These days, the world seems like a very small place. But as our team of guides, athletes, and adventure travel guides can testify, the power of travel has never been more potent and critical to our understanding of humanity. Whether it’s the cultural interaction or the insight from a new perspective, the simple act of travel takes us places we could rarely predict. It helps us see the world through new eyes and connects us across cultures, beliefs, nationalities, and time zones. Travel is adventure in its most visceral form.
Our world-class team of guides, athletes, and adventurers has logged more than a few air miles to remote destinations in their lifetimes. They’ve climbed peaks, traversed remote islands, tracked rare beasts, and landed deep in the middle of foreign cultures, finding only friendship and hospitality. For us, the stories they bring back provide us with the motivation to book a flight to an exotic destination and to explore.
In the pages of our Spring Outfitter book, we’ve gathered their most memorable adventure travel stories, ranging from seasonal escapes to Baja and Fiji to life-altering interactions in places as remote as Kenya, Mongolia, and Iceland. We hope that hearing their stories will ignite in you that same spark to pack up and hit the road, board a plane, or go on a personal walkabout, and experience what the world truly has to offer our adventurous souls.
When Caroline George climbed four of the six classic north faces of the Alps in one five-month stretch during 2003, a goal she had never envisioned was within her reach. Summiting all six of the classic north faces of the Alps was an objective first completed by Gaston Rébuffat in the 1930s and made famous in his book Starlight and Storm, but the accomplishment gained a personal resonance with George because of her father’s appreciation for the history of European alpinism. But ticking off the final two—the Drus and the Cima Grande di Lavaredo—was not in the cards for George during 2003 due to the condition of the routes.
During the next seven years, the Chamonix-tested climber took a different route that led her to a stint in the States and down the path to earning full IFMGA guide certification. George returned to the six classic north faces, completing an ascent of the north face of the Drus in 2010 and a one-day ascent of the Eiger north wall with her husband Adam George in 2011. She was one Italian summit away from reaching her goal, but decided to embrace the challenge of becoming a new mother, and her ambition was put on hold for one more season.
From the first time he climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro with his father at age 11, Eddie Bauer Adventure Travel Guide Richard Wiese has been drawn to the power of exploration. In the years since, Wiese has traveled the globe in pursuit of science, cultural discovery, and the transformative power of personal interaction as a guidebook author, a journalist for publications such as The Huffington Post, and as the Emmy-nominated host of the Born to Explore television series on ABC. His travelogue has included missions that range from bioprospecting for extremophiles in the crater of Mt. Kilimanjaro, where he discovered 29 new species of life, to working with Chilean horse whisperers, experiencing Aboriginal ancestral rituals in Australia’s Northern Territory, and tracking polar bears while examining climate change with the Inuit.
“I like to have a nobility of purpose or a mission in everything I do,” Wiese says when asked what defines an evangelical style of travel that has taken him to unpublicized corners of all seven continents and earned him a term as the youngest president of The Explorers Club. In the last year alone, Wiese has journeyed to at least sixteen countries— including Botswana, Belize, Canada, Chile, Morocco, England, Cypress, Australia, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, and Iceland—to introduce his viewers to destinations, discoveries, characters, and cultures that rarely appear in a Lonely Planet guidebook.
Since she first transitioned from backpacker to globe-trotting journalist, “travel junkie” is the moniker that has followed Julia Dimon to some of the world’s most adventurous locations. Her writing career began at age 12 with a monthly column for the Toronto Star, although this keen Canadian ’s addiction to travel was initially sparked by a trip to Rome. Her perspective on life was altered while she was circling the globe on an around-the-world plane ticket and found a prophetic post card tacked to the wall of a backpacker s’ bar in Byron Bay, Australia.
“Why tell your grandkids you worked 9 to 5, five days a week, for 40 years, and quietly sat in traffic jams while people went to war and suffered disease?,” it read in part. “Tell them you refused to live in fear. Tell them you crossed the Amazon, saw the Lost Cities of Gold, and met your soul mate in Casablanca. Travel to the ends of the earth. Go now and live adventures that will make your grandkids proud.”
