Ep. 1163 Amazing Adventure Travel with Seth Quigg

You're listening to the Adventure Sports Podcast.

Thanks for adventuring with us as we discover what incredible athletes and outdoor enthusiasts

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Now on with today's episode.

The day I have Seth Quig with us, who is a returning guest.

He has been on the show twice, and we did a replay of one of his episodes once.

So this will actually be the fourth episode on the Adventure Sports Podcast, but that's

spread out over quite a few years.

Anyway, you may not remember, but Seth Quig has had a lifetime career in the outdoor industry.

He worked for Knowles for a long time, and then he started working with a partner from

Knowles to make their own company.

They do Adventure Travel Guiding all over the world.

They do a lot of fundraising for charity as well.

And it's kind of fun, Seth, and I live in the same valley, even though we've not met.

We're just talking about we're going to have to grab coffee soon.

But anyway, Seth, welcome to the Adventure Sports Podcast.

Thank you, Kurt.

It's a pleasure to be here.

Yeah, it's really fun.

I've enjoyed the conversations that we've had over the years.

You're one of these people that your enthusiasm just really shines.

And I also like some of that Southern hospitality that seems built into your DNA.

So you were from down there in North Carolina, Asheville area.

What's the story there?

Yeah, I was born and raised in North Carolina.

Live there until I was 22.

So yeah, Grip and Raleigh area, and then went to undergrad at Appalachian State.

And that's where I really got, you know, fell in love with the outdoor recreation and

education process, and that was kind of the hook, one of the pivotal points.

All right.

And then I gave some of your resume right there, but was it straight to Knowles after that

or what happened?

No.

So I moved to Boon, North Carolina, and then kind of really fell in love with the rivers

of Western North Carolina and started guiding river trips, kayaking, and rafting trips.

And in the summer, I'd go out to the Kern River in California and guide me in a couple

of buddies, and for like four years, we did that while we were in college.

So yeah, it was started river, it was all about the rivers, and then, you know, graduated

and university went out to California for another river season and then ended up moving

to Montana, and then just kind of following the path for 20 years of where the world

was going to take me.

And so yeah, I was in Montana, and then I'm working at a university there running the

AmeriCorps program, and then would go to Alaska in the summers and guide mountain guide

and sea kayak guiding.

And then in 2007, I started teaching with Knowles.

So that was probably, yeah, three or four years in between those two.

Wow.

From Knowles, you ended up where you currently are.

Well, yeah.

So with Knowles, you know, I was one of the lucky instructors I got work right off the

bat and worked, was able to work all over the world where, you know, a lot of Knowles

folks could stuck it in the Rockies or in Utah or somewhere, but I was lucky, man.

I got to work at all the Knowles bases, and at the same time, I started working with

another company called World Challenge Expeditions out of Australia.

And so as we do, you know, as a contract employee, put your schedule together.

So I would go down to Australia and I helped run the training department down there for

this company.

And so we would train all of the instructors on taking these high school groups to different

countries around the world.

And so between World Challenge and Knowles, I put my schedule together for roughly ten

years.

And then I didn't live anywhere.

I didn't pay rent.

I was in my 20s, just was leading trips around the planet.

Like I had a truck in Idaho and like some stuff.

And then in 2014, I was like, okay, I think, you know, I'm going to try this different

lifestyle.

And so I moved back to North Carolina and was teaching at a university there, teaching

outdoor education and ended up starting my own company.

And so we took off.

Yeah, that's provided a lot of balance over the last ten years, you know, being able

to live somewhere and then be able to go and work in the field as well.

Well, that's really great.

So this episode is not really about guiding.

It's more about adventure travel.

But it's always fun when you meet somebody who somehow is like, I made it happen.

You know, I got the outdoor career and I made it work.

And I'm still going and so many people, Seth, they envy that.

You know, they're like, Oh, man, I've got, I've got my cube farm job or I've got this

job or that job.

And I would do anything to be able to have more of an adventure focused.

But you know, we all make our decisions and it's not that there's a right way in a

wrong way.

But I will say it's fun to talk to someone like you.

You've been all over the world forever now and led so many trips and had so many experiences

with so many amazing people, I'm sure.

That's just super cool, man.

Yeah, it's been a wild ride and it's been very profound, you know, and lots of growth,

lots of transformation for my guests, but also for myself, you know, and human development

and thinking about life in general, you know, it's an adventure travel with such a catalyst

to growth and learning and into becoming a better human, right?

I'm sure.

I often, you know, we'll talk to, you know, we live in the Gunnison Valley here and there's

it's full of guides and doing things.

I'm like, well, why do you do it, you know, and what's your motivation behind it?

And so my own personal thought is that we have these experiences.

They should be, they should lead us to becoming a better human, right?

And so, you know, you know, some of my neighbors and other folks will be like, well, we're

going to go ski in Iceland and I'm like, all right, well, why?

What do you do?

What's it for?

For recreation, for recreation of yourself and your clients, but surely there's a greater

mission involved.

Okay.

You know, and so what, you know, what, what we do now with our company is, it's really

all of, it's an, it's a mix of education and adventure travel, right?

Showing people different, different lives, different lifestyles around the world and helping

shift their perspective on what it means to be alive on this planet through adventure

travel, right?

Because it takes people out of the comfort zone and test folks and yeah, all other reasons

behind it.

But it's a, it's an amazing, amazing platform for change.

If, if people open for it, you know, it's personal change for the people that go on the trips,

but I, it's also cultural impact in the places to which you go, right?

Very much so.

Yeah.

I mean, we make a lot of change on the ground with local people and yeah, within your, within

the guests and ourselves and yeah, it's just a, it's an experience, right?

And it has a lot of potential to be a transformational experience if facilitated the right way.

Well, for sure, and I've talked to so many guests who have done extensive travel and they

all come back to the same thing, which is people are just really good people almost

without exception.

No matter where you go, you know, you find out you have so much in common and all of the,

the fear mongering and talk about how dangerous it might be and these people are going to mug

you and you're going to get, you know, all that kind of stuff, they're like, yeah, there

are a few bad characters out there like there are here, right?

Yeah.

And but people are generally just wonderful, wonderful humans that just want to interact

and give and enjoy a good conversation and have fun and I don't know.

And you're, you are someone who's done enough travel to know better.

So what could you tell us more about that?

Yeah, I mean, it's, I think it's all about perspective, right?

And you're perceived risk versus actual risk.

And so for example, like I have a friend who is like, wow, aren't you, you know, nervous

going to all of these places with, you know, potentially dangerous humans and, you know,

my question to them is, well, you know, we live in a country that allows guns, that allows

people to be able to carry guns.

No other place in the planet allows that surely there might be an exception, places that

we go, nobody is carrying weapons for offense or defense, right?

And so it's all about perspective and, and you know, it goes back to like a bit of a

spiritual philosophy of like how you perceive the world and how you perceive yourself in

the world.

Do you envision the world as a friendly place or a dangerous place?

And if you get stuck on this idea of like, wow, it's the world's out to get me then,

you know, it's a little bit of an hindrance in your potential development, right?

So if people can, you know, snap into a different perspective and mind frame, they start seeing

the world differently.

Yes.

Hmm.

Hmm.

That's good.

Well, hey, you just mentioned that you're a little jet lagged because you just got back

on it from another big trip, Nepal, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

What were you doing in Nepal?

So this was a trip with our company, the Kuru and a project.

And so it was a 21 day trip.

And so the Kuru and a project is all about leveraging travel to drive positive social

change.

So the first three days of the trip are for a climatization purposes.

We go out, we support in this village out north of Kathmandu.

And so, you know, in this village is just tourism is a brand new entity there.

And so we're working with the elders of the village and the community to like talk about

different solutions for sustainable tourism development.

And I've been working on in this community for 15 years, my first time in Nepal is 2010.

And so we know a lot of the people really well, we have strong relationships and so they

want to bring more tourism.

So we bring our guests there.

We talk about this sustainable tourism development and then we talk about their lifestyle as

well, right?

And so this village is very much the old world, right?

Like they don't have technology, I mean, they're starting to have some things, but it's

a lot of people, you know, that are farmers that live simply.

And so we bring our guests from the states and from the developing, the developed world

there and talk about what it means to be alive and to be human.

So we, we facilitate wisdom circles as we call it.

And so for people to answer or ask and answer questions freely about what your lives are

like, right?

And so.

Villagers asking, well, how are you empowered as women in the United States?

And then, you know, we're just trading information and trading stories.

And so part of that theory is, you know, looking at a capitalistic United States in 2025 and

see in our potential pitfalls, right, and how we're becoming disconnected from humanity.

And then looking at the Nepalese culture and seeing how they're very much tied into

it, more so than we are.

And I'll use this as an example of like, you know, a lot of our kids here have the nicest

new skis and new bikes and, you know, a lot of amenities that are fingertips, but yet

a lot of them and us are struggling with mental health, right?

And so our village in Nepal, like people don't have any monetary assets, but they have simplicity.

They have real human tasks at hand, you know, not to say ours aren't, but they're, you

know, what is the value of going to get water for two hours a day with your best friend?

What does that have on your overall experience in life, right?

And so the idea is that we have a lot to learn from each other about how we can coexist.

And so the first couple days of the trip are all about that.

And then on this specific trip, we went to the Everest region in the Kumbu and we trekked

the three pass route.

And so we got pretty lucky, Kurt.

We flew, we took the last flight from Kathmandu to Lukla, I was going to say you're pushing

the season there, Seth.

Well, the weather's changing in the Himalaya very fast.

Really?

Like I have a good buddy in Manali who told me that the snow line is rising a thousand

meters annually.

And so the, it's the what's happening, the Indian Ocean, all the weather's changing

in the ocean, right?

So it's bringing typhoons faster in different seasons than normally.

So typically in October, November, December, it's dry and sunny.

And so we had a typhoon, typhoon come in, but we took, luckily got the last flight in

the Lukla.

So we landed in Lukla and then trekked in the rain for four days in the airport closed

for those four days after.

And so we didn't have any traffic behind us, which was great.

And then like day four at Tengbache, the sun popped out and it was, it was bluebird for

the, the remainder of the trip.

But that rain had brought two feet of snow up at higher in the mountains.

And so it was the route was very challenging for folks.

