Adventurer Greg Hill goes electric to ditch 'insane' carbon footprint

As a professional skier and alpine-adventurer, Greg Hill has hiked some of the world's most remote peaks and skied down its most pristine slopes.

But Hill says the disconnect between being in these spectacular settings and the impact he was making reaching there started to wear down on him a few years ago.

"You know, just to go and climb some mountain, some remoteplace, and then fly home and then be a husband [and] dad and then fly off to Norway and back in France and you know literally just flying around the world on whims and the whole time, in the back of my head, I was like is this right?" he told host Sarah Penton on CBC's Radio West.

Hill was using helicopters, snowmobiles and big diesel trucks not to mention long-haul flights, up to 34 in one year to make his epic adventures.

But after Hill was caught in an avalanche in Pakistan, he started reconsidering his lifestyle.

"Ialmost passed away and while I was sitting recuperating I really had some time to think about who or what I was," he said.

"And there I was, a lover of nature who is destroying it with his actions."

So Hill decided to implement a few changes.

His first step was to calculate his carbon footprint.

"As Canadians we've got a huge footprint no matter what butmine wasinsane," he said.

Hill decided to curtail as many flights as he could. He switched to being vegetarian for weekdays, limiting meat consumption to the weekend.

Finally, he created achallenge to climb, ski, run 100 different summits without the use of fossil fuels. So instead of using a truck, snowmobile or helicopter to getto the trailhead, Hill rented an electric vehicle.

He completed the challenge earlier this year after summitting Revelstoke's Mount McCrae all documented in his new movie, Electric Greg.

Hill says that choosing more environmentally friendly options is a just part of his exploring.

"If we stay in the status quo, things aren't going to go anywhere so it means we'll start exploring different areas," Hill said.

"We do need to change. Weneed to look into different technologies."

Listen to the interview on CBC's Radio West: