Last Updated on May 22, 2023 by Jarda
Welcome to my blog. I will be writing here about my summer challenge EU Peaks during which I will climb the highest mountain of each EU member. If you know me personally you know what you can expect in this blog. Besides the actual expedition (which will start on June 15th), you will be able to find here a lot of information about outdoor activities, travelling, mountains and of course photography.
But today I would like to explain why I am actually going to make this expedition, why I joined Adventure Academy and what this Adventure Academy actually is.
The best outdoor course in Scandinavia
First, I like to be challenged and I always wanted to make a large expedition on my own. I was lucky to meet my Czech friend Simona Hrstkova living in Stockholm. She talked about Adventure Academy and her summer expedition Extreme Wanderlust. I immediately knew that this is exactly what I would want to do too. One year long education about outdoor life followed by a summer adventure. Perfect combination to make my dream come true!
Second, the Adventure Academy is driven by the most successful people in the outdoor industry in the whole Sweden. Is there any better opportunity to meet people with the same interests and the same passion like I have? During the past few months I managed to meet and speak with a guy who’s been to both the North and South pole, a girl who biked all around the world, CEOs of the largest Scandinavian outdoor brands, my current mentors with experience from every outdoor field you can imagine and many others…
AA crew 2018
And finally, this project can push my photography career to a new level. My dream is to leave the office life and become a full time landscape photographer and the way towards this dream is long and tough. I hope my expedition will help me to reach my goal.
What will be my summer adventure?
So now you know the main reasons why I decided to join the Adventure Academy. The next step was to come up with a summer adventure. I wanted to do something with mountains because I think mountains are the most fascinating parts of our planet. Also, I wanted something challenging but safe, unique, interesting for media and most importantly something to inspire and attract other people to spend more time in nature. I came up with EU Peaks. I think it covers all the criteria. The expedition is long and tough enough to challenge me but on the other hand rather safe because the European Union is the safest region on our planet and only three peaks require actual climbing. I hope my story can be also interesting for media because I will be the fastest one to be on all 27 EU Peaks.
Hooray. So now you know a short background story of how it all started and let’s move on to what I’ve learnt during 6 months with Adventure Academy. We have a meeting every month for 1-5 days and we always have both theoretical and practical lessons in certain topic. So far we’ve had courses touching these areas: Climbing, Hypothermia, Back-country skiing + avalanche training.
You have to be a bit creative sometimes. It is possible to practice back country skiing course even in Stockholm
Exciting plans ahead
We were part of the largest outdoor fair in Scandinavia called Explore, where we joined many inspiring presentations (expedition planning, expedition marketing and PR, risk management, high altitude alpinism and film making). Until June we will have courses in navigation, kayaking, long distance biking and a mysterious Hell week about which we still don’t have much information. Our mentors don’t want to disclose any hints. Let’s see 🙂 I summarized these lessons very briefly. If you are interested in details, let me know and I can cover them in the future post.
AA meetings are always special, like this one during outdoor fair Explore when we slept on the fair’s roof
Meeting interesting companies
Besides the above mentioned lessons, we met CEOs of many interesting outdoor companies and we received amazing outdoor equipment from the main sponsors of Adventure Academy which will be very handy during my and my classmates’ expedition: Lundhags hiking boots, Gore-Tex jacket Marmot, Hydroflask thermos and bags from Outnorth.
Morning tea in New York with Hydroflask
What do you think about Adventure Academy and about my expedition EU Peaks? Are you thinking about joining next year? Would you also like to plan a unique expedition? If you have any questions you can contact me here.
The next post will be devoted to this season’s fantastic winter and my new hobby nordic skating. Stay tuned!
