Physician Adventurer Blazes New Trails
Alon Vainer leads groups skiing, hiking and both concurrently -- add in sailing, too. He warns, “Don’t let the age thing slow you down.”
After 37 years with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and now with the AJT, , Jaffe’s focus is lifestyle, art, dining, fashion, and community events with emphasis on Jewish movers and shakers.
If you can’t find Alon Vainer scoping kidneys, he just might be helicopter skiing in Siberia, close to Lakel Baikal, staying in Gorbachev’s dacha in the Caucasus Mountains, and skiing inside active volcanoes of Kamchatka.
Vainer defines his love for adventure as “an unusual and exciting, typically hazardous, experience or activity.”
Born in Romania, Vainer moved to Israel at age 12. During his IDF paratrooper training, he observed planes taking off from Ben Gurion and recalled, “In my mind, all those planes flew interesting and exotic destinations. Those images stuck in my mind and were the seeds for my quest to travel.”
He studied medicine in Milan where he learned to ski. Immigrating to New York in 1988, he trained in internal medicine. After a nephrology fellowship in Toronto, Vainer and his wife (an Atlanta native) moved to Atlanta in 1993, and practiced nephrology with his brother.
Once his four boys grew up, Vainer had the freedom to spend time away. His initial trip was hiking down the Grand Canyon, which advanced to the Slot Canyons (Utah) and the glaciers of Mt. Baker (Cascades).
He explained the concept, “Because of my love of skiing and travel, I started the group BAM—initially it stood for ‘Be A Man,’ but changed to ‘Body And Mind’ when we included wives.”
Through his voyages, he met mountain guides from all over the world which flowed into the idea for a boutique travel agency. The men are mostly doctors, but they “don’t discriminate against lawyers and accountants.”
A few other men from other states, mainly California, join in. Vainer’s dream was to ski the seven continents, which he accomplished in 2022, after experiencing the Atlas Mountains (Morocco).
The trips are steered by professional mountain guides. He explained, “We do a lot of ski touring, climbing with skis on to get to the top and climb the mountains with our skies under boots.”
They have skied the very big mountains of Europe, including Mt. Blanc in the Alps, then Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland, and Austria. They skied in Kashmir’s Himalayas, one of the most dangerous places in the world as a disputed territory between two nuclear powers — India and Pakistan — where they were adjacent to the Indian military and the gondola entrance was guarded by armed soldiers.
He added, “We skied in eastern Greenland, being the only humans in the middle of nowhere and led by Eskimos on dog sleds on sea ice.”
They went to the Arctic Circle (island of Lofoten in northern Norway,) and in Svalbard close to the North Pole as the most northern ski venue.
Vainer continued, “We were on a sailboat through the fjords where shotguns are mandatory because there are more polar bears than humans. Part of our group got stranded on the shore after the dinghy’s motor fell in the water. The sailboat later got stuck in sea ice — last year was the most sea ice in 20 years.”
Vainer ventured to Antarctica where, while skiing, he got caught in a Drake Channel storm with hurricane winds. The group also rock climbs and has summited the Grand Tetons, as well as all over the Southeast, from Kentucky to the Carolinas and Alabama. They trekked in Patagonia and canoed the Yukon River. Recently, wives joined in climbing adventures in the Dolomites and off the coast of the Mediterranean.
At 65, Vainer is a martial arts expert, still practicing medicine and teaching yoga. He summarized, “I want to encourage people to live their lives to the fullest, experience the world and the outdoors, conquer their fears and get outside their comfort zone. There’s a small window of opportunity where time, money, health, and friends align. If we don’t use it judiciously — it’s gone. True joy comes from experiences and not material stuff.”
He describes his group as “like-minded people, who work hard, play hard, and don’t let the age thing slow them down.”
comments