You know, we climbed this one peak Chukongri and that usually will take like six or seven

hours from, from the village up to the summit and back and it took us like nine to ten

hours.

People were just whooped, you know, yeah, it's, it's tough when the snow is deep.

It's probably heavy too.

Yeah, it was heavy.

It was heavy.

Yeah, that makes it hard too.

The sun's out.

So it's melt in the snow.

So you have mud snow and, you know, every step that you could take your slide back a

little bit and just expending more energy and getting sunburned as well, you know.

And so yeah, it was a wonderful trip.

We, we were supposed to go over the pass called the Koma La.

That was closed by the National Park because of, you know, some people went missing up

there.

So we went down and around and got to base camp and ended up sending four people back

to be a chopper.

And then yeah, crossed two passes that were above 18,000 feet and climbed a couple more

of big mountains and the group was phenomenal.

We worked hard, but didn't get worked.

And that's how, how transformation occurs, you know,

from extreme adversities is something that can really help with, with human development.

And so yeah, I think all of our groups feeling accomplished.

Like I said, nine of the groups were from the Gunnison Valley, local people in

Crestibute and Gunnison.

Yeah, we're going to have a pot luck in a couple of weeks and kind of debrief the trip

and revisit and maybe put a slideshow together.

But yeah, it was really good.

It was a good one.

I sound so cool.

So many things come to mind.

I mean, we started with the cultural impact and you said something about the value of

a couple of people going two hours to get water for the day.

And I, it took me back to Kenya because that's what went on there too, of course,

when we were in Kenya years ago.

But the one thing that I noticed in Kenya, there is no technology.

So what did people do?

You know, they'd like the lanterns and they'd sing songs.

They'd talk to each other.

They'd tell stories.

They'd laugh.

Your circle of wisdom was every night.

You know what I mean?

Every night.

And, and I remember one evening, especially some of the neighborhood kids, they're not,

they're not on their phones.

They're not playing video games.

They don't have movies to watch.

They don't have electricity.

They don't have anything like that at all.

And so what they did is they built a charcoal fire in this little can and they put field

corn around it to roast the corn.

And then as, as darkness fell, they gathered around that, that fire.

And one of these little kids, I don't know how, you know, what the age of this gal was,

but she started playing a drum better than anyone I know can play a drum.

She was young, you know, but that's what they did.

She started banging the drum.

They started singing together and they stood around that fire while the corn roasted

and beat that drum and sang the most amazing songs.

And we're talking about kids that we're probably like four years old up through maybe

12 years old.

And I just thought, okay, what, how do you put a price on that?

How do you, how do you measure the value of that type of interaction that they have all

the time?

That's right.

You know what I mean?

It's real world.

It's real human connection, you know, which I feel like we are getting away from in,

in the US and then, you know, more of the developed global north, if you will.

Real connection, real ceremony, real thoughts about rights of passages and how,

where are we going as a species, right?

And I think, you know, with this whole technology boom, like we,

we're a jeopardy of losing a lot of ideas and practical application of being a human

being and how we connect to each other, how we connect to ourselves, how we connect

to place and being very wrapped up in our phone world or computer world.

And it's a, it's a really interesting time.

You know, I used to, you know, I've been working in Nepal for 15 years and the development

that's happening there is tremendous.

Like when I first went in 2010, you would go in the tea house in the kitchen and everybody

be drinking, roxy, smoking cigarettes, dancing, singing and my former business partner

was like, wow, are they really blown away that, you know, Americans are all on their phones

now.

And I was like, well, everybody in Nepal is on your phone now, you know, so it's changed

dramatically the culture there as well.

And, you know, ours also, but now everybody is seeing all the whole world.

You know, everybody has access to information that's going on in the planet.

But it's interesting.

So I was just before Nepal is leading an expedition on the Silk Road in Uzbekistan,

and in Turkmenistan, gosh, that could be the most thought-provoking history on the planet

where the East meets the West, right?

And so it reaffirms that was the beginning of globalization, right?

And like how, you know, people from Hendristan were trading with the Afghans and the Uzbeks

and the Turkmen and then the, you know, Jingu's cons empire came over and it was just, it

was the trading route between East and West.

And so it's just again, like a reaffirmation that we will continue to be globalized as long

and that there's ups and downs in empires and histories and that, yeah, it's just history

repeats itself, you know.

You know, it's funny, Seth, I used to think maybe I was born a hundred, maybe 120 years

too late.

I think I would have really fit in 120 years ago, but then I started looking at what was

going on, you know, the wars with the Native Americans, even the Civil War, you know, and

the technology, the disease, the illnesses that now we just kind of laugh about because

we have cures, simple cures, preventative cures, you know, and I started looking at all

of that and I thought, huh, we forget sometimes that there's a lot of benefit that we've

reaped from the industrial, industrialization and the technology and all that kind of stuff.

It's easy to look at all the problems that come with it, right?

And we have problems that come with it, big ones that we're going to have to overcome.

But that said, so many benefits, I mean, think about what you do for a living.

You couldn't have done that a hundred years ago, being able to travel the world with

groups and have these these cultural exchanges and amazing, amazing travel, it wouldn't

have been possible.

It's true.

