips, sea kayaking and sailing voyages, and wildlife safaris. His work has taken him to destinations as far-flung as Greenland, Antarctica, Africa, and Patagonia, as well as throughout the United States and Canada. His current basecamp is Boulder, Colorado.

When not actively leading trips in the field, Colby assumes a variety of managerial, operational, and consulting roles within the adventure travel sphere. His work centers on developing and facilitating guide training courses and programs as well as trip program consulting and field-based guide team management. Colby also serves on the board of directors for the Polar Tourism Guides Association and is a certified Senior Polar Guide through the same organization.

Guest Links

The Professional Guides Handbook – How to lead adventure travel trips and expeditions - https://www.guideshandbook.com

https://linktr.ee/colbyoutdoors

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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 resilient teams out of groups of individuals from the mountains to the office and beyond.

Brenna currently teaches and guides advanced women’s and youth-specific skiing clinics at Big Sky Resort. She is a former member of the Professional Ski Instructors of America’s (PSIA) National Alpine Team and is a PSIA course examiner

Brenna has also coached and competed in freestyle kayaking, she has guided horseback trips in Yellowstone, and she has led a group of girls on a semester program in Africa.

Brenna taps into her extensive experience as a team member and team leader to share how we can build and develop teams that can perform well in the face of challenge and adversity.

Key Takeaways

How to build resilient teams:

Communication: This needs to happen often. It also needs to happen in a way that helps people to feel safe to express how they are feeling.

Building trust: This needs to start early.

Organization: This needs to take into consideration what role each team member is going to play in a way that allows everyone to compliment each other.

Allowing others to shine: Sometimes we can all be guilty of wanting to hog the limelight. A good strategy for leaders is to use opportunities to let others spend time in the spotlight. This means allowing others to take the lead, give briefings, lead meetings, and potentially take the credit.

Top Reasons Teams can Struggle: People didn’t feel they had a chance to express their concerns or fears. Leaders were not able to keep their egos in check. The goals that were set may not have been realistic or attainable. When there were issues, they may not have been dealt with early enough. This caused negativity to spread through the group.

People may have felt they were being micromanaged.

Resilient teams: Trust each other, share in each other’s success, and these two things together allow everyone to feel valued. When people feel valued, they will be better positioned to perform at their best.

Guest Bio

Brenna Kelleher has developed a highly successful career as an outdoor athlete, instructor, guide and realtor. She has been an NCAA ski racer for Montana State University and claimed the 2001 Junior World Championship as a freestyle kayaker. 

She has guided horseback trips in Yellowstone Park and has coached freestyle kayaking. Brenna has traveled to Africa leading a group of high school girls, as an educator in a semester abroad program. She has been a member of the Professional Ski Instructors of America’s (PSIA) National Alpine Team.

In addition to being a PSIA Examiner, Brenna is a ski instructor and guide at Big Sky Resort where she leads advanced women’s and youth-specific clinics.

Guest Links

Brenna’s website: www.bigskybrenna.com

Instagram: @brennakelleher

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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 adventure experience is Chris Winter. Chris is the owner or Big Mountain Adventures which offers mountain bike adventures in 14 countries around the world. Chris also teaches and guides steep skiing clinics for Extremely Canadian in Whistler, BC.

Chris shares some of his experiences and insights into how we can structure amazing adventure experiences that we are delivering to others. He also shares some very funny stories along the way.

Key Insights

Designing amazing adventure experiences requires us to:

Know our audience: Who are you actually building your experiences for? What are their needs, interests and capabilities?

Align expectations early: This means ensuring everyone knows what they are getting themselves into. This includes aligning goals, identifying risk tolerance, addressing needs and so on.

It has to be about them: There are experiences that guides, instructors and companies may want to deliver and there are experiences that people want to experience. These two things are not always the same thing. If you want to be successful, build experiences that people want to do.

Get the Right Pacing and challenge: We want to ease into it, build in the challenge in the middle and finish with flow. This allows people to warm up and then consolidate their experience at the end.

