Adventure guides Jordy Shepherd and Chris Kaipio explore what it means to deliver adventure, how their new podcast can help you, and what you can expect to hear going forward. Jordy Shepherd is an ACMG / IFMGA Mountain Guide, rescue specialist and former park warden. Chris Kaipio is an ACMG Hiking Guide, CSIA Level 3 Ski Instructor, Canoe Guide trainer and the author of Power to Influence: how to get the best out of yourself and others.

Key Takeaways

Defining Adventure: An adventure is a challenging experience that pushes us outside our comfort zone that ends well.

Delivering Adventure: Helping people to achieve the feeling of wow that comes from pushing ourselves and succeeding.

This podcast: Shares the secrets of how you can deliver adventure to your friends, family and as a profession. What makes this podcast unique, is that it involves experts interviewing experts to find out the “how” of adventure.

Going forward: Jordy and Chris are going to be interviewing top adventure experts to get the backstage pass perspective of the adventure industry. These experts aren’t just their guests, they are their peers. 

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During that time, I've helped thousands of people to push their limits and to achieve things that they felt were beyond their abilities. I've also trained hundreds of adventure guides, built training programs for guiding organizations, and I've written a book called The Power to Influence. Now I'm turning my attention to launching this podcast.

Joining me as my co-host is my good friend, Jordy Shepard. Jordy is an internationally certified ACMG, IFMGA mountain guide, guide trainer, and avalanche educator rescue specialist, and a former park warden and park ranger. Jordy currently serves as the vice president of the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides, where we have been working together on the board of director.

In addition to all of his work in the adventure guiding industry, Jordy also runs a successful real estate company in Canmore, Alberta, where he currently lives with his family. In this introductory episode, Jordy and I are going to set the stage for what you can expect to hear on this podcast going forward and why this is valuable to you.

Well, here we are, Jordy episode one. Finally, how does it.

We don't have, uh, we haven't had a lot of advice or when we don't have a producer, it's just two of us with our microphones and our computers and, uh, just, just trying to, uh, get this project off the ground. And, uh, it's, it's really been, uh, amazing to have. Realize that we have all this connectivity in the adventure industry, and the more we we reach out, uh, through this season and then, uh, through subsequent seasons, it's just, it's, yeah, there's, there's a lot of us that deliver adventure all around the globe.

And, uh, yeah, it's just exciting to be, feel like a, a small cog in a very large, complex set of wheels and, uh, and trying to, you know, help help people get. On this idea of how do we deliver ad adventure?

It's also fair to say that this has been a large adventure for both of us. Can you outline for our listeners how we even

And, uh, as I recall, the title of the session was Delivering Adventure.

What was it about this project that interested.

And I, I feel like this is, um, This is a piece in the mentorship, uh, progression is for us to, uh, bring on, uh, a bunch of folks who do things in all walks of the adventure industry and, uh, and how they, how they do it. And I'm constantly learning as, as we do this, uh, there's a lot of podcasts out there, but only, you know, not very many talk about the, the how to, uh, from the perspective the.

Um, and, and you and I, Chris, are experts in our, in the field of delivering adventure. And we, so we come from that perspective, but we also get the opportunity, uh, to bring together, uh, all these other different people and from some industries that we're not as familiar with as you'll see, uh, through the coming season.

Uh, we get to interview these experts and, uh, really, uh, make something to a, that appeals to a broad audience. So this is, uh, for guides, parents, sports instructors, uh, and coaches, recreational enthusiasts. Uh, you know, kind of, there's a little bit of some every something for everybody here. Uh, I think there'll be takeaway messages, uh, in every episode and there's going to, you know, a lot of discussion on things like the topic of risk.

and, uh, and some hammering down some individual skills, uh, for example. Uh, and we at some point we're all leading ourselves and others through situations that are challenging. And the idea of producing a podcast that helps people to do that better really appealed to me. So I guess one of the first things we should talk about is what is adventure and what does delivering adventure even mean?

That is the title of our podcast here. So Chris, what is, uh, what does delivering adventure mean to you?

However, if I were to put forward a definition of adventure that encapsulates all of the key components, it would sound something like this. An adventure is an experience that has an element of adversity that pushes us outside of our comfort zone and ends. This means that adventures can include learning new things, traveling to new places, pushing ourselves to perform at a higher level, taking risks, and generally just challenging ourselves.

