Episode three! We sent Roland Morley-Brown out into the field on the hunt for another NZ mission it a pretty low tide snow season. Watch now for what he got up too… Things didn’t really go to plan.
A big thanks to GoPro and The North Face for levelling up the missions for this series. The entire series is filmed 100% on GoPro, and RMB is running head to toe North Face kit including all the essential adventure items.
Words: RMB
Mt Larkins
Well, as they say…you win some, you lose some. So first of all I want to throw in this little disclaimer, just in case you expected to see some snowboard action in this mission, I’m sorry to say…there isn’t any. But a mission nonetheless!
I was actually in two minds whether to share any of this footage at all, my first assessment of this mission was to chalk it up as a failure, dump all the footage onto a hard drive and have it never see the light of day again. I was very self-conscious and even felt embarrassed because I pulled back once I reached the peak and there was no actual snowboarding footage that this expedition would ever be worthy of making an edit.
However, after further reflection (as I tend to do) and with some encouragement from friends, I decided to flip my opinion and treat this mission as more of a learning experience and I’m stoked to share the adventure for what it was and focus on the highs of what was achieved.
More often than not with these types of expeditions I get lost in the end goal, the great objective, and forget to appreciate the beautiful moments along the way. The bike ride in through the bush, river crossings, the high alpine hike and just being out there and taking in the view, I mean, it’s pretty god damn incredible and a lot of times I take all of that for granted.
It’s been a lot to process over the past few days, as it’s one of the first times in recent times where I have found myself in that heavy decision making moment and had to walk away from a goal so close to completion. It’s an incredibly confusing emotion, obviously there was an amazing sense of accomplishment when I reached the peak of Mt Alaska, which was very quickly followed by an intense overwhelming awareness of “I don’t feel safe” “I need to get out of here” and being instantly put in the position of having to make the difficult and upsetting decision of turning around and hiking back down. I had not felt this unsafe, unconfident feeling so intensely in a long time.
At first I felt embarrassed that I had to turn around and essentially walk away, I felt ashamed that this one would be called a failed mission.
Now, in hindsight, I’m really proud of myself, that, in that emotional moment I was able to make the best decision for me. And I am satisfied with knowing that Mt Larkins will be there for a long time to come and one day I will complete the objective and ride that line.
I’m sure many of you have been in a similar situation and hopefully this experience resonates with some of you out there, if there’s one thing I’ve learnt from this, it’s knowing that it’s okay to walk away.