Remember the Purpose: The goal of adventure is to push ourselves outside our comfort zone. Adventure is important and sometimes we can forget why it is so valuable. Yes, adventure is often fun, but it serves a pretty important role in our lives. This makes the ability to deliver adventure a key life skill to have.

Guest Bio

Chris Winter is a former ski racer. Level IV CSIA ski instructor, level III high-performance ski coach, celebrated technical skier, sponsored big mountain skier featured in magazines and films. Currently teaching steep skiing clinics at Whistler Blackcomb for Extremely Canadian.

Chris is the Owner and Founder of Big Mountain Adventures. Chris founded Big Mountain Adventures in 2002. During this time, he has built his tour company into the leader in guided mountain bike travel featuring award-winning adventures in 14 countries. Check out their new eMTB trips!

Chris is also the owner of the Bralorne Adventure Lodge. Ready for a boutique mountain experience? Step out the door to spectacular wilderness & endless adventures…then recharge at our backyard spa.

In addition to operating adventure-based businesses, Chris has also created and developed Zero Ceiling. This is an innovative and respected registered non-profit that hosts disadvantaged youth to the slopes of Whistler Blackcomb. From local First Nations to street youth to youth from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, participants benefit from a day of snowboard lessons, or if chosen to participate in a year-long program that teaches them to become employees at Whistler Blackcomb and give them life-long life skills.

Guest Links

Big Mountain Adventures: https://www.ridebig.com

Bralorne Adventure Lodge: https://www.bralorneadventurelodge.com

Zero Ceiling: https://zeroceiling.org

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Episode Photo Credit: Eric Berger

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 professional athlete Will Gadd to highlight the importance of planning for mishap. Will’s story takes place on the Fuhrmann Ledges in Banff National Park and is an excellent example of the value of planning for mishaps, even when you think there is a low risk of something going wrong.

Will Gadd has a long list of accomplishments including first ice climbing ascents of Niagara Falls and on Mt. Kilamjaro, winning three gold medals at the X Games, and setting the paragliding world distance record twice.

Key Takeaways

Here are a few things that Will did very well:

Communicating the Risks: This includes Will communicating what could happen to his clients and himself. In this instance it’s a given that Will would have had his clients sign a waiver and would have talked to them beforehand about the risks they could face.

Discussing the Plan in the Event of a Crisis: This put the idea in their heads that rock fall could happen. More importantly it helped to prepare them for the moment when it actually did happen.

If you fail to plan you plan to fail.

Being Situationally Aware: Even though Will felt that there wasn’t a high probability of rockfall, he still went through the process of preparing everyone, looking for signs that rockfall had occurred recently, and encouraging his clients to do the same.

Five Hazardous Attitudes: At least one of the Five Hazardous Attitudes that is always present in human caused accidents. They are Anti-Authority, Impulsivity, Invulnerability, Macho and Resignation.

Guest Bio

Will Gadd is a professional sponsored athlete and ACMG Alpine Guide. Among many of Will’s feats are first accents ice climbing Niagara Falls, Helmcken Falls, Icebergs and many other ice climbs around the world including on the top of Mt Kilimanjaro. Will is also a world-class white-water kayaker and paraglider. He has twice set the world record for the longest paragliding flight.

As an elite athlete and professional guide, Will is extremely experienced when it comes to evaluating risk and making decisions that could have serious consequences for himself and the people he is leading or working with. This makes Will one of the perfect people to talk about the power of judgment.

Guest Links

Contact Will to be your Guide, Instructor or Speaker: https://willgadd.com/

Instagram: @realwillgadd

The Last Ascent, Kilimanjaro: https://www.redbull.com/ca-en/films/the-last-ascent-will-gadds-return-to-kilimanjaro

A Fun Ted Talk: Three Simple Tools to Manage Risk, Fear and Children: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTdFkPTTnsA

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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 is a type 1 insulin dependent diabetic who guides split boarding, skiing, rock and alpine climbing. Sarah is on the final leg of working towards becoming the first IFMGA certified Mountain Guide who has type 1 diabetes. Based in Boulder Colorado, Sarah currently works as a full-time guide and one of the head guides at the Colorado Mountain School.

