Ascent Adventure Consultants’ commitment to and passion for outdoor adventure education and experiences are obvious and the guides possess the enthusiasm, skill, and professionalism necessary to ensure that their clients will have an incredible and meaningful outdoor experience.

Adam, Climbing Course Participant

I spend a ton of time driving to and from climbing spots, and flying to and from climbing spots. There are a few simple practices that I have adopted in my travels to help my traveling become a bit greener.

1. Keep my own coffee mug in the car. That way when I stop at Starbucks to get coffee, they can use my mug, and not use their paper cups.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today I read an article on UsaToday.com about the importance of “playing” during these difficult and stressful financial times. The author, Janice Lloyd, spends time reviewing Stuart Brown’s new book Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul. ( See the article here: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-03-23-play-stress_N.htm)

Stuart Brown is a proponent of making sure that everyone, adults especially, take time to “play” and do things that are enjoyable and invigorating for them. Without doing this, it doesn’t just lead to boredom, but rather depression and discontentment.

Getting away from cell phones and computers and enjoying the outdoors is the best way to do this. Of course, leisure activities such as video game playing is still relaxing, but until you take action to get away from all things that can distract you, you won’t truly be refreshed.

I often find that when I get away from all the daily responsibilities and demands of running my company, I come back with a renewed vision and determination for Ascent Adventure Consultants success. Often, it can be easy to think, “There’s no way that I can get away….I will miss opportunities.” However, the opposite is true. If you don’t get away every once in a while, you will miss opportunities because you will get burnt out and discouraged.

This coincides with some of the postings we have done last year: Escaping the Normal Routine of Life

Visit our website today to: Take time to play and enjoy life! We only get one life…so make the most of it! Climb some cliffs, hike some mountains, or whatever else you may enjoy!

This is amazing: 5.14a Trad Route

I would love to know how he mentally trained to climb this. Too bad there isn’t climbing like this in North Carolina!

I have had several people ask me over the past few years what exactly I do when climbing chimneys on multipitch routes, in order to carry a pack up with food, water, approach shoes, etc, since climbing a chimney with a pack is so difficult!

I just wanted to give my quick advice. The leader never carries a pack, but always the second. And instead of carrying it on their back through the chimneys, we simply use a tagline. I prefer to use a piece of webbing, and then just hang the pack from the harness of the second and then it can be pulled up through the chimney. Just a quick piece of advice!

http://www.ascentadventure.com

Here is a great testimonial from the Mount Washington 09 Trip

Thanks for everything. It was an amazing experience that will surely change my life forever. The trip let me and my dad see and do things that most people will never do. It was amazing. 

Thanks a Ton!

Patrick Begley

Patrick Begley

Hey everybody! I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday!

Ascent Adventure Consultants has some REALLY exciting things planned for 2009. One of them is the plan for the blog. We will be following a weekly schedule, having each day be dedicated to a different topic. What are those topics, you ask? Here they are:

1. Mondays- Trip Reports
2. Tuesdays- Fitness and Training Tips
3. Wednesdays- Business and Corporate Training Advice
4. Thursday- Climbing Techniques and Tools
5. Friday- Environmental Issues and Advice
6. Saturdays- Miscellaneous Items that We Want to Write About!

So make sure to check back to read what interests you!

Living in this Global Village, we have grown accustomed to working every waking hour…checking email on our smartphones, blogging on a mobile device, etc. This technology has done things for business that are astounding. I know personally that without them, Ascent Adventure Consultants wouldn’t be what we are today.

There is a negative effect to all of this though. Are there things that you used to enjoy but can’t anymore because of working too much? Do you feel like you are lacking joy because of it? One of the ways to help break the obsessive pattern of work is to get outside to be refreshed and rejuvinated, whether for a lunch break, a day, or a week. It has been repeatedly shown that the outdoors have an incredible therapeutic effect on those who immerse themselves in it. Check out this page on Adventure Therapy on Wikipedia to read some detailed information.

What would it be like for you to leave your phone in the car and live for a day disconnected from normal life? For me personally, I am able to find great joy I’m doing this. I find that when I do get back to technology and the normal pace of life, that I am able to work even more effectively and efficiently as a result.

I can remember one experience I had back when I was a pharmaceutical sales rep. My life had become consumed by work. One day I was out on a Saturday helping bolt some new climbs in Virginia. My friend realized he brought the wrong drill, so I stayed up on the cliff by myself for 1.5 hours clipped into the anchor. In that brief amount of time, I found such peach and joy as I reflected and admired creation. I feel that through that experience, it helped me to remember what is important in life and gave me a new perspective on my job and on life.

Think about this..if we all took time to get outside (even just over a lunch break!), and had this kind of refreshing experience, we could impact so many people with our new found joy because we live in a Global Village and our actions do indeed impact many.

READ PART 3: Click Here to Read “Setting Expectations”

Have you ever heard of the Global Village? This is a term coined by Marshall Mcluhan, describing the way that technology, specifically the internet, has allowed people and cultures all over the world to seemingly be part of “one village.” We can communicate with each other faster than ever before, we can build relationships with people on the other side of the globe, we can do business with companies everywhere. This global village has continued to develop throughout the past century, and will continue developing into the foreseeable future. Who knows what lies ahead that could draw us even closer together than current technology allows!

This is indeed a wonderful thing. But there are a few things can be potentially dangerous about it. Paul Michelman on the Harvard Business Blog has written a great article and started a great discussion on how this has caused us to become obsessed with work and slowly makes us lose our private lives. He says:

“[The] notion is that the M-F, 9-5, three-weeks-of-carefully-planned-vacation work-a-day life is an anachronism in today’s information economy. Most of our work…can be done anywhere, anytime. Why force people to toil within meaningless barriers of time and space? [T]his idea [is presented] in the name of freedom — we should have more flexibility in how we get our work done and how we choose to live our lives.”

Over the next few days, I will discuss the following topics, with a goal of helping us to avoid the pitfall of becoming so obsessed with work that we forget to enjoy our lives.

The Global Village has:

1) Caused us to be focused on work from the moment we wake to the moment we lay down to sleep

2) Placed expectations on us to respond to every contact/email/phone call instantaneously, and causes us to place those same expectations on others

3) Caused us to begin forgetting how to relate to people and build relationships without technology

4) Made it hard for people to escape from the normal routine of life

Ultimately my goal in discussing this is to begin some dialog on how pursuit of outdoor adventure and enjoyment can help us to reconnect to what we have lost as a result of this “villagization”

READ PART 2: Click Here to read “Work/Life Balance”