View. This way we can experience an adventure participating in outdoor sports on our vacations, in our work, in business lives, and at. While adventure is often thought of as something we experience doing high risk activities in exotic locations, in reality, our lives are full of adventure. We break it down and adventure has three things that are universal.

Adventures require us to overcome adversity that o, that adversity tests us in some way. That experience is remembered as being positive. Afterwards, when we talk about adversity, we're referring to risk, discomfort, challenge, hardship, or even the unknown. When we talk about that adversity testing us, we're referring to the feeling that we get when we push ourselves outside of our comfort zone.

That feeling is usually excitement. But it can involve a level of stress or anxiety. However, to avoid having an experience become a misadventure, the experience needs to be managed in a way that doesn't overwhelm us, because at the end of the day, the experience has to be viewed as being positive when it comes to delivering adventure.

The key is to manage the experience in a way that tests people, but doesn't break them or leave them bored. In my experience, getting this part right is where many people can struggle. The point of this podcast is to help people to struggle less. However, one key thing that can make delivering adventure difficult that we need to address right at the start is that adventure is very subjective.

Each of us has a different level of risk tolerance and resiliency. I call this a sense of adventure. Adding to this is that we all perceive and remember events differe. This can mean that two people that experience the exact same thing can walk away with completely different memories and perspectives of the event afterwards.

As an aside, what can make it even trickier is that over time, those different viewpoints can actually drift further apart as we retell the stories to ourselves. Now Jordy, let me share an embarrassing story to highlight the point of subjectivity. The story is also an example of what I hope listeners will hear going forward, which is honest, real life experiences that we can all learn from.

20 years ago, I was guiding part of a corporate group around Black Home Mountain. The group consisted of five advanced intermediate ski. It was the second day we'd been together and we had already done quite a bit of adventurous skiing. The weather was overcast and it had snowed all morning. Just after lunch, we met up with another part of our group.

This group consisted of three snowboarders who were being guided around by a snowboard instructor. Just after we met up, the clouds lifted a bit and it stopped. Seeing this, the other instructor and I decided that we should try to take our group down, the Black Home Glacier. The Black Home Glacier is an advanced run that travels down in Alpine Valley.

It is one of the signature runs in Whistler, and on a nice day, the experience is phenomenal. We put our idea to the group and they agreed to head up to the top of the mountain and then to send down the. When we arrived, it was around 2:00 PM and we had the run to ourselves. It was a high overcast, but the light was okay.

It was about 15 centimeters of untracked snow, and everyone was excited standing at the top of the glacier. This seemed like a great idea. As it would turn out though, that would be the last happy moment I would have that. The first person that went down the beautiful untracked run made three great turns before promptly crashing and losing one of their skis.

One thing I found is that when skis come off in deep snow, it is like they can have a mind of their own and they rarely seem to end up being where you think they should be. 20 minutes went by before a ski patroller arrived and found this. Relieved. I helped my student to get her skis back on so that we could catch up to the rest of the group who were waiting below us.

Unfortunately, by that point, the weather had closed in again and the light had become quite flat. It became very difficult to pick out the features in the snow, and at some points I couldn't even tell if I was moving. To make things worse, some of the members of the group started to get quite. This slowed us down even more.

Instead of delivering a beautiful experience, the run had turned into what felt like a never-ending marathon of suffering. When we finally reached the bottom of the mountain, it was four 30 in getting dark. This is when a curious thing happened. However, at this point, half of the group, including myself, Saw the experience as a complete misadventure.

I felt terrible for what had happened, and I felt personally responsible, which in fact was however, the other half of the group loved it. They loved the adversity and the challenge. The same experience ended up being seen completely differently by two groups of people based on their sense of adventure.

From my perspective, I would never have done that again, and I haven't. As a guide, I was trying to deliver an experience that was a 10 out of 10 for me, when a three out of 10 experience would have made them much happier and would have been far less complicated and far less stressful for every. However, when it comes to delivering adventure, knowing how much risk to take, how much adversity people are willing to push through, and how to manage the experience, though that it is seen as being positive afterwards by everyone takes experience and awareness.

Sorry, Jordy, that was a long-winded answer to what should have been a simple question. So, let me turn this around and ask you, how do you define an adventure and what does delivering adventure mean to you? Well, Chris,

Yes. If it's not challenging, I kind of categorize it more as an experience. And I've had lots of great experiences. Um, but it's not until it feels like there was some sort of a challenge and maybe a bit of adversity, but it doesn't even have to be a lot of adversity. Just like, you know, whether it's physically, mentally, emotionally, um, challenging and, and a bit, a bit out of my comfort zone.

