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There are many ways to embark on a challenge. You can organise it yourself. You can call up a guide or work through an adventure travel agent. All are perfectly good options.
Our approach is not better, just different. Our aim is to use challenges to make positive changes in people’s lives. Challenges require preparation. And preparation takes commitment and motivation, not over one day or two but an extended period of time. Here lies the real benefit of our programmes. Over several months, through various stages of preparation, you will start to create some lasting positive habits, the belief being that anything meaningful takes structure, application and time. There are no short cuts to changing old-age patterns. It takes a lot of hard work and application.
You may be asking yourself “Do I have time for all this preparation?”, “Sounds like a lot of commitment”, “Is it really for me right now?”. All this depends.
Our challenges are great motivators and we all need motivation at different times for different things – especially if all our energies are spread across a thousand responsibilities. The question is how badly do you want to change and what do you want to change?
Do you want to get fit?
Is your work taking its toll on you physically? Are you fed up with eating, eating, eating and not exercising, exercising, exercising? Are you bored with hearing yourself procrastinate about getting fit?
Have you just had a baby and are wondering how the hell you’re going to get back into shape?
All good reasons to take up one of our challenges.
Do you want to break negative habits?
They say that if you want to create a new habit, it takes 21 days. Our Mt Blanc programme lasts 12 weeks. You have a diagnostic, follow a disciplined training schedule, learn about the body, are advised on nutrition, learn new skills and end up climbing the highest mountain in Europe. This process serves to make you feel good about you and give you the motivation to break negative habits and build positive ones – for instance exercising regularly, eating slow burning nutritious food, drinking tons of water and sleeping like a lamb, to name a few.
Do you want some excitement in your life?
Mountains are not for the faint hearted. The weather is always challenging. Snow and ice are both frightening and beautiful. Ridges are dramatic, faces exposed and summits sublime. Do you need this in your life?
Do you want a surge of positive energy?
It has been said that energy is all we have. It is energy that keeps us working harder for longer. It is energy that makes us fun and responsive with friends. It is energy that allows us to have families on top of work, hobbies and other commitments. How many of us derive our energy from coffee and determination rather than eating well, relaxing, exercising and sleeping?
Are you looking for a mountain experience?
Mountains do not have a monopoly on adventure. There are deserts, seas and jungles. Do you have a preference? Are you the type who likes hacking your way through endless vines with a blunt machete? Or zipping down huge ocean waves in a 35ft boat. Or perhaps crossing miles and miles of hot sand with a parched throat. Or is it the mountains?
There are many reasons why you might want to be in the mountains.
Slow down
- mountains are a good antidote to the modern world. Fast is not an option. Only a hypnotic, therapeutic pace that allows you to connect with the here and now.
Perspective
- in the city, you are big and everything else is small. In the mountains, you are tiny, and everything else is big. This is very humbling.
Time for reflection
- moving in the mountains is slow. Life in the huts is slow. Bedtime is normally 8 o’clock. There’s no shortage of thinking time
Simplicity
- time spent in the mountains is not complicated. You develop a new balance. Most of the day is taken up with exercise and sleeping. Through deprivation, your senses come alive – ordinary cheese taste like foie gras, beer like the finest champagne.
Connection with nature and people
- you know you’ve been in city too long when stand outside your refuge at night and scream “Wow, look at all the stars”, or when you find yourself getting impatient in a country store. When was the last time you saw the sunrise or set, noticed the winds, or listened to the noises in nature.
Beauty
- there is no beauty in nature. Beauty is a state of mind. In the mountains, your senses are awakened by excitement, fear, joy and you become open to new feelings, new thoughts, new experiences. You have a heightened sense of things around you. You notice more than usual – light, colours, shapes, cold.
Is this the meaning of beautiful?
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