Women-only Adventures Instill Sense of Accomplishment
24-09-2007 : Published in www.womenof.com
RanchHave you always secretly longed to ride a wave? To surge
through white water in a raft while your heart pounds? To zoom over a
jungle canopy on a zipline? To climb a glacier? To hike amid some of
the most spectacular mountains on earth?
Dez
Bartelt suspects you do harbor such inner desires. And she has a hunch
you’d enjoy getting your adventure kicks even more in the company of
nine like-minded women, with gourmet food and comfy digs at days end.
Bartelt
should know. An extreme sports aficionado, she’s spent the last 15
years introducing not only fellow extremists but everyday people to
climbing, surfing, rafting, hiking, biking and more. (She says an extra
amount of a certain hormone that’s present in all of us drives her
passion for physical challenge.) And two years ago, after observing the
women on one of her coed trips hold back in front of men, she decided
to guide women-only tours, founding Best of Both Women’s Adventures.
Today her company offers adventures in Patagonia, Panama and Puerto
Rico, the latter two featuring surfing at her surfing schools combined
with other activities.
Apparently, an affinity
for the extreme reveals itself early. California-raised Bartelt started
climbing at 10 years of age, summitted a water tower at 12 midnight,
fell in love with the sport, and “never looked back”. “My parents were
stunned, not really sure what possessed me to do that,” she laughs. “At
15, they started encouraging me in the sport. I was always staring out
the window in school, I always wanted to be outdoors.”
Years
later, after she had graduated from Chico State University with a
degree in marketing and was employed by Bristol Myers in New York City
for five years, she experienced another moment of truth one day while
climbing: “I pulled out my cell phone, called the company and said,
“I’m resigning”. I left the corporate world behind and opened an
adventure company about six months later. That was about 14 years ago.”
Initially
Bartelt launched a guiding company and a climbing walls business, aided
in the latter by her father’s construction expertise. She designed
walls all over the world, with perhaps the highlight being the world’s
largest freestanding climbing wall that she built in cooperation with
Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks for GameWorks in Las Vegas.
It
wasn’t long before she decided she wanted to shift her guiding business
into adventure travel. “That’s when I founded Journeys South,” she
says. “I took the level way down but still guided people to places
they’d never go on their town.” She focused on Patagonia, a region
she’d fallen in love with many years before and where she now lives six
months of the year. She also organized trips in Panama and Puerto Rico,
where she had founded surf schools and hotels.
Her
flash of recognition that women would respond more wholeheartedly to
adventure trips in the absence of men came on a tour in Patagonia. “We
arrived at a river and the men all went across this log and the women
all got fussy and went across the river,” says Bartelt. “I had been
watching and noting that the women weren’t acting themselves. They
weren’t laughing freely, they were hesitant. I said, you could have
done that, you could have crossed on the log. Then we went on to a
glacier for trekking and again, they weren’t as adventurous.”
Bartelt
broke the group up and asked a guide to take the men on ahead while she
led the women. “All of a sudden the women were listening to me, ready
to explore, ready to look silly,” she says. “When I took them across
the glacier some of them cried because they were so excited, and then
when we got up to where the men were I noticed they because reserved
again. So I decided, right then and there, all my groups would be women
only. It was a wonderful turn for myself and opened my eyes to
something. I still have a little hesitation even myself when I’m around
men. Now everyone is open and it’s the most amazing feeling on our
trips. Everyone is happy and rejuvenated.”
Best
of Both Women’s Adventures trips differ from other women-only tours
because they offer variety, says Bartelt. Some trips focus on surfing
lessons and yoga. On others, guests might learn to surf, kayak, climb,
and bike in addition to experiencing the local culture. Private chefs
serve up nutritious meals while guests relax in a beautiful hotel—or
perhaps a tent, if they are hiking in Patagonia--with breaks for yoga,
journaling, and socializing.
“We as women have
a connection with each other and we’re more open and that allows us to
be more healthy,” says Bartelt. “We want to help women be more
comfortable with themselves, be more healthy in mind and body, and go
back home to a rejuvenated marriage or lifestyle and feel great about
being a mother and going to that soccer game because they just climbed
a glacier and they can deal with everyday things that are tiring and
difficult. That’s our philosophy.”
Since women
already make most of the purchasing decisions, including reservations
for family trips, it only makes sense they have begun traveling on
their own, she says. “They’ve always wanted to, it’s just coming to the
forefront. It’s inevitable.”
While expansion of
the variety of trips is always on the horizon, Bartelt is determined to
preserve the individual, intimate flavor of the experience. “We’ll
never have more than 10 in our groups,” she says. “Also, you can’t have
five trips going out in one week, the environment can’t support that.”
In
2008, the company will begin offering a winter skiing trip out of Park
City, Utah, led by Tracy Evans, three-time Olympian. And every day
women eager to develop new adventures through Best of Both Women’s
Adventures contact Bartelt.
Where is world
traveler Bartelt’s favorite place? Where she hangs her hat half the
year, as it turns out—Patagonia. “Every time I return I am in awe,” she
says. “I go up into the mountains and my breath is taken away. The
people are amazing, they are so loving and helpful, and every time I
have an interaction I feel like I’m renewed with humanity. Being able
to share that with other women is very important—that they understand
there is so much out there they can see and do.”
Published in http://www.womenof.com
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