Um, you know, not too far out of my comfort zone is, is what an adventure is to. And then delivering adventure is really what I've strived to do for my entire career as a guide. It's, uh, it's trying to find for an individual or a group, because that can happen too, right? Where you've got a group of people who all are on different pages and trying to figure out what is going to be best for them.

And they might not know what is best for them. They've never. In the back country, they've never been, uh, on a rock-climbing crag before. You know, they've never hung at a rope and trusted that. And so, trying to figure out, uh, on the scale of challenging, how challenging actually is this for them. Uh, and so it's.

A lame adventure, uh, or non adventure for them. They're like, Well, you know, we, we went to the rock climbing Craig and tried, tried rock climbing for the first time and it was like climbing a ladder and there's no point in doing it anymore because I've experienced it now. And that's the thing is it was it, it was an experience.

So just, you know, sort of bringing him up through progression where they can. Get to the point of a feeling of accomplishment, but also that continual recognition that there is more, and that they leave that experience or that adventure, uh, as being kind of a bit more hungry for more and not wanting to just say either been there, done that, or been there, tried it terrified, and I'm never going there again.

And, uh, I also, I placed a. Protection in rock. Uh, but o often not with the intent, not with actually testing it. Uh, when you're free climbing, right? And you're, you're climbing up and placing a piece and clipping the rope and climbing up past it, and it's there as safety if you fall. And ideally it's a very good, strong piece and each, each piece is, uh, so I felt pretty good about that, but I hadn't actually fallen on every piece, uh, to that point.

And so now we, we launched and we spent five days. Standing on every piece. Uh, and some of them pretty funky too, like, uh, placing a mashy for the first time, which basically is a piece of malleable metal on the end of a copper, swedged copper, or a wedged, um, cable. And, uh, so you're, you're sort of mashing that in into an open book style.

Not even a crack. You're just molding it in to a space in the rock and then trying to stand on that. Tentatively and recognizing that if you place a couple of those, if you fall, one pops the one you you're waiting. Then the other one you're probably going to be up, you know, kind of half a meter to a meter head of steam as you head downwards.

And then pos quite possibly pop the next one. And then, Yeah, Momentum starts to build up with those not great pieces. And so, and, and on that route, there's really not much for ledges either. So, we were Portaledge camping, uh, hanging off of the Bull Tanks, uh, for five nights or four nights, five days I guess it was.

And, uh, yeah, we, we had the benefit of it was a. It was a beautiful five days in California in the Yosemite Valley, but it came right after a big storm. And so, uh, where it snowed in May, I think it was, we were there and it snowed right to valley bottom. And, uh, the walls cleared off people, you know, some, a bunch of people got rescued.

Uh, and so there was actually nobody above us on a fairly popular route. Um, and so we, we launched in, in sunshine, but with, with water. Running down from the, from still meltwater. And so as we were placing, placing gear, it was come, coming down our arm to, to through our armpits for the first little bit. But then, you know, things dried off in the California sun.

And, and, uh, yeah, we're hanging, hanging there on our belay seat. Um, taking turns le leading and, uh, listening to music and eating canned food out of the, out of the hall bag and hauling all of our water with us. And. Yeah, quite, quite an adventure, really. Um, yeah. You know, just, and, and quite special to be, you know, climbing for five days and then seeing everybody starting to come out below us and start climbing up towards us, uh, following us up the wall.

It was really neat.

So let me ask you a follow up question. When it comes to adventure, how would you define your philosophy

Uh, have them feel like there's risk. But really there's, I know there's very little to almost no risk. Um, and so that's, that's the catch is, is how, how do you find something that's challenging for somebody, uh, or for a group who all wants sort of different things or at different levels. Uh, and so that's where it's kind of a combination.

It's, it's the adventure, but it also has the experience flow. So, for some people, even if they feel like it wasn't. The adventure that they were looking for. It was still an excellent, amazing experience, and so I'll turn that around. Now to you, Chris, when it comes to delivering adventure, what's your personal philosophy on that?

At that time, the mantra among my colleagues was to go big or go home. The philosophy was that you should get out there, put your big person pants on, push past your fear and go. Worrying about the consequences was something we really didn't talk about. We also certainly didn't spend much time thinking about whether the decisions we were making were good or not, and we absolutely didn't reflect upon the decision-making process that we used back then.

