Guttman - Extreme adventure : a photographic exploration of wild experiences

Copyright 2014 by Peter Guttman

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover and book design: Fabrizio La Rocca

Designer: Nick Grant

Flaps and back cover: Danielle Ceccolini

Print ISBN: 978-1-62914-759-8

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-62914-942-4

Printed in China

Passionately dedicated to Lori, a lifelong soulmate
who nurtured my wanderlust and helped kindle
a never-ending, fiery sense of adventure,
sprinkling it with a dash of mischief.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Extreme adventures awaken the spirit and spark imagination. They even seem to stretch our limited time on this amazing planet. To take advantage of the treasured but fleeting lifespan that we all inherit, I strive for more than a dress rehearsal because living like you really mean it is no easy feat.

At some point, most of us get that fleeting epiphany where we realize the magnificent enormity of opportunities that exist in the world. Many might then get motivated to wait in line for sweepstake tickets, while others may diligently follow educational paths to pursue a profitable vocation. For me, it all started before kindergarten, when I was on my hands and knees studying a crinkled map of the world spread out across the living room floor. I vividly recall how enthralled I first felt staring at those multicolored jigsaw shapes that defined continents and their faraway cultures. Google did not exist then, but my hefty volumes of the World Book Encyclopedia provided a vibrant portal into the exotic lands I could only imagine.

During my teens, I became inspired by the idea of crafting a life rather than making a living. Those guardrails lining my existential highway no longer reflected the urgency of conformity.

Somehow, even without a GPS, I found myself instinctively exiting onto winding lanes that led toward intense fascinations. In my early twenties, I jump-started my career as a lifelong adrenaline farmer by parachuting out of a single-engine plane to commemorate a college graduation days shiny new geography degree. Since that time, after nurturing passions and sowing seeds of enthusiasm, Ive shed more decades than I care to concede, and in the process cultivated fundamental truths about the value of memories and how our experiences can define and enlarge our existence. As a result, I admit to a stubborn insistence on staying away from the bumper-to-bumper monotony of humdrum existence that nowadays seems to proliferate faster than suburban sprawl.

In our current air-bagged society of risk aversion, it often seems easier and more appealing to channel a sense of exhilaration through our screens, vicariously YouTubing our way across invaluable, formative years. Today, devices yank our attention away from the fragrances, sounds, and textures of the gorgeous world around us. Surfing involves couch-bound tapping rather than an encounter with one of natures great forces. Tweeting no longer signifies the music of the dawns avian community, but is now relegated to the sound of one hand clapping for self-promotion. We seem to be sheltered by a numbing virtual reality where real living holds little virtue. Im not certain how we became content to let our social circles be represented by the likes and upraised thumbs that were once used to hitch rides to beckoning horizons and points unknown. Yet I do know that beyond our cyber-friends, its never been more important for us to actively engage with our own primal selves through the exploits and vibrant sagas that true creativity can concoct.

During a lifetime of gathering high-voltage endeavors, Ive answered the call of the wild by mushing husky teams through crystal forests, dodging molten lava flows that drooled from volcanic lips, playing a frightening game of hide-and-seek with violent farm belt tornadoes, and worming my muddy way through the quicksand of tortuous slot canyon crevices. Changing pace, I was soon rolling in creaky covered wagon convoys through a dusty prairie, iceboating at breakneck speeds down the frozen Hudson, traversing Grand Canyons hellish maelstroms in a wooden dory, and land yachting over a scorching Mojave. Across the oceans, Ive forged my way into impenetrable jungle while gorilla tracking in Uganda, trudged through subzero Fahrenheit blizzards in Antarctica to raucous penguin colonies, made my way to mud-baked Timbuktu along the untamed Niger River, and summited the glacial rooftop of a continent. When exhausted, Ive rested my weary head on stilted swamp platforms just above snapping alligators, snored in arctic, breath-frosting ice hotels, dozed in sand-blown Bedouin tents nestled amongst Saharan dunes, and even caught some winks, with one eye open, in headhunter longhouses deep in Borneos steaming rainforest.

When we push the envelope with our exploits, new terrains of awareness can be conquered. As time relentlessly marches on, consider removing a hibernating dose of courage from the recesses of your psyches safety deposit box before the locks rust or the key is lost. Let go of lifes handrails, confront your fears, and, in doing so, you just might ensure that your soul wont grow gray before your hair does.

This colorfully illustrated treasury of out-of-the-box adventures gathers a trove of wide-eyed wonders that burst at the seams with the promise of hyper-caffeinated thrills, both in distant hemispheres and lurking just around the corner. Whether for an armchair wannabe traveler or an itching explorer whose packed bags are waiting by the door, these real-life dreams aim to fuel a sense of fantasy, ignite some wanderlust, and fire up a serious thirst, at least occasionally, for taking life to the extreme.