Slovenia: Final Post

There are people you meet that change your perspective, show you the way, open your mind and heart. Few people have really been heroes of mine, few have been real guiding lights. It has been a problem for me from a young age, I should have understood that others can teach me more than me just learning from trial and error – usually the latter. Fortunately for me, I have been able to spend some time with a true hero of mine, someone that I think has perfected life, living it the way I think it should be lived. For such a legend, I was really surprised by his openness, his willingness to share beta, photos, stories, beer and schnapps! Really a super person. Obviously he will remain nameless, so I don’t come off as a name dropper, that comes in the next paragraph.

How does one get to that point, a level of success and emotional comfort? Not sure. It is refreshing to spend time with people that are living life to the fullest, really pushing their limits and also the limits of a community. My experience has always been that the best people in any given field are usually the nicest and most fun to hang out with as they having nothing to prove anymore; examples like Tackle, Babanov, Gadd (not that I have hung out with him, just always willing to answer emails), Jay Smith, and most recently Anderle and Humar.

It must be nice to have nothing to prove to anyone, to have reached a level of comfort and satisfaction that to the outside world you can do no wrong.

I depart Slovenia with great appreciation for the natural resources, the friendliness of the people and the home-made schnapps! Off to new adventures for me- guiding and climbing in Nepal for the early spring, climbing in the Alaska Range with 3 different friends for late spring/early summer and finally a great adventure at the end of the summer with a few close friends in Pakistan.

None of this would be possible without the support from a few people and companies that have been very generous financially and more importantly offering tremendous amounts of friendship, helping with the large and small aspects of me living this vagabond lifestyle. Thanks very much!

I found this equation on the internet the other day, on an ice climbing thread, Risk = probability of success x severity of outcome. The greater the dream, the greater the risk I imagine. Luckily life never fits an equation.