A model to explain the adventure experience and to relate adventure experience to adventure education uses risk and competence as diagram axes with experimentation/exploration, adventure, peak adventure, misadventure, and disaster/devastation completing the framework. The model assumes that peak adventure, the point at which personal competence matches and balances with situational risk, is the goal sought by self-motivated individuals. The key to reaching peak adventure and to application of the model lies in the individual's perceptions of risk and of his/her own competence. The paper outlines and diagrams nine behaviors associated with correct and incorrect perceptions and relates the behaviors to the proposed model. The model illustrates the way in which adventure education can offer facilitated adventure experiences to enhance self-concept and social interactions by moving participants toward becoming astute perceivers of individual competence and situational risk. A third axis, time, demonstrates the dynamic aspects of the model. An example of a facilitated adventure experience is described and modeled. The paper is illustrated by 10 diagrams. (LFL)