Peak Adventure, or just a Bimble?

When we pack our bags and head into the mountains; for many it is for the adventure. Some even hope to find a ‘peak’ adventure, where our risk and competence are evenly matched and the outcome is pure adventure within our capabilities. This is what the Adventure Experience Paradigm by Priest and Martin (1985) sets out in its model.

As we can see from looking at the model it is only one fifth of the outcomes which in which peak adventure can take place. The other outcomes are:

Exploration and Experimentation

Adventure

Peak Adventure

Misadventure

Devastation and Disaster

It is only when our perception is correct that we can stay within the boundary of the ‘Adventures’, however it does not take much to perceive wrong and end up in misadventure or even worst disaster. However it becomes very easy to stay safely within the area of exploration and experimentation whilst leading groups, as the fear of taking the wrong perception and ending up in misadventure can be scary for a new leader such as myself.

Whilst in Snowdonia in October I found myself in a situation that with reflection and feedback from my group I feel I could have handled better to make more of an adventure out of the situation.

The situation was as I led my group up Tryfan in Snowdonia. The weather was not perfect; there was high winds and poor visibility above 600m. However my group was competent and we took the ascent of Heather Terrace up Tryfan. Being a cautious leader that day due to high winds and a more scramble like terrain, I took the lead up Heather Terrace; with my supervisor bring up the rear. We made our way to the top, being careful of the winds upon the summit and then descended via Bwlch Tryfan. 

This I thought had gone ok, and I was pleased at the group’s competence and ability. However I felt that the group were not experiencing ‘peak adventure’ even though the winds had been high upon the summit, where it seemed they entered adventure, this became apparent as the morale of the group lifted as the risk became greater. On the descent though the morale seemed to drop again, and only on afterthought did I realise that my group had slipped back into exploration and experimentation and lost some of their arousal, as their performance was not being pushed enough for them to experience more arousal and head into their optimal zone performance. (Woods, 1998)

On after thought I feel like I could have made the day more challenging for the group, pushing their abilities and mine as a leader. I can see that if I had created a more complex descent perhaps over the Glyder’s this may have pushed their arousal and therefore entering into adventure or even peak adventure. So I future I think I will try to perceive my groups abilities with more focus at the beginning, adjusting the plans for optimum aroused adventure.

References:

Miles, C, Priest, S, (1990) Adventure Education, State College; Venture Publishing.

Woods, B, (1998) Applying psychology to sport, London; Bath Press.