I mean, look at my grandmother, my great grandmother, my grandmother, my mother, I'll grew up on

a farm in rural North Carolina, right?

And their lives were very similar, right?

And then now you have this generation where the world is your oyster, and of course, we

have, I have innate privileges that helped me do that.

But yeah, I mean, the world is globalized more than, more than my grandmother would have

ever expected.

So if we keep that trajectory going, where will our grandkids get be in a hundred years?

You know, like, oh, wow, we never thought that you could be on Mars or wherever.

So yeah, that trajectory is sharp, it's hot, it's hot, right?

It is, you know, SpaceX is developing starship.

And for people that don't pay attention to it, I don't blame you, but if you're interested

in it, you might be interested in this.

One of the ideas they have for it is not just interplanetary travel, but a way to get

anywhere on earth in 20 minutes.

I've heard that.

I was talking to my neighbor, my neighbor came over yesterday and we sat and kind of had

a deep dive about, about that and that's, yeah, anything is possible, right?

Yeah.

I think that there's limitations.

Crazy.

Right.

It's crazy.

You know, think about the, you could take a half hour and go to Europe and have lunch and

take a half hour and get, get back to anywhere in the U.S. and it'd be like crazy.

You could have, you could have a lunch break from work in Europe, from the U.S., I mean,

that's actually a thing that could happen.

Yeah.

I believe it.

Yeah.

Why not?

It's all possible, but going back to your point about, you know, the, the positive

of our community, so me and my neighbor were talking yesterday and, you know, on this

trip in Nepal, every one of the guests got sick, right?

Oh, no.

And it's, and so the question, beg the question was like, well, why aren't you getting sick,

Seth?

You know, and we talked about it and talked about the microbiome, you know, from, from

adventure traveling for the last six months, you pick up different germs all over the

planet, right?

And it can, it can build your immune system in your microbiome.

But we were talking about, well, why, what do you think all the guests are getting sick?

And it's because we come from such a, a place that's clean, you know, and it's sterile

and it's comfortable and it's easy, it's easy living.

You know, generally speaking, compared to a lot of, you know, countries that are still

using human labor to build city walls and cities and like they were years, thousands

years ago, but it's interesting to think about, about that when you take people to the

global south and the developing world and they just get worked.

Well, in the more you travel, but probably the more inoculated you are and the, the less

you have to deal with it, although I'm sure it's still, it's still something you have

to watch out for.

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Can you tell us a story that let's hear one from your Silk Road experience for something

that would connect us to what the experience was really like?

Yeah, so we spent 15 days in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

In the re like Uzbekistan, I think will be one of the top five travel destinations for

Europeans in the next in the next couple years, like the infrastructure is amazing, travels

easy.

The food is organic and clean and the history is just absolutely incredible.

And so we ended up crossing after our weekend Uzbekistan, we crossed the border into Turkmenistan.

And so this was a different story than Uzbekistan.

So Turkmenistan is primarily geographically.

It's all a desert and they're wealthy and natural gas.

And that shows in in the two cap, the two cities that we went to one Mari and the other

ones Ashkabat, which I'll get to that.

But the infrastructure of the country is pretty poor.

So we ended up taking a van from the border down south to this city of Mari.

I think we went like 150 kilometers, but it took eight hours in the road.

Oh, it might be the worst roads I've ever, ever experienced.

So like huge ridge lines coming up in the middle of the roads.

Right.

Half asphalt, half gravel, just atrocious.

And so we finally, one of that, one of the guests was like, so we should be there, right?

And we're like, yeah, we've got three more hours and just like full crushing.

I'll send you some pictures of really interesting places.

So we finally get to this city of Mari.

And so Mari is a massive city made out of primarily marble, white marble, huge buildings,

like bigger than banks.

And there's like a small population of people.

So it's a very, it was very, very interesting to say the least there.

And so the subsequent day after that, we went and visited this, this ancient civilization

called Gunare Tepe, which is 5,000 years old.

So the main timeline is the ancient Egyptian kingdom.

And yeah, but there are no humans there.

And like no UNESCO, no archaeologists.

And there's just like artifacts everywhere, pots, like huge pots sitting out on the walls,

like bronze statues.

There's a horse skeleton on the ground, like an incredible glimpse into human history.

They are even pots that our local guide said had some like transformational kind of medicines

and them, almost like not ayahuasca, but some other different ingredients that the shamans

were using.

So they found the remnants of these.

So anyways, we went to this place.

We went to the ancient kingdom of Merv, which was once the largest city in the world until

Jingu's consacted.

And that's 3,000 years ago.

Wow.

Wild, incredible history, man.

And if you love adventure travel, history is kind of a part of that and understanding

where you're going and kind of perceiving different differently.

And so then we drive to Ashkabat, which is the capital city.

And this is the real, the most interesting place.

And that's, you know, it was like a city built for, like it could support millions and millions

of people.

And there were almost no humans there.

Like so.

A huge city, you know, with these buildings, they had like the largest, some of the largest

sites in the planet, like the largest ferris wheel in the world is in Ashkabat.

And yeah, it was kind of like an emnight shaman film, you know, with like an intro, like

a weird plot of like no one's growing old here or something like, wow.

And another kind of interesting thing is that no, you're not allowed to have a car in

Ashkabat unless it's white.

