Will Gadd discovered his future when, as a 14-year-old, he dipped his paddle in the swirling waters of the Athabasca River deep in the Canadian Wilderness.<\/p>\n
The adventure began that day and it continues for Gadd, a 1990 graduate who majored in political science. \u201cI was going to be a lawyer, but other things called,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Oh, the places he has gone.<\/p>\n
Gadd and his paragliding teammate Gavin McClurg were named National Geographic\u2019s Adventurers of the Year for 2014-15, following their 400-mile flight over the toothy pinnacles of the Canadian Rockies. Gadd joins two other CC alumni in receiving this title from National Geographic: Travis Rummel \u201901<\/strong>, also honored in 2015, and Renan Ozturk \u201902<\/strong>, a 2013 Adventurer of the Year.<\/p>\n In January, Gadd became the first person to ice climb frozen Niagara Falls. And he recently climbed some of the last remaining ice on Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa \u2013 a feat made extremely difficult by the mountain\u2019s oxygen-depriving altitude of 19,000 feet.<\/p>\n But what keeps a 48-year-old man \u2013 the father of two daughters, ages 4 and 7 \u2013 plying the back country? Where does his motivation originate? And how does he pay for it all?<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s interesting,\u201d he said. \u201cThat is why I do all these sports. I enjoy going down river and trying to figure out where I\u2019m going and why. It is fascinating and it\u2019s fun as hell.\u201d<\/p>\n Sponsorships and hard work as a guide, writer, and speaker, pay the bills at home in Canmore, Alberta.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m definitely not a trust-fund baby,\u201d he said. \u201cMy family is not wealthy. There is no job description for what I do. I just get up every day and make it work. I\u2019m not going to be buying any second homes, but the kids are fed and life is good.\u201d<\/p>\n He has crisp memories of his day at Colorado College, which consisted of this daily schedule: attend classes, do something fun outside, study, socialize, and repeat. He insists CC\u2019s Block Plan helped prepare him for the detailed planning that precedes big adventures.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Block Plan is a lot closer to real life,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m still on the Block Plan. I tend to bust ass for a few weeks on a project and then go do something else. That style suited me well and it\u2019s how I continue to run my life.\u201d<\/p>\n He credits T.R. Reid, a visiting lecturer, author of several books, and former correspondent for The Washington Post, and Tom Cronin, CC political science professor, for providing direction.<\/p>\n \u201cT.R. Reid once told me that my writing style could use some work, but without his input I would have never gone to work for Backpacker magazine. Tom Cronin convinced me that I probably did not want to be a lawyer. CC attracts creative people who think differently. I was influenced by so many people there, even the professor who flunked me in Organic Chemistry.\u201d<\/p>\n Making a living as an adventure athlete requires an obsession for being first.<\/p>\n \u201cThe thing about first is once you have done it, it\u2019s on to the next thing,\u201d Gadd said. \u201cYou don\u2019t need a rearview mirror, you need to look ahead.\u201d The paragliding experience was quickly followed by the first ice climb of Niagara Falls. But Gadd admits he\u2019ll never forget his unpowered flight over a remote and wild Canadian landscape that people rarely \u2013 if ever \u2013 visit.<\/p>\n \u201cI have a linear film strip in my head of the entire trip,\u201d he said. \u201cI really can visualize that terrain and how it works and why it looks the way it does. It was a complex project and we figured out the unknowns and went forward and got it done. You don\u2019t get many opportunities like that in your life.\u201d<\/p>\n is days do not always include ramblings in wild places. Gadd\u2019s time is largely consumed by meetings, planning, flow charts, email, and phone calls. One hundred people were involved in the Niagara Falls ice climb. He says his greatest accomplishment is taking large teams into hazardous places and keeping everyone safe.<\/p>\n \u201cAt Niagara Falls, we were in an environment where people were going to get killed if they stepped in the wrong place,\u201d he said. \u201cThere were a lot of layers. I met with everybody from state parks to the local police, even the state botanist. It was a complicated problem to solve.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Will Gadd discovered his future when, as a 14-year-old, he dipped his paddle in the swirling waters of the Athabasca River deep in the Canadian Wilderness. The adventure began that day and it continues for Gadd, a 1990 graduate who majored in political science. \u201cI was going to be a lawyer, but other things called,\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":9733,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-9732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-august-2015","tag-alumni-profiles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/files\/2015\/08\/CC_BUL-August-p35-PeakProfile-GAD-2015.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9732"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9734,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9732\/revisions\/9734"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}