Traits like good judgment, foresight, and just being responsible really weren't that celebr. As a result, I did plenty of dumb things and so did many of my peers. Most of us got away with them, but some didn't. I've watched a lot of my peers end up getting hurt, getting their clients hurt, having super stressful days, having unhappy clients, and having to deal with stressful situations.

Fast forward 30 years in my view of risk taking has changed. For me now, my philosophy is to go big and make it home. When I say go big these days, I'm referring to the idea of pushing yourself outside your comfort zone, but not so far as to lead to disaster. As you rightly know, to Jordy adventure should be exciting, not terrify.

The whole point of an adventure is for it to be a positive experience. This is how we grow and improve. People rarely get better at anything if they're in survival mode the whole time. They also rarely enjoy experiences or experience personal growth. If they spend too much time being terrified, demoralized, frustrated, or embarrassed.

It also won't be much of an adventure if you get hurt lost or worse. I think that we should all try to go big in the sense that we are pushing ourselves to do new things, to be better or to go farther, but the goal should be to finish in better shape than when we started. When it comes to delivering adventure, success is making it.

In seeking adventure. Uh, so don't go big as you said, or Chris, you know, I totally agree. Don't go big right away. That's, uh, that tends to move you more towards a higher probability of misadventure. So set yourself up for success by taking these smaller steps and working your way up. Gain those base level skills and confidence.

And it might, it might not feel like a lot of adventure right at the start, and that's fine because you're kind of in that educational learning phase. Uh, and that's, that's the patience piece that that comes in where, uh, again, you have mis adventures if you are not patient. Uh, so be patient and always, always think.

Come back and do this another day, or today's not the day to do that, but we could do something else and have, have a, have a list. Like actually create a list and keep it with you. Um, you know, our phones do that nicely for us now. And so then you don't have to be, you know, you're heading towards objective A and it's like, uh, I'm starting to get the feeling this isn't going to work out, or we're starting too late, or the weather's not great.

And so then you can just very quickly with your decision making, go to a plan B or, Uh, that you already have listed out, and it really helps your decision making to have, have that list in front of you. And then, uh, you can also see your progression as you're going through. Okay, well, I've ticked that now I want to do this as my next adventure when it's appropriate and when I have the skill set.

So, Jordy,

But they didn't tell us that. So we searched for them for quite a while before the police figured that out. Um, that actually they weren't even there anymore or in the country. So Chris, the common things, uh, themes that I've seen, uh, in terms of people having mis adventures, uh, is lack of communication, not being prepared.

Uh, biting off more than way more than they can chew, uh, you know, with big day and on bad weather. Uh, and just. Um, not having, uh, sometimes it's just common sense and, and it's strange because when things start to go sideways, common sense can actually, you know, what is, you know, me saying is as the, the searcher or the rescuer, Oh wow, why didn't you just do this?

Um, the reality is people do stop thinking in kind of straight linear fashion, um, just in general and doing things that they wouldn't otherwise. Some of the other reasons why people have missed adventures and, and don't, uh, don't do well in their quest for adventure, um, is, is, uh, group communication issues, uh, disagreements.

People have different expectations right from the start, but they don't really get, get into it with each other before the trip. And one person is Summit, or Summit or Plummet and the other, the other person is like, No, I could have turned around a long time ago. Uh, and just not being on the same page. So

Aside from that, what do you think is one of the most common mistakes that people can

It could be not reading the conditions right, or going out when the weather is really poor, or, you know, trying to do a, uh, a big hiking. Trip when there's actually a lot of really punchy snow. Um, and so it's, it's, uh, a few things will make that worse and one is not having very good communication. Uh, and nowadays there's really no excuse not to have communication.

And I think multiple forms of communication is really what's recommended. Um, and having the ability. To get out to the outside world just really gives you, if you're having a bad time of it and things are going poorly. Just being able to let someone else know that where you are on the planet and that things are going poorly really gives you a big sense of relief, uh, and it doesn't seem important.

Until it is, and people say, Well, that costs money. And there's, you know, the service and the device to buy or rent or whatever. But really, um, it, it does suck to get rescued. No doubt about it. But what's even worse is not getting rescued if you need to be rescued. And I, I can say that as a rescue specialist that has been rescued myself, um, you know, you can say, Oh, I, I know everything about everything or I'm very prepared, even.

But when you, when you need it, you need it. And, uh, and that's. The services are there for, uh, but then on top of that, be prepared to be out on your own for a period of time. Uh, so like I, I recall going down into the Grand Canyon, um, on a hike, and I was probably over prepared. I had a satellite phone, I had extra bottles of water.