So everything in the city is white.

And so marble again.

Huge marble buildings, all white cars were like 15 K from the Iranian border in between

Iran and Afghanistan.

And you just have this city that's like kind of haunted from that's crazy to you have

to wear white sunglasses to we asked the question, we might have to be, do we need to be wearing

white clothes and they're like, nah, you're good.

That's crazy.

Yeah, such an interesting country and it's highly, like the big high level of security

and like they're skeptical of Westerners and there's almost no tourism at all.

I think like 4,000 tourists a year and they're mainly from the central Asian region.

So incredible place.

Like I'll probably never go back to that dessert minister again, but wow, what an experience.

Right?

Yeah.

They're very interesting.

So then we went back to Uzbekistan and then I ended up flying to Nepal after that.

And that felt like I was like, it's going to be good to be back in Kevin do.

So your hopscotch on the lower the world, do you, how do you, I'm not going to ask if

you have culture shock.

I mean, you've gotten used to a lot of the cultural shifts that you see as you travel,

but how do you manage it?

Great question.

I don't, I mean, I don't, I don't have much culture shock these days at all earlier

than the summer.

I've, yeah, I've been there before.

I've been, you know, into my, but, but with that being said, I'm always reflecting on

myself.

Like I've been abroad six months, relatively consecutively this, this year in the last

six months and constantly reflecting on myself, intrepersonally and, yeah, like almost

forgetting my community back home and then like, all right, how are we, how are we show

up and live here?

Like what, what's going on back at home, you know?

So that, it's almost like it's not a reverse culture shock, but it does take a little

bit to like ground regroup and kind of reenter into different places, you know, but having

the expectation that it's going to happen and knowing, knowing about the process, that

brings the first amount of awareness, you know, like, okay, they're, you know, you

might have some issues going here there, but at this point in the game that I'm not experiencing

much culture shock because of the expectation.

Yeah, I, I think it's harder to come home for me personally because when you go somewhere

you expect there'll be a difference and maybe you've studied a little bit about the culture

and it's like, oh, there it is.

I see it.

This is it.

You know, this is what I came for.

And then you come back home.

I wasn't ready.

Yeah.

You know, and a lot of times when you're traveling, you're not going deep with folks really like

it takes a like intimate relationships, but you're having, it's more surface level connection.

It can be then the deep dives of intimacy with your partner back home or your family,

you know, things are in a different kind of a different setting, right?

Where you have this expectation of this curated, different environment that you're traveling

in, then you're going to come home back to your quote unquote, real life and like, yeah,

you show up differently, you know, so which one's more real to you with all the travel

you do?

I mean, they're both very much real, but they, they require me to show up in different

ways, right?

So, so when I'm home, I support my family, you know, dive into intimate relationships

more and show up from my community where, I mean, and on trips as well, you got to support

your clients and support your team and, but it's, it's just a little bit of a different,

a different role also, you know, you're tough to switch hats and know what you're doing.

That's right.

And sometimes that's actually with like enough, you know, younger people that are traveling

around the world.

It helps to have someone to talk to about that like traveling is, you know, you're going

from different world to different world, you know, so earlier this year, I was in

Sub-Saharan Africa leading a trip and that led it back to Europe and then over to Ladakh

in Pakistan and, and then, yeah, back to Crestabute and then, then to Silk Road, then to Nepal

and now we're back.

So it's a very, very much a changing of realities.

But self-care is key and everything, you know, drinking enough water, eating enough food,

resting, exercise, stress management, all of those, you know, or you have to, you've

got to manage yourself well.

Hey, share a story with us if you would about crossing one of the high passes on this

trip in Nepal.

Um, okay.

So yeah, the first pass on this trip got shut down because it's too much snow and then

so, yeah, headed up to Gordekshep and then crossed it, crossed the Cholapas.

So typically when there's not a lot of snow, there's, there are dirt trails, right?

And you can move up those trails efficiently and effectively, but with this new snow, you

have new trails and so typically the people from one side of the pass will go break the trail

up to the pass and vice versa.

The people on the other side of the pass will go break the trail up on that side.

And these people are usually young, fit in a poly people.

And so they're going straight up, right?

They're not doing these switchbacks, right?

So when we were crossing, I think it was Rinsalop pass, usually the path is kind of a long

switchback that takes you, you know, up to the past gently, but this was not the case

on this trip.

These these trails were like pretty straight up.

You would go climb for like a hundred meters and then stop and then it would go this

way and then, but it was very much vertical.

But we all, the whole team made it, you know, in Nepal and in the Himalayas, the way to get

there is going slow.

So we said, be steady, be steady, jump, go slow, leave you go fast and, you know, I always

just try to reinforce self care, right?

Like eat enough food, drink enough water and move slowly.

Those are what's going to make us successful, right?

And yes, some people naturally grab a hole to that and then take others longer.

Some people get dehydrated and like to like to think that they're, you know, fit enough

to walk fast and then they get humbled, right?

Right.

That happened.

Like we have, you know, I had a bunch of like mountain people on this last trip and,

you know, some of the one of the guys was, you know, like I don't wear sunscreen and

then sure enough, the first day got like second degree burns on his nose.

Oh, man.

Yeah.