As someone who didn’t start rock climbing until she was in her mid-thirties, Sarah is well aware of the importance of self-care. Her dedication to self-care allowed her to pursue a guiding designation in her forties when most people start down this path in their twenties. Being diabetic, failing to practice effective self-care while leading such an active life can literally lead to fatal consequences.

In this discussion, we discuss what it takes to manage our self care and why it’s so hard to do it well. Sarah gives us an extremely candid account of what it takes to manage our self-care as leaders and how to manage it for others. She also gives us a unique insight into the life of someone who delivers adventure as an insulin dependent diabetic.

Key Takeaways

It takes discipline: This includes being diligent about preparing ourselves beforehand and following up with recovery such as stretching, strengthening and rehabilitative care such as physiotherapy afterwards.

The importance of pacing: Sarah touched on the value of taking breaks to recharge, taking rest days, and varying activity. Taking rest days and doing different activity can keep us fresh and give different muscles a break while others get a workout.

Being vigilante: This includes staying situationally aware of ourselves and the people we might be leading. This may require us to check in with people and ourselves regularly.

Educating ourselves and others: On what to look for to keep everyone operating at their peak. This can add value to the overall experience. Who doesn’t like to learn how to perform better?

Scaling back to pace energy is not a loss, it’s a win: It can allow us to perform better, enjoy what we are doing and ultimately to go farther. As the saying goes, Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

Guest Bio

Sarah Janin is a full-time mountain guide at Colorado Mountain School located in Boulder Colorado. She is the only full-time female guide at this time and one of their head guides. Sarah became one of the first certified female splitboard guides in America this March of 2024 making history.

Sarah is on the AMGA track with one more exam to complete this summer. Her goal is to become the 19th certified female American Mountain Guide. Sarah will then have to pass a ski movement test in order to become IFMGA certified which will be her focus this winter.

Sarah has worked as a guide for a decade after getting to experience a few different careers before settling on her true passion. Sarah is also a type 1 insulin dependent diabetic and has been for over 43 years. She will potentially become the first diabetic certified guide this year.

Guest Links

Colorado Mountain School: https://coloradomountainschool.com/guide/sarah-janin/

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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 tolerance, and the risk tolerance of others is Robin Barnes. Robin is the Director of Skier Services at Heavenly Mountain Resort. Her current role is to oversee the operations of the Heavenly Snow School. In addition to working at Heavenly, Robin has previously spent 31 seasons working at Portillo Chile as an instructor and the ski and snowboard school director. She has also been a four-time Alpine Team Member with the Professional Ski Instructors of America (PSIA).

In this episode of Delivering Adventure, we discuss what goes into evaluating and managing the risk tolerance of ourselves and the people we may be leading.

Key Takeaways

Risk Tolerance: What you are comfortable losing or giving up. Essentially, it is out appetite for taking risk.

Subjective and Perception Based: Each of us views risk differently and this perception can change throughout an activity or during the day. For this reason, it’s important to be able to identify what a person’s risk tolerance is up front and to keep evaluating it as we go along.

Determining Risk Tolerance: We can use a number scale to gauge people’s level of tolerance. For example, 10 could mean a person is terrified while 1 means they are bored. Part of doing this successfully is to learn what a person’s rating means to them.

More confidence than knowledge: When this happens, people may only see the win, not the chance of loss. One situation where this can occur is with kids who may not have the ability to judge the consequences of following a specific path or the ability to calculate the potential for suffering those consequences. This is the classic example where the people we may be leading don’t know what they don’t know.

Spotting People When They are Outside Their Risk Tolerance: We can see this when performance deteriorates, body position becomes defensive, and people may become quieter or more talkative than normal. We have to keep checking in with people, asking him how they are doing, communicating the risks, giving people options and watching their reactions carefully.

Importance: Exposing people to too much risk can overwhelm them by causing stress and anxiety. What is worse is that it can lead to injury. On the other hand, exposing people to too little risk or challenge can leave them bored. Both of these things can damage relationships and ruin the experience.

Guest Bio

Robin Barnes is the Director of Skier Services at Heavenly Mountain Resort. Her current role is to oversee the operations of the Heavenly Snow School. In addition to working at Heavenly, Robin has previously spent 31 seasons working at Portillo Chile as an instructor and the ski and snowboard school director. She has also been a four-time Alpine Team Member with the Professional Ski Instructors of America (PSIA).

In addition to skiing, she is a fitness trainer, mountain biker, has worked as a Ski tester for a ski Magazine and is fluent in English, Spanish and Portuguese. Robin basically does it all!

People aren’t always truthful or forthcoming: People may misrepresent their goals and expectations, they may not know what they want, they may also be too embarrassed to tell you what they really want.

Guest Links

Heavenly Ski Resort: https://www.skiheavenly.com/

Article about Robin: https://thesnowpros.org/2021/05/06/2021-24-national-team-meet-robin-barnes/

Podcast with Robin: https://soundcloud.com/realskierswithjackson/robin-barnes-an-instructor-for-life

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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 avoid.

Helping us to explore what it takes to coach people through danger effectively is Derek Foose. Derek is the founder and head coach of the Whistler Free Ride Club. He guides and works as a staff trainer for Extremely Canadian. Derek is also a Course Conductor and Course Developer for the Professional Ski Instructors of Canada’s Big Mountain Pathway. 

In addition to coaching and guiding, Derek has tapped into his extensive experience as a broadcast host for the Freeride World tour. He is on the Board of Directors Coaches Chair for International Freeskiers and Snowboarders Association.

In this engaging episode, we discuss the key strategies that adventure coaches, instructors and guides can employ to help the people they are coaching succeed in the face of danger.

Key Takeaways

Preparation: Preparing people before they are put in a high-risk situation – regardless of whether it is perceived or real – is key. It is very difficult to teach someone how to handle high risk situations, in high-risk situations. The skills needed to perform in the face of danger have to learned and practiced where people can make mistakes with low consequences.

Build trust: Letting people talk, showing people that you care and helping people to succeed are key components of building trust. When people trust their coach, they are more likely to believe in themselves. Conversely, when their coach believes in them, they are more likely to stay with their coach.

Give people control, where you can: A coach can do this by letting people talk themselves into or out of situations as much as possible. It is almost always better to let people come to the right conclusion on their own. What a coach wants to avoid is talking someone into doing something when they don’t feel ready, and then having that person fail. When this happens, the failure is going to be on the coach. This will erode trust and damage relationships.

Stay Calm: Calmness creates calmness. But no one has ever calmed down by being told to calm down!  If a coach shows signs of stress or a lack of confidence, the people they are coaching are likely to follow suit. Using a reassuring tone, positive language and keeping people focused on believing success is possible, are key elements of creating s calm atmosphere.

Keeping people close: When danger and stress levels increase, bringing people closer to the coach – when it’s safe – can help to reassure people. It can also help to show people what they need to do to succeed.

Keep feedback simple: The more complex the situation, the simpler the instructions need to be. When people are faced with high-risk situations, feedback needs to be simple, relatable and familiar. Now is not the time for complex explanations or new skills.

Beware of Emotion: When people are stressed, it is common for them to lash out. This is especially true when you know each other well. As much as possible, try to stay focused on what needs to happen and avoid taking things personally should things get heated.

Guest Bio

Derek Foose is the founder and head coach of the Whistler Free Ride Club. He guides and works as a staff trainer for Extremely Canadian. Derek is also a Course Conductor and Course Developer for the Professional Ski Instructors of Canada’s Big Mountain Pathway. 

In addition to coaching and guiding, Derek has tapped into his extensive experience as a broadcast host for the Freeride World tour. He is on the Board of Directors Coaches Chair for International Freeskiers and Snowboarders Association. He also co-hosts The Freeride Guide Podcast.

Guest Links

Whistler Freestyle Club: https://www.whistlerblackcomb.com/plan-your-trip/ski-and-ride-lessons/products/freeride-club-ages-9-18

International Freeskiers and Snowboarders Association: https://www.ifsafreeriders.org

Freeride World Tour: https://www.freerideworldtour.com

The Freeride Guide Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-freeride-guide/id1725679636

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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 of situational awareness can impact our judgment in ways that can either boost or degrade our decision making and our ability to react to the situations that we are in.