I love at the Grand Canyon, at the visitor center, how they rate the trips on, uh, the board. It's has a number of sandwiches and the number of water bottles. Bigger the trip, more sandwiches, more water bottles, , they've really broken it down. And, uh, but you know, seeing that at the visitor center there made really realize we're in this desert environment, which changes through elevations and we're going down, and then there's all these signs that say what goes down must come back up or down as optional and up as mandatory.

Uh, which, which is also great, right? And it's all, this signage kind of catches your eye and you're like, that's for a reason because they do. Huge number of rescues. And so I, I go out with the idea that I don't wanna be one of those people that is, uh, is uh, using the system, you know, for rescue, uh, however that I can call for rescue if I need to be rescued.

Chris, going forward, what can our listeners expect to hear on this podcast and how will that help?

What makes this podcast unique is that it is going to be like the backstage pass to the adventure delivery in. Jordy, the people that you and I are talking to, they're not just our guests, they are our peers. Many of these people are people that we have worked with, we've worked for, trained, admired, or we can relate to.

We can relate to their struggles, their experiences, and their achievements because in many cases, you and I have been in a similar situ. This is what has already allowed us to have very open, honest, and informed conversations. Because of this, we're going to hear what those top experts in the field are thinking, how they manage real world situations, what advice they wish they knew when they started, what mistakes they've made, what they have learned from them, and most importantly, what they want you, the listener, to.

Because these people care. They love what they do, and they want you to love it too. They want to help you to succeed, and so do we. This is why we have launched this podcast.

To have that inside track on the adventure sports, outdoor adventure industry. And really our focus is not, it's not just, um, one type of, you know, adventure, you know, just mountain stuff or just water stuff. Uh, we're going to be talking to people from all parts of the industry. Um, we're really focusing on.

Having a good diversity of people and activities, uh, so that you're not just hearing about, well, how to be a better ski coach or how to be a better, uh, mountain guide. Uh, it's going to be very di very diverse. Yeah.

What makes this podcast different is that it is going to examine the how. How can we deliver better adventures to ourselves and others? This commitment to the how is represented in our logo, which is actually the blueprint of how to deliver adventure. You can find out more about that on our. Going forward.

If you're an enthusiast, you will get to hear what the pros are doing. If you are a professional in the adventure industry, you will get to hear what your peers are doing. We've spent much of this episode sharing our ideas about adventure. Now let's turn it over to you, the listener. What do you think?

What does adventure mean to. More importantly, we'd like to hear how we can help you to deliver adventure more easily, more often, and more efficiently. You can reach us through any of our social media feeds or send us an email. You can find all of our contact details at delivering adventure dot. Also, don't forget to follow or subscribe through your favorite streaming service so that you don't miss out on future episodes.

To finish off this episode, we are going to play a few of the comments about adventure that we've recorded from some of our upcoming guests in order they are Sarah Hueniken, Barry Blanchard, Tracy Fraser, Greg Hill, and Lyndsey Dyer. Thanks for listening.

The end result of, I guess it starts with a curiosity and um, has an element of unknown.

So for me. Suffering is a necessary part of adventure as is risk. And the difference I would draw between the rollercoaster ride and true risk is that the rollercoaster ride is a thrill. You're not supposed to get hurt on the rollercoaster ride, it does happen very, very, but it's not supposed to happen.

Whereas mountains are real risk and you can be. A number of ways, almost any time.

Deliberate, I think, you know, I think about it when I'm thinking about delivering adventure. It's taking a group of people. Um, safely somewhere where they might have been before or might not have been before, where they're going to feel the feeling of, Wow, you know, this is neat, this is cool. This is something I might not have done before.

And again, I think there's a memory component to it. They take a memory away with them.

And once you have somebody that's certified and qualified and spent years honing their skills, um, is that they put a huge amount of trust in us that allows them to push their limits. And, and that's kind of our goal, is to take them and push their limits and take them to just these incredible places.

And I mean, personally love it all winter long when I'm, when I'm guiding ski tour and is where, yeah, you just know that you're taking somebody to a place they wouldn't go. And to them it just feels adventurous. And like I mentioned, the, the whole guiding thing, it really is, it just allows them to enjoy the adventure without all the anxiety and worry and, and stress that would come if they were trying to do it on their own.

And, um, we kind of freed them from a lot of the worries so they could fully embrace the adventure.

And that can happen on a mountain or it can happen in everyday life. And so I think. You know, I think it's just a mindset.