Black Sheep Inn, Vacationers seek thrills during rest, relaxation

Vacations are touted as a way to relax and recharge, but there are those who would prefer to shoot the rapids, spin in the sky and trek through the mountains during their time off.

For every Disney World tourist, there are those who slap on an Indiana Jones fedora and head off into the great unknown.

Mark Van Alstine, the director of KE Adventure Travel in Glenwood Springs, Colo., said the company, which started organizing trips to the Himalayas in 1985, has been expanding into Central and South America and adding bike trips to the trekking and climbing trips it already runs.

"It's hard to know what people think is safe these days; they might think going to Europe is more safe than India, and then there's a bombing in Spain," Mr. Van Alstine said. "Having more of a variety of places to go to has been very helpful for us."

It's generally thought that travelers have become more skittish about international travel since Sept. 11 and the war in Iraq, but Mr. Van Alstine said that only about a third of his clients have let current events affect them.

"The other two-thirds realize that anything can happen no matter where you are," he said.

Adventure travel can encompass everything from scuba diving to skydiving to - at its most extreme - space travel, such as the $20 million trip that businessman Mark Tito took aboard a Russian Soyuz TMA spacecraft in 2001. Mr. Van Alstine said people are drawn by a desire to test both physical and cultural norms.

For instance, some of the tallest mountains on the planet are in Bhutan and beckon to climbers from around the world. The government, to preserve its culture, strictly limits visitors by charging a $200 per day tax to outsiders. Citizens wear traditional Buddhist garb and shun photography.

"I'd say 80 percent of people go on these trips and see another culture and they come back feeling a little different; they see life lived a lot simpler," Mr. Van Alstine said.

Edgefield, S.C., resident Jim Himley can relate. He visited the Black Sheep Inn in Chugchilan, Ecuador, in July. The inn is one of the top "eco-lodges" in the world, one-half degree south of the equator and 10,500 feet above sea level. It was his third visit to his son Matthew, who has lived there for five years. Mr. Himley, who doesn't speak Spanish fluently, struck out on his own for the first time on his latest trip.

Jim Himley (right) with his son Matthew rest at the edge of Quilotoa, a 12,500-foot-high extinct volcano in Ecuador.

"The language is the biggest barrier when you want to really get to know the people," he said. "But because it's mountainous and it's on the equator, you get lots of different climates. At the markets you'll find bananas and other tropical fruits, and then potatoes."

Mr. Himley, who is 59 and works in special education for Richmond County schools, said the only thing he'd do differently before going back is to get in better shape .

"The altitude is 10,000 feet, and I don't have any problem with it as long as I'm not exerting myself," he said. "I was able to sit back and view this valley that had been cut from the volcanic mountains. It was relaxing to the point where it was difficult to come back to the real world."

High altitudes also are a draw for Grovetown resident Archer Bell, a public safety training instructor for the Georgia Department of Corrections. In 2000, he and longtime friend Bob Deevey decided that for their 50th birthdays, they'd do something monumental. Mr. Bell had hiked portions of the Appalachian Trail with his wife, Susan.

"We were looking for something a little more exciting," he said.

They settled on Mount Rainier, a 14,410-foot-tall active volcano encased in snow and ice in Washington state.

"There are a couple of places where you fall, you die. It's that simple," he said.

Although the pair turned back at 11,500 feet, Mr. Bell became hooked on climbing. He has since made annual trips back to Mount Rainier, to Mount Hood in Oregon and, most recently, the 13,770-foot-high Grand Teton in Wyoming.

Mr. Bell said he and his wife have always been attracted to the outdoors.

"We went to Hawaii for a 10-day trip, and we found ourselves gravitating away from the beach toward the hiking trails," he said. "We're just not sedentary."

The 2000 trip was taken with the aid of guides, but Mr. Bell has taken other trips with friends he made on that first visit. The cost varies greatly because the second time he climbed Mount Rainier, he camped on the mountain. On the visit to Wyoming, the Bells stayed at a bed-and-breakfast in Jackson, adding significantly more to their lodging costs.

Molly McCrackin, a spokeswoman for Trek America in Rockaway, N.J., said that the company - which offers everything from a $478 , one-week tour of New York and New England to a $3,758, nine-week tour of most of the United States and western Canada - caters mostly to foreign tourists but that Americans are catching on, too. The company's trips along the Alaskan Highway through former gold rush-era towns such as Chicken, Alaska, are especially popular.

"We do things that you wouldn't be able to learn on your own, like river-crossing techniques," Ms. McCrackin said. "You also cover a cross section of places that would be too expensive if you were to do it yourself."

Reach Patrick Verel at (706) 823-3332 or patrick.verel@augustachronicle.com

EXTREME VACATIONS

Travel agencies are a good place to start if you're seeking a specialty vacation, but if you can't find what you're looking for, try the Internet. Here's a look at some online offerings:

· Explore with National Geographic Adventure and World Travel: This Web site is produced in conjunction with the magazine and includes destinations from around the world and travel options such as expedition cruises, eco-tours, safaris and volunteering and research opportunities. www.iexplore.nationalgeographic.com/index.jhtml

· Unread Dive: If you like a little adrenaline with your deep-sea diving, you can swim with the sharks in South Africa. www.unrealdive.com/marine/mako.asp

· The Silent Way Nordic Wilderness: Been a little warm lately? How about cooling off by dog-sledding through Lapland territory in Sweden? www.silent-way.com

· Adventure Travel: This Web site is a sort of clearinghouse for adventure-travel Web sites. www.lookingforadventure.com/adventuretravelsites.htm

--From the Tuesday, August 31, 2004 printed edition of the Augusta Chronicle

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