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PUSHING IT TO THE EDGE
In the end, adventure is as philosophical as it is physical. So let’s begin with a question.
“How many things have you done in your life that you know, with absolute certainty, you will remember for the rest of your life?” asks Geoffrey Kent, founder of adventure-purveyor Abercrombie & Kent and lifelong adventurer.
Perhaps this blunt question causes you to pause. Perhaps, in the next breath, you are already considering ramping up the adrenaline in your future. You would not be alone.
Thrill-seeking sojourns are in big demand. Industry experts estimate the global adventure-travel market’s economic impact to be somewhere in the range of $75 billion to $150 billion. That’s some serious spare change for the memory of a lifetime. Abercrombie & Kent now dedicates an entire catalog to extreme -- and they do mean extreme -- adventures.
Philosophy begins and ends with a question.
Care to throw your hat, heart, strength, and soul into the ring?
By Ken McAlpine
DOG SLED IN NORWAY
To feel the surge of foggy-breathed sled dogs in your hands is to experience something elemental and special. To guide these dogs through rugged and bewitching land is life-altering indeed. After receiving sled-driving instruction, you’ll spend the bulk of nine days steering your own wood sled -- four to six dogs attached -- through Norway and possibly into Sweden. You’ll cross frozen lakes, pass through hushed birch forests, climb up and over high Arctic mountains. Abercrombie & Kent provides the guides with the know-how, you provide the warm layers (temperatures range from 20 below zero to 32 degrees Fahrenheit and winds can, well, howl) and fortitude. You will overnight in a group cabin, but if weather doesn’t cooperate, you might camp in a trailside tent. You’ll fall in love with trackless snow, places you can’t yet pronounce, and your dogs. $8,355. (866) 259-6753, www.akextremeadventures.com
RUN A MARATHON IN KENYA
For 30 years, Boston-based Marathon Tours & Travel has been sending runners to the world’s most unique, and grueling, marathons. And here’s your chance to run Kenya’s Safaricom Marathon, the world’s only marathon conducted inside a wild game park. The June 27, 2009, race takes place on dirt roads within the 62,000-acre Lewa Wildlife Conservancy. Rare is the opportunity to run with savannah, rhino, elephant, giraffe, and possibly lion (spotter planes and rangers keep an eye on the animals) as a backdrop, and Masai tribesmen loping alongside. Got game and legs left? Extended stays are available, allowing you to summit 19,340-foot Kilimanjaro in neighboring Tanzania. The enticing thing about Kilimanjaro? It’s the world’s tallest “walkable” mountain (no technical climbing required) . Another enticing thing about Kilimanjaro? It’s no Sunday stroll. Plenty of folks who attempt the five- to nine-day push through rain forest and ice fields fail to summit. Marathon packages from $1,670. Kilimanjaro challenge, add $4,300 (includes transportation from Kenya to Tanzania). (617) 242-7845, www.marathontours.com
 HIKE FROM MONT BLANC, FRANCE, TO THE MEDITERRANEAN
The Grande Randonnée Cinq -- better known to European hikers as the GR5 -- is arguably Western Europe’s most aspired-to long-distance hiking trail. It was built with Euro chutzpah and forethought, designed to cross as many mountain ridges and highlands as possible, including the central spine of the Alps along the border between France and Switzerland and, to the south, France and Italy. Over two weeks, Wilderness Travel escorts hikers along a portion of the GR5 and its legendary Alpine spines, traversing some of the most remote parts of France. Covering up to 10 miles a day and routinely ascending into thin air at 8,000 to 9,000 feet, hikers meld with roads the Romans trod. You’ll snug down in inns fronted by cobblestone streets and backed by 10,000-foot peaks. Slowly you will descend to, fitting finish, take a well-deserved plunge into the Mediterranean at the Côte d’Azur. From $5,795. (800) 368-2794, www.wildernesstravel.com
 CROSS THE UNITED STATES BY BICYCLE
Behold this trip of a lifetime: 41 days and 40 nights, 40 to 145 miles of riding per day, 174,000 feet of climbing, 3,240 miles from Santa Barbara, California, to Charleston, South Carolina. Those Tour de France lightweights fall about 1,000 miles short. The 2009 ride starts September 13th, nattily avoiding the heat of the desert west, and providing fall foliage as you pedal east through Appalachia’s Smoky and Blue Ridge mountains. You’ll sweat and strain during the day, but the folks at Trek Travel see to it that, at day’s end, you relax in style at places like La Fonda de Taos (Taos, New Mexico) and the Hermitage Hotel (Nashville, Tennessee). There are also well-timed days off the bike, allowing you to explore the Grand Canyon, float down the Rio Grande, enjoy live music at the Grand Ole Opry, or just enjoy a sorely needed massage. At the finish, sit down on something soft for a well-deserved celebratory banquet. From $15,500. (866) 464-8735, www.trektravel.com
