A dive in fear! lessons learned from the field!

Olongway, Malawi

"Discovery is the privilege of a child: the child who has no fear of being once again wrong, of looking like an idiot, of not being serious, of not doing things like everyone else" - Alexabder Grothendieck

Growing up we only learn to fear things, it will take you one time of touching the fire to recognize its pain, our memory of pain will never allow us to do it again! that;s not a choice, it is there in our subconscious mind!!! this is how we grow all of our fears in the life!

I believe it is time for a new adventure!

It has been almost two years since I came back from Africa. The first year went well, but the second year unfortunately didn’t go as planned, this doesn’t mean it was bad, but it needed a stop and a look to change the plans for a better one.

I believe traveling is another addiction I am getting dragged in (considering the first to be Adventure and Outdoors), and so I believe it is time to hit the road again.

Wilderness First Aid - Hike Safe!

In outdoors you should always be ready for the unexpected. In an extreme environment with many parameters out of control, accidents may happen. And then you will need to be prepared as a trip leader to provide the help and care for people who become ill or injured far from definitive medical care, and only using the limited resources Available.

The minute the guide accepts a participant to be in his group, he takes all the responsibility for bringing him back safe. In general, few simple acts of first Aid can make a difference between life and death, the lack of understanding these acts can put everyone in the outdoor group in danger.

Why You Should Hire an Adventure Athlete?

I was reading some reviews for the book “Business Lessons from the Edge”, which talks about how extreme athletes use intelligent risk-taking to succeed in business, when the idea of this article came to me.

Why would anyone hire a crazy risk-taker who risk even his own life?

In a previous post I discussed the reasons that make us take a high risk action –as a sport-.

Well what does it take to succeed in business? Risk taking. Preparation. Self-confidence. The same principles that drive extreme athletes to the highest peaks of performance.
.......More..

Can't it be prevented? -Canyons of Jordan-

It took me too long to publish this post even it was ready since 16/5. but the main reason behind it was that the responses I got on the previous "Can't it be prevented?" posts were mainly from people from outside Jordan, I do appreciate all the responses since it is for the benefit of all, but I was hopping for more local involvement from the local canioneers of Jordan, it is bitty though but I will keep posting for the benefit of all.

In the previous two posts of the series (Cant it be prevented?) we had an introduction to canyoneering and its hazards in the first post, and then we discussed the need of a code of conduct that set a base of understanding for the minimum level of accepted standards for both canyoneering operators and their guests.

Can't it be prevented? -Why we need a code of conduct-

In the last post "Can't it be prevented? -Introduction to canyoning and its hazards-", I talked about some of the accidents happened in the last 2 years in Jordan canyons as an example of these accidents happening all around!

Wadi AlWaleh- Hidan

Maybe most of these accidents I mentioned occurred with individual Travelers who are not supervised or not joining groups, but some happened with people who promote themselves as professional guides!

I agree with a comment I received on that post, accidents is the word used to excuse the lack of professionalism, a professional is one trained to leave no chance for accidents.

Even with the extreme nature of the canyon, a professional should be able to read the signs of the nature and be proactive to it, but in the same case he should be able to deal with any case to minimize its impact.

In our case in Jordan, the biggest problem occurs due to random access to hazards area by none trained and none professional people.

Many calls were made to have a control on accessing these places by sort of land owners or so. But without the existence of a set of standards there won't be a way to differentiate between the good and the bad.

Can't it be prevented? -Introduction to canyoning and its hazards-

Photo by: Jennifer Eaton Gokmen 

Canyoning is the mother of all recreational sports, because in many cases you will end up using a variety of other recreational sports, hiking, trekking, scrambling, climbing, technical swimming and even diving, and the most important part is the technical rope use.

A lot of technicality needed to provide a special, but safe experience.

The rush of adrenaline, a mix of thrill and pushing ourselves to the limit, even reaching to new limits we never knew that we were able to reach is what makes the canyoning experience a great Adventure, and with the addiction to the adrenaline rush, the need will be always for a bigger dose, though every time a canyoneer will look for a bigger challenge in which -same as all other recreational sports- he will challenge himself before challenging anything else.