Microadventures

Filling your life with adventure

Just recently Corina, a member of the Crag Rats Club, sent me a video by a man called Alastair Humphreys.

In the video he talks about how he built his life around searching for big adventures until life itself got in the way. Nowadays he fills his yearning for adventure with microadventures, small excursions like sleeping under the stars or jumping in a river. He also talk about what ‘adventure’ really means and comes to the conclusion that in actuality an ‘adventure’ is anything that scares us, that we really don’t want to do. To face that moment of fear, push through it and do the thing anyway is a true adventure. He talks about how important it is for us all to fill our lives with adventures large and small. Even doctors are prescribing it for their patients see here and we now know how these adventures can help beat depression.

This resonated with me for many reasons. Firstly because I too spent much of my twenties seeking out adventures great and small, saying yes to every possibility which led me to live a life from which I have many stories to tell, and yet, I still feel that same yearning for more adventure, I think I probably always will.

Creating Crag Rats BCN

People have asked me if that is why I created Crag Rats BCN, to carry on going on adventures. The truth is that I created Crag Rats BCN because during my adventures I often found myself alone. I found that most people are always up for an adventure until the moment we would embark and then suddenly, without warning, something would stop them. This happened so many times, with so many different people from different walks of life that I realised it couldn’t be a coincidence. Either I smell really bad or something was scaring them out of taking that first step. During those years my rock climbing was developing and I learned a lot about fear, where it comes from and how to manage it. I also learned how ill equipped the human race as a whole is at managing fear.

I belive Crag Rats BCN gives these people a safe way of taking that first step, a microadventure, to give them a hint of what the mountains hold and hopefully to light a spark within them that would lead them onward to many more and grander adventures.

Leaning about myself

This process has also taught me a lot about who I am and what scares me. The excursions we do are the easy part, they are no longer the adventures. I love hiking and sleeping under the stars, I love climbing rock faces and hanging off the side taking photos, but they are not the real adventure for me. The real adventure is the business itself, starting with nothing and building an entity that can positively affect peoples lives. It has come with huge responsibility, it has meant making many sacrifices and there are times when it becomes all too much and I want to give in. That’s how I know it is a real adventure.

I’ll put the video here, watch it. If nothing else it may inspire you to go and sleep under the stars and have your own microadventure.