By Matt Ritter
In a world tending toward convenience, comfort, and consumerism, adventure educators are experiencing a growing pressure from employers, clients, and manufactures to become more technologically advanced. This increasing pressure has resulted in backcountry usage of cell phones satellite phones, GPS, two-way radios, UV purification systems, etc. As the technology market changes, the amount of risk adventure educators are expected to supply their clients also changes. What effects do these changes have on educators and clients? Is our tendency toward technology in the backcountry for the better? In order to answer these questions we must look more closely at the details, at which point, one must decide for themselves.
What are the advantages of technology? What are the advantages to evolution? The answer is comfort. As humans evolve from illiterate game clubbing grunters to aristocratic political tea sippers, our survival becomes more and more assured. Eventually it gets to the point where higher level desires such as comfort and convenience may be pursued. Each species on this planet uses technology in the name of evolution, in the name of survival. My question is, have we gone too far for our own good?
To illustrate this idea, imagine bushwhacking through a thick forest using a GPS unit. It is comparatively easier than using a map and compass for the same route. The advantages are ease and efficiency with which we can now move. GPS units tell you where you are, where to go, and how fast you are getting there. Finding this information using a map, compass, and a watch requires one to have a solid set of specific skills. Like the microwaves in our homes, GPS is quick and easy, but how good is a microwave dinner compared to the real thing? I feel that the disadvantages of GPS outweigh the advantages. I feel that GPS allows us to take the landscape for granted. With map and compass the user is required to read the land around them. Whereas, following digital arrow has us watching a manufactured hunk of plastic. Not only does this remove us even further from the natural world, but what does it show our clients? I feel that being in wilderness settings reunites me with the simple world, where the most important “things” are “eating, sleeping, and pooping.” When life becomes more simplistic, less complicated, and more primitive, it become more adventurous, and for me, infinitely more fulfilling. In our society life is lived in an artificial environment where we bury our noses in glowing digital screens, I feel compelled to leave this in the frontcountry. The most beautiful gift we can give our students is an alternative, an alternative to the busy world of technology, an alternative to a life deprived of nature, an alternative to a life where any comfort is at our fingertips, where all we must do is push a button to make things go our way.
Comfort breeds reliance, addiction, and weakness. As humans, we become weaker with each technological advancement. As we “evolve” machines begin to do our for us and we forget how to live without them. When lighters were invented, we forgot how to use a bow drill. The problem with GPS and lighters is that they are fallible. They require batteries, lighter fluid, satellites, fair weather, warm hands, line of site, no wind. Flint and steel will always make a spark and a compass will always point north. At the very least we should be able to use these more archaic technologies for when the fancy and less reliable stuff doesn’t work.
Adventure education exists to empower its students. What could be more empowering than building basic skills that our ancestors used in order to experience the awe inspiring characteristics of the natural world. To be able to live and be happy in the wilderness without the conveniences of home, that’s power! To face one’s fear, to rise to the challenge, to step out of one’s comfort zone, these are the bumpy and sometimes painful roads to empowerment. The Buddha once said, “Be rafts unto thy selves.” Rely on yourself. For, if we don’t learn how to do things the old fashioned way we won’t know how to do anything when the batteries die.
The questions that arise from this are ethical, legal, and I’d venture to say spiritual inquiries. We must all choose our appropriate level of technology use. But we must also adhere to our employer’s standard operating procedures. It may be legally required for a leader to bring a satellite phone into the backcountry. In which case we have two viable options, bring it or find a new job. Safety is an important issue for adventure educators. Clients demand a certain level of safety which varies based on activity and population. However, the common trend is to make all activities safer. For instance the ability to call a rescue service from the backcountry could easily safe a life. This is a huge advantage to educators and students. In our profession, it is our job to keep clients safe. As the level of accepted risk decreases we as adventure educators must adapt to meet the needs of our increasingly safety oriented industry. This means that with the majority of programs leaders will be expected to carry certain technologies that make backcountry travel safer.
As adventure educators we are expected to provide students with a novel setting. To do this we bring them to the wilderness to challenge them. But shouldn’t the curriculum be novel as well? If the wild becomes an extension of the technological world, it will become less wild, more tame, and less rewarding. A good analogy is mountaineers of the past compared to that of the present. Generally climbers used to be mentally stronger and bolder than they are today. Reinhold Messner believed that the use of bottled oxygen at altitude lowers mountains to a more attainable level. I agree. So what is more important, getting to the top or getting there honestly, “on the mountain’s terms”? our students would benefit from more from succeeding and failing the honest way, the way that requires them to be stronger mentally and physically.
In my personal search for balance of old fashion and new fashion, I must compromise my rather extreme beliefs in order to work in this field. This is fine with me. I have a sound appreciation for the difference between a personal and institutional setting. We must choose what our ethics dictate and choose our population based on these ethics. The more one veers from this idea, the more one will be forced to compromise. The beauty of this industry is the openness that it offers. We all have our favorite populations. The secret to being a good leader is deciding on the teaching style and the level of technology usage that will best serve the interests of the chosen population.