I mean, yeah, the Himalayas will humble you, you know, and then, but not just humble

you, but also show you the cultural side, which is so, there's so much love in Nepal and

the people are wonderful, but it can be, it's a different world for folks is challenging

for people, you know, but that's part of it.

It's all about what reinforces the learning and the transformation.

So we got over both passes, you know, relatively, effectively and efficiently and then, but

yeah, we had a couple really long days in the mountains, which I love, which is the

best, you know?

And that's where people dig deep and learn something about themselves.

That's why they come back changed, right?

Exactly right.

Yeah.

They do something that they never thought they could do.

And they change their perspective.

Ah, so cool.

So good.

Well, tell us a little bit about the Karina project.

This is your company that you started with Nicole, right?

We're in Nicole.

Yep.

So Nicole is, you know, we've been friends since 2007.

She was my first big boss at Noles when, you know, we were in our 20s and yeah, we

started dating, you know, three years ago.

And so I have a long list of past guests and we had some guests come to us and say, hey,

what's your appetite for going back to the Himalayas?

And we thought about it.

We're like, well, what's the most important thing?

And she's been a mountain god for 20 plus years and an outdoor educator.

She runs an outdoor ed company in California called positive adventures also.

And so they work in it with the schools to teach leadership and life skills and things

like that.

But we were like, yeah, let's go to the head.

Let's go back.

Well, what's the most important thing?

Like, why do we love these trips?

And so we landed on connection.

So facilitating connection to ourself, connection to place, connection to the local people.

Yeah.

Like the local people in Nepal are just the most lovely humans on the planet.

And we love that so much like we, we just love being with, with them and learning about

their lives and songs and, you know, speaking Nepali and just all of it.

And so that was kind of the impetus for Karuna project.

And then my last company was very much mass tourism and right, like we, it was very much

clients and clients out, only cared about revenue, blah, blah, blah.

And there's so much magic that lies in international adventure travel.

And so we're like, let's not be like, you know, this mass tourism, my last company.

And let's, let's do something that unlocks that magic.

Let's tap into the connection, connective piece of it.

And so we started the Karuna project and within, you know, the first couple months, we

got 15 people signed up to go to Everest region.

And then last year we ran a Nepal spiritual adventure.

And so we did yoga and we talked a lot about Buddhism at this camp that overlooks the whole

Himalaya from Montesleur to Everest.

And then we hiked in Langtang for seven days.

And then this year we ran a river expedition on the Zanskar river in Ladakh.

And that's a good story out to have to tell you that.

And then this last Nepal is our fourth trip.

And so I still consult with some of the other companies I've worked with in the past.

But yeah, Karuna projects, it's an amazing, it's great, you know, and it's a, it's a way

for people to have a more meaningful experience that's facilitated in our style, right?

Which is very much an educational style and of personal development and growth.

Not just like a regular tour company word that, you know, it's just, you know, the guy

doesn't focus on that and there were my focus on something differently.

But yeah, it's good.

So we're, we're looking at doing, we've got a whole bunch of trips on the books for next

year.

So Kilimanjaro trips.

I've been a river guide for 20 plus years.

And so looking at running the Karnali river in West Nepal, potentially going to North East

India and running some, some rivers there in the Brahmaputra and then back to Nepal at

the end of the year as well.

And you have a, a real philanthropic focus as well, not just experiential with the people,

but you actually are trying to make a difference for inner city kids.

That's right.

That's right.

Well, yes.

So we, we partner with nonprofits, NGOs, in every place that we work and we support

those NGOs.

And so Nicole's, she worked with big city mountaineers for many years and actually helped found

the Minnesota branch of that.

And so our guests, we give our guests an option to do, to raise money for basic mountaineers.

But then also to contribute to our local nonprofits in the ground.

So in Nepal, we work with two nonprofits.

One is called Tamang and they, that is run by a lady in the village where we work.

And so she teaches the local women about recycling and upcycling.

So they, she pays them to collect plastic and then they weave that plastic into products,

like toiletry bags and laptop cases.

And we buy them from her and then we sell, we're selling them in the Gunnison Valley.

So we're creating a circular economy there.

And then in Tanzania, we were working with a, an NGO called Make a Difference Now.

That's all about educational programming for rural youth.

And so we, we take our guests, we talk about the nonprofit, we do some projects.

And then we go on an adventure.

So it's combining an adventure with some real world humanitarian connection, connective

pieces.

I like that.

Yeah, that's, I've said it many times, I continue to say it, adventure matters.

And when I say get out there and have some fun, I believe it's transformative, even if

you just do small things in your own neighborhood, in your backyard, you know, and with your

family, with your community, I mean, all those things are transformational.

Your health gets transformed.

It gives you something to look forward to and to plan about and to invest energy into it.

So adventure is great.

Just isolate as its own standalone thing.

But I really believe in doing adventure in a way that makes an impact in the world in

a positive way.

And it's not hard to do.

I talk to so many people who, as soon as they start traveling, they see needs, you know,

or as they do some big event, they realize, I'm getting actually quite a bit of attention

for this.

I'm getting press and I could promote something for somebody, you know, that that's making

a difference in the world.

Or it's like, oh, well, I love to hike these trails.

