{"id":15581,"date":"2022-03-08T13:55:19","date_gmt":"2022-03-08T13:55:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.battleface.com\/blog\/?p=15581"},"modified":"2023-06-30T08:55:25","modified_gmt":"2023-06-30T08:55:25","slug":"adventurebase-mountain-adventure-tourism-specialist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.battleface.com\/blog\/adventurebase-mountain-adventure-tourism-specialist\/","title":{"rendered":"Ask the Expert: Charlie Krarup CEO of Adventure Base"},"content":{"rendered":"Approx read: <\/span> 5<\/span> mins<\/span><\/span>

We sit down with Charlie Krarup<\/a><\/span>, mountaineer, skier, adventurer and CEO of Adventure Base<\/a><\/span>, a mountain adventure tourism specialist company co-founded with Olly Alkema<\/span><\/a> and 15-time Everest summiteer Kenton Cool<\/a><\/span> about their mission to create meaningful human experiences through daring adventures.<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Charlie, first up, tell me how is life better from being in the mountains?<\/h4>\n

Well, for me it\u2019s more like how can life not be better from being in the mountains? They offer so much in the way of fun, activity and adventure of which we\u2019re huge advocates and then when you\u2019re immersed in a mountain experience you may stop in awe of their scale and realise something about your own presence and place on the planet.<\/p>\n

Mountains humble you, or at least they humble me\u2026and I think they offer something like a reset experience from the noise of a city and the grind of life.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Are you a businessman or extreme sportsman and what do you think is the difference between running a business that immerses you in your passions than one that doesn\u2019t?<\/h4>\n

Well, for the first part of your question I would say that I\u2019m both. I\u2019m passionate about climbing, ski touring and trekking, but then I\u2019m also fascinated by our business operations and working with my partners on how we can grow our business to be the best at what we do. Both Olly and myself who run the company day-to-day don\u2019t believe in \u2018work and life\u2019 separation as we have a privilege of \u2018life is work and work is life\u2019 because of our connection to Adventure Base. We\u2019re fortunate to be doing this and I believe that association is appreciated by our clients<\/a>; they get that our values are driven by something higher than the business operation.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Do you believe that tourists are seeking more risk in a vacation post-pandemic?<\/h4>\n

In all honesty I don\u2019t know\u2026 though post pandemic we\u2019ve seen a surge in enquiries and the speed at which we\u2019ve sold out our annual slots for our most popular climb of Mont Blanc<\/a> surpasses other times. Perhaps more people are open to taking on an adventure challenge and exposing themselves to new experiences. For many its also a question of how to start; a desire to scale the Matterhorn can\u2019t happen without knowledge, skills and training, but we\u2019ve also committed ourselves to getting our guests correctly introduced with a range of training courses<\/a> for different adventure disciplines. I think \u2018managed risk\u2019 is a better descriptor of what people are seeking and beginners to mountain sports can still get the same rewards and excitement as experts with us.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Adventure Base has been in operation for over 13 years and your safety record is excellent and is something you prioritise \u2013 my question is: how do even begin to plan for the unexpected?<\/h4>\n

For each trip there is a dynamic risk assessment that covers the dangers and situations that are standard to the environments we are going through, but then like every adventure, nothing goes exactly to plan and then we\u2019re reliant on the decision-making skills and experience of our guides. Critically, our safety record comes down to the quality of the people we work with.<\/p>\n

In the world of mountaineering, trekking and ski touring you operate with subcontracted guides, mountaineers or leader and support crews, and we\u2019ve spent lot of time finding the best and then working alongside them to know that beyond their professional capabilities that they\u2019re really good human beings \u2013 not only as their character and people-skills matter to our clients, but they\u2019ll consistently make better, sounder decisions because they care about what they\u2019re doing and who they\u2019re guiding.<\/p>\n

The best piece of advice that Olly and myself were even given was by one of our guides, Pablo: \u2018If there is doubt, there is no doubt\u2019 and I guess you can say that this is a foundation of our approach to the duty of care that we have to our guests.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Adventure Base is very transparent with clients that part of what they pay is for a carbon offset scheme. Is this just good PR, or is it good guardianship?<\/h4>\n

Yeah, it\u2019s a tough question, and everyone in the travel industry needs to acknowledge the uncomfortable position that is created when people go on holiday. We love the environments within which we work and yet we\u2019re contributing in various ways to why they\u2019re being damaged. I think anyone in the travel industry that isn\u2019t concerned, that isn\u2019t taking significant steps to counter their impact is deluded that there is any future for them.<\/p>\n

Olly and myself discuss this often as we don\u2019t want to be seen as greenwashing the issue just by signing up to Tourism declares<\/a> and a carbon offset scheme: yes, we can do our bit and make good personal environmental decisions in our life here in Chamonix, but it is still a fraction of what needs to be achieved.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a big part of the business we are working on. We don\u2019t have all the answers, but consider responsibility for nature and our own existence as fundamental as any other business standard, such as, do you treat your staff correctly\u2026.. We\u2019re transparent with our action plan that holds us, as a company, and clients, as individuals, on our collective responsibilities because it\u2019s not the tenet it must be.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

If we only had 30-seconds to do this interview, how would you describe what Adventure Base represents?<\/h4>\n

That we provide daring adventures to create meaningful human experiences because we believe life is better when you’ve been in the mountains.<\/p>\n

All images \u00a92022, Adventure Base<\/a><\/span>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We sit down with Charlie Krarup, mountaineer, skier, adventurer and CEO of Adventure Base, a mountain adventure tourism specialist company co-founded with Olly Alkema and 15-time Everest summiteer Kenton Cool about their mission to create meaningful human experiences through daring adventures. Charlie, first up, tell me how is life better from being in the mountains? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":15588,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1600,186,1527],"tags":[1438,1598,1530],"class_list":["post-15581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ask-the-expert","category-storyteller-spotlights","category-eco-adventures","tag-adventure-travel","tag-ask-the-expert","tag-sustainable-tourism"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.battleface.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.battleface.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.battleface.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battleface.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battleface.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15581"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.battleface.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18743,"href":"https:\/\/www.battleface.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15581\/revisions\/18743"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battleface.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.battleface.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battleface.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.battleface.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}