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Showing posts from April, 2009

What is Adventure?

The tagline for Get Out! magazine is “outdoor adventure in the Ohio River region.” As an outdoor adventurer, I only occasionally ask myself what adventure is. Sometimes it’s like porn: you can’t define it, but you know it when you see it. According to Merriam-Webster.com, adventure is defined as: 1 a: an undertaking usually involving danger and unknown risks b: the encountering of risks 2: an exciting or remarkable experience 3: an enterprise involving financial risk It’s interesting that the dictionary definition of adventure largely invokes the word risk. If adventure were strictly defined by risk, then driving a car to the trailhead would be the most adventurous part of your trip (see What Will Really Kill You Outdoors ). But there is some truth to that – backpacking in bear country is definitely adventurous and largely because it’s so risky, or at least it feels risky. Ditto whitewater rafting, skydiving, rock climbing, BASE jumping, biking in rush hour traffic and so on. I’d like