In this episode of Delivering Adventure, ACMG Ski Guide Jerome David joins us to explore how we can boost our situational awareness. Jerome shares some examples from his career as a Heli ski guide and bike park patroller as well as some practical strategies we can all use.

Jerome currently works at Whistler Heli skiing as the lead guide and guide manager. He has also worked as a ski and bike patroller and trail builder.

Key Takeaways

To improve our situational awareness we can:

Take Time to Refocus (When Needed): Living in the moment by concentrating on the task at hand can reduce distraction and complacency. It can also help us to switch from system 2 thinking where slower reasoned thinking can consume our bandwidth at the expense of being able to process information and react faster with our system 1 thinking.

Boosting Bandwidth: People are like computers, they only have so much processing power at anyone time. To boost our ability to process everything around us, we may need to slow things down.

Be aware of Transitions: When we switch activities or change the intensity of tasks, we need to make sure that we refocus. Failing to do so can cause our minds to become focused on what we were just doing, instead of paying attention to what we are doing in that moment.

An example of a transitions to be aware of include going from low risk to high-risk situations or vice versa.

Reduce External Distractions: This can include storing phones, giving people less instruction in complex situations or waiting for other people to pass you on a trail or climb so that you can stay focused.

Plan Ahead: This can include making lists so that you don’t miss anything. Briefing people on what to expect, what they should look for or be aware of can also help to switch people on.

Guest Bio

Jerome David has been working on Snow and Dirt in Whistler since 1998. On the road to becoming an ACMG ski guide, he worked 11 years with Whistler Blackcomb Patrol. He has been ski guiding for the past 7 years. In the summers, Jerome has previously had a long career working as Whistler Mountain Bike Park patrol. The last years he has been building and maintaining Mountain Bike trails. Currently, he works for AlpX and oversees the summer program there. In the Winter Jerome is lead guide and guide manager at Whistler Heli-Skiing.

Guest Links

Thinking Fast and Slow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow

Whistler Heli Skiing: https://www.whistlerblackcomb.com/explore-the-resort/activities-and-events/whistler-heli-skiing/whistler-heli-skiing.aspx

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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, Chris followed his parents' footsteps and founded Big Mountain Adventures. Launched in 2002, Whistler based Big Mountain Adventures has grown to employ 25 guides running mountain bike trips and courses in 14 countries.

In addition to owning and operating Big Mountain Adventures, Chris Winter teaches steep skiing clinics for Extremely Canadian at Whistler Blackcomb. He has also founded the not for profit Zero Ceiling that hosts disadvantaged youth on the slopes of Whistler Blackcomb.

Guest Bio

Chris Winter is a former ski racer. Level IV CSIA ski instructor, level III high-performance ski coach, celebrated technical skier, sponsored big mountain skier featured in magazines and films. Currently teaching steep skiing clinics at Whistler Blackcomb for Extremely Canadian.

Chris is the Owner and Founder of Big Mountain Adventures. Chris founded Big Mountain Adventures in 2002. During this time, he has built his tour company into the leader in guided mountain bike travel featuring award-winning adventures in 14 countries. Check out their new eMTB trips!

Chris is also the owner of the Bralorne Adventure Lodge. Ready for a boutique mountain experience? Step out the door to spectacular wilderness & endless adventures…then recharge at our backyard spa.

In addition to operating adventure-based businesses, Chris has also created and developed Zero Ceiling. This is an innovative and respected registered non-profit that hosts disadvantaged youth to the slopes of Whistler Blackcomb. From local First Nations to street youth to youth from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, participants benefit from a day of snowboard lessons, or if chosen participate in a year-long program that teaches them to become employees at Whistler Blackcomb and give them life-long life skills.

Guest Links

Big Mountain Adventures: https://www.ridebig.com

Bralorne Adventure Lodge: https://www.bralorneadventurelodge.com

Zero Ceiling: https://zeroceiling.org

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