 RIDE HORSEBACK IN MONGOLIA
Boojum Expeditions was the first U.S. outfitter to offer tourism in Mongolia, and in a place like this -- remote, with capricious weather -- experience counts. The Khovsgol Horse Trek, Boojum’s most popular horseback adventure, spans 19 days, roughly 10 of them spent riding. You’ll ride through the Darhat Valley, stopping for a day to observe the Naadam Festival (Mongol games of archery, wrestling, and thundering horse races) and up into the northern mountains to visit with the Tsaatan (reindeer people) at their southern camp. You might ride 20 miles in a day, but distance tells only part of the story. Mongol horses are tough; the same can be said for riding them. But the terrain is starkly beautiful, the skies as wide as anywhere, and the Mongol horsemen who keep you company are some of the best riders on earth. From $2,800. (800) 287-0125, www.boojumx.com
 SWIM THE VIRGIN ISLANDS
Here’s your chance to island hop, Michael Phelps-style, in the British Virgin Islands. This area has long been a magnet for sailors who revel in a dreamscape scattering of islands bunched but a short hop apart, and London-based SwimTrek puts this chummy proximity to good use with the oddball opportunity of swimming from Britain (the B.V.I.s) to America (the U.S. Virgin Islands). On their six-day B.V.I. adventure you’ll do two swims a day (accompanied by escort boats), striking out from shore for that fetching island within eyesight, or sometimes just along the shore. Swims range from about one mile to 2.8 miles, and the longest total distance for any one day is just over four miles. Currents can be substantial -- however, waters are bath-water warm and gin clear, allowing for the pleasurable distraction of colorful reefs sliding past beneath you. At night you recoup at the posh Leverick Bay Resort on Virgin Gorda. From $1,807. 011-44-20-8696-6220, www.swimtrek.com
 CLIMB A HIMALAYAN PEAK AND GET A TASTE OF EVEREST
Climbing Mount Everest is, sans argument, one of the world’s great adventures, and Summit Climb’s new three-week Everest View Glacier School may be the sanest initial step in that direction. It’s held in Everest National Park in the Khumbu region of Nepal, where expert climbers with Himalaya-heavy résumés teach you basic mountaineering skills, from glacier rope techniques to ice-climbing and snow camping. It’s not just about climbing, either. Nepal, wrapped by the world’s highest peaks, is a magical place. Along with schoolwork, you’ll spend substantial time hiking amid some of the world’s most beautiful terrain and people (the Sherpa). Skills honed, you will attempt a climb of 20,075-foot Lobuche East, accompanied by accomplished climber Dan Mazur and a host of Sherpa instructors. And so mountaineering goes; from the summit you’ll see the tantalizing prize of Everest, described by mountaineer George Mallory as “a prodigious white fang, an excrescence from the jaw of the world.” What happens next is your call. $2,750. info@summitclimb.com, www.summitclimb.com
 HIKE THROUGH CALIFORNIA’S SIERRA NEVADA
Naturalist John Muir didn’t consider hiking a hardship. He was consumed with documenting and preserving our country’s natural wonders. But the crags and canyons he hoofed were grueling indeed, and you’ll follow a portion of Muir’s path on Mountain Travel Sobek’s “Hiking the John Muir Trail -- Southbound.” Beginning at Florence Lake, northeast of Fresno, California, and continuing for 15 days (14 nights of camping), you’ll cover breathtaking ups and downs over 146 miles of trail, culminating with a summit push to 14,495-foot Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the continental United States (Mount Whitney is a “walkable” mountain, with no technical climbing required). It’s called the High Sierra for a reason. Much of your hiking takes place at well over 10,000 feet (pack mules carry your gear, easing some of the strain). But it’s the natural beauty that truly quickens your breath and your pulse; a sky-swept world of sapphire-blue lake, craggy peak, and silent meadow that remains testament to Muir’s song and sinew. From $5,295. (888) 687-6235, www.mtsobek.com
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