What if I hiked them with some of the middle school kids in my community that could use some

time moving and getting away from their black screen and interacting as a group?

I just love it.

How many different ways that adventure leads people to making a positive impact?

And if all they ever did was just meet people who love the same sport, that'd be fantastic.

So we can go and do so much more.

And so I think it's really cool that you're doing that.

Have you ever gone through all the hassles of getting on the plane, security, luggage,

long waits at the airport, all that kind of stuff?

And then when you finally arrive at your destination, not only are you worn out, but you also

might feel a little bit disconnected.

I know that I do when I hop scotch around the planet on a plane.

That's one of the reasons why I love the great American road trips where you get to drive

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Yeah, man, I mean, I think at some point when you, you, you adventure enough, you start

realizing that it's your, you're a piece of the team, right?

I mean, you sure you can go on adventures by yourself, but do that.

I'd like to go with people and like get to know people and talk to people and have

objectives together, right?

And so at some point you start realizing that it's not about you, per se, that it's how

you're going to support everybody else.

And so it's a metaphor of looking at the world, like, how are we going to serve the

people where we are recreating, where we are adventuring?

It's not about us, us, what about the other people?

Don't be selfish, you know?

Take care of others.

And then just be in a service and I'm practicing gratitude and adventure as a, yeah, there's

so much there is such a, it's such a metaphor for becoming a good person, becoming a better

person, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, just climbing one of those high passes if nothing else can help you learn patience.

And that's going to help you later in life when you're going to get to times when, you

know, you feel like blowing your top, you just like, no, I've learned patience now.

I can actually help this situation instead of escalating it.

You know what I mean?

Absolutely.

It's, it's, it's super cool.

So if somebody has never traveled, right, and let's say that they're medium fitness,

they're like, well, I, I don't even know what I'm capable of, but I can do some things,

you know, what would be a great place for them to start?

If they came to you and said, Seth, where should I go?

What should I do?

I want to experience something.

Yeah.

I mean, I would say, I mean, it really depends on what they're up for, you know?

And so it involves a conversation of, you know, some people that never left the United

States that don't have any desire to leave the United States.

So I would say you need some kind of desire to go somewhere else and then why you're go,

why would you, why would you want to go?

What's the point?

You know, but going slow, you can go anywhere.

If you go slow and you take good care of yourself, right?

You could climb, that's how you climb big mountains.

You go slow, right, and be impatient with yourself.

That's like my, what I'm trained in is like facilitating these trips for folks and helping

set people up for success, you know?

And so we have, we have multiple trips at the end of next year, some not, some trips

in Nepal that are like, we have a seven day hike, which is a perfect first hike for folks

in the Himalaya.

There are some big days, but it's manageable.

We took a group of seven last year and they hadn't, some people would never, you know,

they weren't hikers.

And so we trained them up on, here's how you, here's how to be successful in the Himalaya,

right?

And they did it and their minds blown, changing lives.

Now they know how to do it.

And now they know how to do it, right?

Which is pretty cool.

You know, you were talking about the, uh, San Scar River.

You said, you said, I got to tell you about that, but we never got back to it.

So before we run out of time, I want to hear that story.

Yeah, this is a good, this is a good one.

So I, I was in Europe in London.

I picked up a private group in London and the very diverse group from Oliver and we went

to Swatini and formerly known as Swaziland.

And so we did a five day track there and then we also did this community immersion project

where we worked at a neighborhood care point, as they're called and helped.

They're like built for orphans and like places where orphans can go to receive food

and things like that because of HIV is such a high, yeah, because HIV is very prominent.

Parents have been wiped out.

That's what we're talking about.

Yes.

Parents have been wiped out, you know, trying to be politically correct.

It's just what it is.

Yeah.

So anyways, we ran this trip.

I go back to Paris, I end up missing a flight.

Now originally was going to fly to Dom Salah to try to meet his holiness, the Dalai Lama

and then I was going to do a four day motorbike trip from Dom Salah up to lay in Northern

India.

And so I was knackered, I missed my flight in Paris.

So I was like, I rebooked a flight directly to lay.

So fly to lay and like wake up the next day, I'm like, ah, man, my back is so sore.

What's going on in the soft bed?

And I was there a week before the client survived.

And so at the same time, I had, I had just heard that his holiness was in Zanskar.

And I'm like, oh my God, he's here.

Like, good thing I came here.

And so I was emailing with, with his team and they were like, if you're in lay, you should

come be blessed by the Dalai Lama on Friday and I was like, wow, that's incredible.

Okay.

So I had like four days to go and I'm, I'm, you know, staying in this tea house, wake

up again, my back is wicked sore.

I go, I'm like, what is this?

And I go out to breakfast and then I just started raining sweat.

And I'm like, oh, wow, okay.

That's interesting.

And at the same time, I started, I developed these two open source, one on my hip and

the other one on the inside of my leg.

And I was like, oh, no.

This is not good, Seth.

This is not good.

It occurred.

And so I spent a lot of time in Sub-Saharan Africa and I know what, what actual risks lie

there.

So I'm like, okay, I think I have like a teatsy fly or a bottle.

So but the fever was very intermittent.

Like one day I'd be wicked sick with a high temperature and then I'd say, okay, I don't

feel great.

