Inside The Adventure

Ari Delashmutt is a professional action sports athlete, particularly skilled in skiing, paragliding, and highlining, where he’s set multiple distance records. He hosts a podcast, Ari in the Air, that features leading-edge thinkers on psychology, philosophy, and spirituality, as well as other athletes who have gleaned deep insights from their sports. He is a filmmaker, specializing in both educational paragliding videos and adventure travel films. Ari has said that he is trying to grow up, and it is turning out to be harder than he previously thought.

Bill Gamber might be the most influential person in the outdoor industry that you’ve never heard of. Over the past 20 years, he’s helped to build two of the best known and fastest growing brands in the outdoor retail category. His innovations in outdoor gear have become mainstays for people who love to camp as well as creating a whole new category of race nutrition. He’s been massively influential in building Colorado’s outdoor economy and shaping the state’s recreational future, but Bill fundamentally believes that actions speak louder than words, so he rarely touts his successes.

He’s a product pioneer, a born leader and hard charging when it comes to running a growing company in a competitive market. Bill started his first business in a Pennsylvania college dorm room at Lock Haven University in 1985. Needing money to pay for triathlon race entry fees, Bill began selling homemade bike and triathlon shorts out of the back of his Jetta. This side hustle would become Bwear Action Products, otherwise known as BAP! Eventually, Bill would graduate and move to Steamboat Springs, Colo., where he found a permanent home for BAP!

In 2000, Bill co-founded Big Agnes and launched with a simple, but revolutionary idea: save weight and space with a unique, integrated sleeping bag and pad system. This would be the first in a long line of products “firsts” that would revolutionize the outdoor industry.

In 2001, Bill co-founded Honey Stinger, which specializes in honey-based nutrition. You could say honey runs in Bill’s blood – his family has been in the honey business for more than 60 years and his grandfather invented the original plastic honey bear. Today, Honey Stinger is known throughout the endurance sports world, and products like Honey Stinger chews and waffle are favorites for runners, cyclists, skiers, hikers, climbers and more. In 2019 Bill transitioned away from Honey Stinger after a significant third-party investment and now focuses on Big Agnes and BAP!. Bill is competitive, but not just when it comes to camping and nutrition. He holds the 12-hour solo record for the 24 Hours of Steamboat mountain bike race. He’s completed more than 100 triathlons, including 16 Ironmans.

For the past 28 years, Bill has been living off the grid in Steamboat with his family, in a solar and wind-powered home and spends most of his free time camping, fishing, cycling and skiing.

"What makes the difference between the ones who succeed and those who fail? Why do some choose to quit while others come back even stronger when facing adversity? Today’s story with Karina Hollekim answers these questions in an incredible way.

Karina Hollekim is an international keynote speaker, author, computer programmer, and professional athlete where she competed for Red Bull as a big mountain skier and Base jumper. Karina is a truly inspirational female pioneer, being the first woman in the world to perform a ski BASE jump.

Karina shares her story about those moments that change our lives forever, about raw willpower and passion.

She inspires us to be targeted as living proof of the importance of little changes and how they make a difference in the long run. By raising awareness of our choices, she challenges our willingness to change. She shows the importance of stretching your comfort zone to achieve your goals. Karina’s incredible journey, her gripping story about struggle and resilience together with her indomitable spirit makes a story to remember.

In 2006, Karina’s life was turned upside down when she had a freak, near-fatal skydiving accident, leaving her in a wheelchair with the low odds of ever walking again. After 20 surgeries and years of relearning how to walk, she’s returned to skiing and is living life to the fullest today. Her autobiography ‘The Wonderful Feeling of Fear’ is internationally published and her speech is part of the exclusive group of TedX talks. Karina’s coaching skills comes from a background in Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Active Commitment Therapy, and working as a performance consultant since 2012, with clients ranging from professional athletes to top business executives. Her ability to push boundaries, stay focused, and re-mobilize through hardship are core qualities she transmits through her coaching & speaking and serves as key themes all throughout her life story.

As a Toronto schoolgirl, Jill was fascinated by the Apollo program and wanted to be an astronaut. However, Canada did not have a space program, and it wouldn’t be until 1992 that Dr. Roberta Bondar became the first Canadian woman in outer space. Instead, Jill navigated a path to inner space and is recognized as one of the world’s most prolific underwater explorers. Jill’s expeditions include exploring and mapping some of the world’s longest submerged caves, documenting ancient Mayan remains along the way. In Florida, Jill was a lead technical diver on the ground-breaking Wakulla2 project, where she piloted the first 3D underwater cave mapping device - technology that will be bound for Jupiter’s moon Europa. When the largest moving object on the planet, the B-15 iceberg, calved from Antarctica, Jill led a dive team into the labyrinth of frozen underwater caves beneath the massive iceberg’s surface, discovering a diverse, colorful ecosystem of life in one of the harshest environments on earth. A pioneer of technical rebreather diving, Jill has made extreme conditions her specialty. Her ongoing expeditions to document the changing climate of the Arctic resulted in Jill being awarded the prestigious Canadian Polar Medal. From the desert oases of the Sahara to the cold waters of Baffin Bay, Jill Heinerth continues to explore what lies beneath the surface, sharing images of places where no person has gone before. Through collaboration, she becomes the hands and eyes for climatologists, archaeologists, and engineers, extending their reach into the depths. In her role as the first Explorer-in-Residence of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, Jill visits schools and universities, sharing her love of exploration and science. She is a frequent online educator, leveraging technology to inspire classrooms full of eager young people from Anchorage, Alaska, to Mumbai, India. Jill is a presenter on radio and TV broadcasts, including PBS, the BBC, National Geographic, Discovery Channel, the CBC, and networks from Japan to Australia. Over two million people have learned about climate change, water advocacy, and exploration by viewing Jill’s passionate and motivational TED Talks. A gifted storyteller, Jill is an associate editor and columnist for Diver Magazine, and a contributor to publications as diverse as Canadian Geographic and the Los Angeles Times. Her recent book, “INTO THE PLANET - My Life as a Cave Diver” was published in late 2019 by Harper-Collins in the United States and Penguin-Random House in Canada. Jill’s accolades include induction into the inaugural class of the Women Diver’s Hall of Fame, first presentation of the Sir Christopher Ondaatje medal for exploration, and the Academy of Underwater Arts and Sciences “NOGI” award. Jill has recently been named a member of the 2020 class of the International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame and receives the William Beebe Award from the Explorer's Club in March 2020. Jill Heinerth is a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, the National Speleological Society, and the Explorer’s Club.

This laidback Canadian dude, who lives wherever he lays his paddle and moves wherever the white water takes him, is not only super cool, he’s also one of the best kayak surfers on the planet.

Benny Marr has placed himself firmly at the top of the list of epic big water kayakers in recent years and just finished filming a new short film on big wave surfing on the Ottawa River.

In a boat since the age of two, he’s paddled everything from the Stikine Canyon to the Zambezi River, but loves nothing more than a day trip ‘front surfing’ on the biggest waves he can find.