STYLE FOR DAYS Few pieces are as indispensable for travel as the perfect active dress. From mornings at the market or days spent discovering new destinations to fancier evenings out enjoying local culinary experiences, packing a dress is almost as important as remembering the passport. The entire Eddie Bauer Travex® collection of dresses—including the popular Lily, Dahlia and Aster styles—is defined by comfortable, low-maintenance fabrics that pack and travel effortlessly, whether you’re heading out for a long weekend away or a month of personal discovery.
MADE FOR TREK & TRAVEL Eddie Bauer Travex® is our exclusive series of gear and apparel made for trekking and traveling. Built by our adventure guide team—with their decades of experience exploring the globe—every item is engineered to perform and ready for adventure.
EDITED ESSAY BY DAVE HAHN
I’ve heard plenty of knowledgeable and smart people state categorically that Shackleton’s Endurance saga is the greatest survival story of all time. Personally, I don’t buy that. For one, I don’t rate such things. And if I did, any instance where I myself had narrowly escaped death, dishonor, and supreme discomfort would have to rank higher than Shack’s hundred-year-old epic. History is written by the most recent victor.
But like any of us that have gone to extremes to see the weird corners of the globe, I get excited about the history of those that have gone before. If you hang out in Antarctica, how can you not get amped for a 1914 expedition that set out to cross the continent on foot, instead got trapped for years in sea ice, watched their ship crushed and sunk by that ice, took to the lifeboats, fetched up on a ridiculously harsh and remote island, set off again with a select handful for 17 days in a tiny open boat on the world’s roughest ocean, fetched up on yet another ridiculously harsh but slightly less remote island, and then somehow got three men across unexplored mountains and glaciers to effect a rescue of the 22 men back at the first ridiculously harsh island.
With a long-standing reputation as a South Pacific tropical paradise, Fiji offers activity junkies adventures ranging from diving to surf, exploring native culture to experiencing the effects of the famous kava tea. While there’s been some recent political unrest, it’s generally a safe way to soak up island sunshine on your way to or from the Southern Hemisphere ski season. The skinny on Fiji:
[1] REEF SURFING Visiting during the offseason means Tavarua’s boat-accessed Cloudbreak is less crowded, but just as much of a fast, left hand, reef-break ride. Bring some confidence and awareness of surfing protocol.
[2] SUNBATHING The Southern Yasawas provide pristine, clothingoptional beaches so quiet you might not see another soul. Sunset hikes up rugged volcanic peaks provide magnificent views.
[3] VOLUNTOURISM Local villages are open to sharing their culture with visitors, especially if you link up with an organization such as the Yasawa Trust Foundation, which will instruct you on customs and protocol.
[4] BARGAIN Haggling over the final price of gifts or souvenirs is expected and is a chance to get to know someone, make a friend, and share some kava tea, if you intend to buy.
[5] KAVA With a history of reducing stress and anxiety, as well as promoting an overall sense of well-being, kava tea is a part of the culture and the ceremony of Fiji.
For many of us, the environment of the outdoors has played a powerful role in the direction of our lives and the empowerment of our souls. Yet, with many economic and geographic barriers, not everyone is granted the perspective of the woods, the rivers, and the mountains. Big City Mountaineers is working to change that by changing young lives with wilderness mentoring programs in six locations throughout the United States.
In 1963, Jim Whittaker became the first American to climb to the roof of the world and summit Mt. Everest in partnership with Sherpa Nawang Gombu. He did it outfitted in Eddie Bauer down. On that same expedition, team members Lute Jerstad and Barry Bishop summited via the South Col Route, while climbers Tom Hornbein and Willi Unsoeld completed the first summit of the daunting West Ridge Route. All four were forced into the highest unplanned bivy in the history of mountaineering, and they survived due to their Eddie Bauer down. We tell the full story in the next Outfitter Book.