And so ended up chatting with my co-instructor in Swati and he's like, mate, that looks

like a tick bite.

I think you have Africa tick bite fever.

And so I went to meet the Dalai Lama while this is all happening and like got blessed

by him and we had the, and then the day after that, my clients arrived and they're from

all over the world and we have the Zanskar River trip.

And so at the orientation meeting, I'm like, you know, full transparency team, like I've

got this weird fever.

I think I need to evac myself to Delhi, you know, and get to go to the tropical infectious

disease ward.

And so went back to the tea house, looked for flights to Delhi, no flights.

And the next day I was like, I slept all day, 105 temperature.

On the river trip, we had three, we had a three day drive to the put in.

So I was like, well, I'm just going to double up on these antibiotics.

Luckily, doxycycline was the cure for AFTB.

So I was like, I'm going to double up on these antibiotics.

And if we get to the put in, then, and I'm dying, I'll just ride back, you know.

And so we drive to the put in three days.

And luckily, I was feeling strong, I was like, okay, this medicine is working.

And so we put in on this tributary of the Zanskar called the Stolt River, and it's flat

braided river.

And of all of our, all of our guests were from Indian Europe and they had, you know, some

of them had never been on a river trip before.

But it was the first two days were flat and we got to train them up.

I was rowing.

We had six paddlers.

And then so we then we dropped into the, the Zanskar gorge and it was like the highest,

it was at flash flood stage.

And so no guys that I boat with there, some of my guys, they're like, you know, the most

experienced boaters in the country of Indian, like we've never seen this river, this big.

And so are you in rafts or drift boats or what?

We're in rafts.

Big rafts.

Four kayak, hard shell kayakers also.

But they're also building a road from leg to patum, the capital Zanskar.

And so we're added out and watching bulldozers, like dropping in house size boaters into

this river.

And because of that, there were 10 new class five rapids on this serious game on.

But we styled it and we kept everybody in the boats, all the boats upright and there

was a highly adventurous expedition.

And then we, yeah, it was absolutely incredible.

And then yeah, it was taking the doxy cycling to the end and we dropped into the indistriver,

boated on the indistriver for a couple of days and then went back to LA and yeah, it was

a really, really incredible, highly adventurous expedition.

Or again, the gas left being like, damn, that was mind blowing.

Yeah, life changing, I can't imagine.

I mean, class five gets my attention.

It really does.

And of course, I was a kayaker and it's different on a kayak than in a raft, but you had kayakers

with you.

I mean, that's, that's intense, dude.

Yeah, big water, big Himalayan cold white water, which is different than, you know, our

class five here in the US, which is technical and more shallow usually, but yeah, it was

good to phenomenal, phenomenal river corridor, still wild, you know, it feels, you know, I

feel like in this day and age, it's harder and harder to find like wild places on, on

earth where you're just far away, you know, right.

And this way I was a good one.

Sounds like fun.

Well, you know what, we're about out of time, but I'll bet you have a story for a something

that maybe changed your life or changed the life of a client, something that was like,

that stands out still in my memory.

This is the, you know, an example of what can happen.

Well, I mean, I think, you know, I've taken so many different people from one place

around the world to another place around the world and foraging the connections between

different humans around the, around the planet and having those be sustainable makes me happy.

That's, it's a reason why I do what I do, you know, I'll have friends that like, for example,

when I was in Kathmandu this last time, I had like 10 different friend groups from different

parts of life, like I had a dear friend from Chilean Patagonia who I worked with at Knowles,

that was in Kathmandu, another guy from Aspen in a different time of life, another friend from

Boulder, Colorado, who had his other project, other Nepali friends from, from the US.

It was just like this incredible web of connections between humans from different parts of life,

different parts of the planet and that's really special, I think. Yeah, it just makes me happy to have

such an amazing community of humans in my life and around the world. Yeah, that's unique, Seth,

not many people can claim that. It's true. That's unique. It is unique and that's, I think,

one of my superpowers, my ability to connect with people cross culturally and my network of humans

from, you know, maybe from, from Rickshaw drivers to billionaires, you know, we're all human beings

and we all have things in common and bringing people together to show them, to show us similarities

and differences and explore and open, just be open, open up our hearts to being vulnerable and

trusting each other and trying to provide a positive experience for people on the planet.

Yeah, it keeps you moving. It's good. It's magical. That's fantastic. Well, let's wrap it up there.

I think that you have given us enough of a taste for what your lifestyle is like but also for the

experiences that people have with you and what the world is like, you know, all around the globe.

I think maybe it'll just wet our appetites and maybe, Seth, maybe people will start

connecting more like you're talking about and we'll realize we're not really so different. We

can drop the ideologies, we can start getting along, embracing our fellow humans, you know.

Yeah, it's just all about the love. It's what I say. It's all about the love. That's why we're here.

That's what it's about. That's exactly right. Let's use adventure sports to make humanity better.

Everyone thought you're going to say to make love another well. Okay.

Hey, and make love also. That's making the world make it love. He's getting outside. Keep being good human beings, you know.

I love it. That's all right. Well, everybody out there, make sure you find your thing and whatever it is,

get out there and have some fun. Thanks, Kurt, you're the man. Oh, thanks, Seth.