Hanging Tough | Outside Online

You Are Here:

Home >> Hanging Tough

Today's Question
What's the best way to learn to live off the land? answer

Is it better to buy or make a survival kit? answer

Today's Question
What country has the best ratings for eco-tourism? answer

What is the greenest rental car? answer

What kind of dog will make me look manlier? answer
Is there a sport that safely combines my twin passions for guns and kayaks? answer
How come most of the world's cultures enjoy eating goat, but Americans don't? answer

Online Favorites

Special Issues

Photo Galleries

Outside Magazine

Page:

9/11: The Future
Hanging Tough
Terror put a chill on global tourism, but adventure travelers—used to a little uncertainty—seem determined to stay on the road

By Grant Davis (with additional reporting by Jason Daley and Jannifer Villeneuve)


	Boarding pass: armed security at Boston's Logan International Airport

"Your Pentagon has been attacked, 50,000 dead. World War III has started. You must leave the country."

Talk about strange ways to re- ceive bad news. On September 17, at an 11,000-foot base camp in Pakistan's Hindu Kush Range—20 miles from the Afghanistan border—Colorado-based alpinist Chad McFadden was handed a scrawled note by a Pakistani guide who was telling him, in effect, that the world had turned upside down. Deeply shocked ("I felt sick to my stomach") McFadden didn't fully grasp what was happening back home until he fired up his laptop and read an e-mail from his father, who accurately described the terrorist attacks on the United States. After that, McFadden and two other Americans who were in Pakistan to climb 15,360-foot Mount Kampur acted fast. Once they broke camp, they boarded a van for a 340-mile ride through the nation's Taliban-influenced countryside. After a tense day of lying low in Islamabad, they caught a night flight to Oman, abandoning $10,000 worth of alpine tents, expedition sleeping bags, ice tools, and other equipment. Five days later, the team arrived safely in Denver.

Know Before You Go

Before packing your haul bags, be sure to check the on-the-ground security situation at you destination. Click here

McFadden's thoughts were all about getting home, but back in the States, as fear gripped the traveling public, members of the travel industry turned to the future of going abroad: Who would want to fly, and where? The early prognosis for the $582 billion North American travel industry was alarming. In the first days after the attacks, the American Society of Travel Agents reported reservation cancellation rates as high as 50 percent. Travelers were especially leery of nations spotlighted in the State Department's worldwide alert about countries known to harbor radical Islamic groups—including Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Malaysia.

Even after U.S. war planes attacked Afghanistan, outfitters did not back down from planned trips to Pakistan.

The industry's adventure-travel sector—serving about 20 million Americans who spent $240 billion last year—took its share of hits as well, but showed signs of greater short- and long-term resiliency. Since no comprehensive statistics exist for bookings in the active-travel business, Outside canvassed 36 outfitters—from industry heavyweights such as Toronto-based Butterfield & Robinson to smaller companies such as Ultimate Ascents, out of Fort Collins, Colorado. Based on this informal survey, it appears that the attacks' immediate aftermath saw roughly a 10 percent cancellation rate, predominantly affecting trips to Central Asia, East Africa, Indonesia, and the Middle East. Pakistan's traditional travel season ended at the same time as McFadden's escape, but Nepal's fall trekking season, which normally runs from October into November, suffered its share of these immediate cancellations.

In a handful of cases, jittery clients forced the cancellation of entire trips. Mountain Link, a California-based outfitter, backed out of a Kilimanjaro expedition scheduled for late October when seven of its 11 clients begged off. Butterfield & Robinson eventually dumped fall trips to Turkey, Morocco, and Egypt. And Explore Inc., located in Colorado, canceled its October trip to Ethiopia after the museum sponsoring the visit to Christian holy sites bowed out. In sum, there were signs of understandable nervousness about countries where U.S. foreign policy and the looming threat of war could create dangerous tensions. "Any Islamic country is going to be a difficult sell in the near-future, especially to more mainstream travelers," says Jerry Mallett, president of the Adventure Travel Society, a trade organization that represents more than 700 adventure outfitters. "In fact, any country with a religion that Americans aren't familiar with will suffer lost business."

Page: