If you had told me 8 years ago that I would soon be exploring the wild outdoors, seeing places very few people ever get to experience, I would have scoffed. With no outdoor experience, having never wild camped or walked a trail, I was out of touch with the nature.
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Why do you want change? - A Guest Post by Sarah Lister
This question is an opportunity to pause and understand ourselves better, otherwise life sort of runs away and our dreams can get left behind. Instead of striving through life and gasping for change we can discover a path where we are connected and follow our intuition. I see it as a stepping stone towards clarity and motivation.
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Mucho Zen - A Guest Post by Katarina Kukuruzović
I took a sip from my water bottle. The warm breeze wafted against my face. My eyes met with the greenery of the valley between Monte Brento and Monte Bondone. In the distance, Lago di Garda was a blue canvas on which white dots of sailboats drew invisible lines against the surface of the lake.
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A Week of "Adventure"!
Last week I talked to Sarah Outen and spent three days on a little adventure in the wild, so we will be back again with a guest post next week. Enjoy!
Adventure is a word which is used very much these days to describe outdoor activities that, to those who have always done them, are simply what they are; hiking, camping or canoeing, for example. They need no greater moniker to attribute some magical quality to them...
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Beneath the Mountain - A Guest Post by Allyson Towle
The now coined Andean Giant Expedition 2010, would have me cycling from sea level starting in Caldera, on the Pacific Coast, for five days, a total of 360km to an altitude of 4500m, and this was just the start. The bulk of the next ten days were spent in the Atacama Desert, acclimatising to at least 5800m in preparation for summit day.
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Just Say “No!” - A Guest Post by Goody Niosi
Sometimes it’s not about achieving great improbable feats – and I’ve had my share of those. But I am also learning that sometimes it’s about honouring yourself. Saying “no” can be just as important as saying “yes.”
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2018 - A New Year of Adventure.
I remember the days when I used to head out everyday Saturday morning, often accompanied by a clanging headache, ringing around my sleepy head, wrapped in the regulation baggy warm garb that I felt marked me out as a snowboarder... cos obviously the snowboard didn't give it away.
On Friday nights I used to dream of powder. And to be fair, on a Saturday morning it often cushioned the impact as my party-night hangover crashed into the weekend...
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Why I Love Hiking - A Guest Post by James Forrest
I'm addicted to hiking. I just love it. Sounds geeky, doesn't it? But I don't care. I head out hiking every weekend and often during the week. If I can't get out, I become grumpy. I've got the bug and I can't (and don't want to) kick the habit. But why do I enjoy it so much?
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Finding Time to Get Outside
If you are self employed or running a small business you’ll know that around the Christmas period or holidays in general you still end up doing quite a lot of work.
Often there is nobody else covering your emails or phone calls and you feel you need to be "on it", especially if you are in a start up phase. You want to be giving your business as much attention as possible - you certainly don’t want to be missing out on any lead. Someone who can become a paying customer is a very valuable commodity...
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Guest Posting on this Blog
Do you enjoy the great outdoors? Has it had an impact on your life? Perhaps you have just been wild camping for the first time, perhaps nature has helped you to cope with a difficult period in your life or maybe you have been on an epic travel adventure across several continents.
We would love for you to share your stories of success, failure, transformation and adventure with 3500 readers every month...
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Wild Camping in the Snow
It's the first time Emma has seen the white stuff in the UK so we went for a walk, had a snowball fight and then came back to build a snow-hermaphrodite in the garden.
I thought it was a snowman but Emma corrected me, saying it was a woman, before correcting herself and confirming it was actually both. Anyway, we kept the physical decoration down to a carrot and some pebbles (on its face, before you ask).
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Blame it on the jet lag - articles, video and a new business
It turns out it is possible to spend a long weekend in Adelaide. But, no matter how many beers you drink or how many songs you sing, it is quite tiring.
Anyway, in going to great lengths (literally) to prove this fact I did of course ignore this blog. Now, somewhat unsure whether it is dinner time or breakfast, I present a mish mash of stuff that has happened recently. Normal business will be resumed next week (probably).
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What Women Want in Adventure and Outdoors
This week I spoke to outdoor writer Emily Woodhouse, the mind behind Intrepid Magazine; a UK based Female-first Adventure and Outdoors Print Magazine.
The magazine includes; walking, running, cycling, camping, MTB, sailing, rowing, snowboarding, surfing, mountaineering, climbing, exploration, adventures big and small...
"...anything that involves the chance of getting cold, wet and muddy!"
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Photo by Josephine Collingwood
Writing Competition Winners: Emily Woodhouse - 1st Prize
It was 3 o’clock in the morning by the time we found him. The cynically minded would say it’s a waste of time looking for someone in the dark who doesn’t want to be found. Darkness is easy to hide in. Run circles round the search lights and you’ll never be found. After several hours of startling sheep, I was ready to believe it.
We reached an outcrop. Standing at the bottom, I cast my light once over the rocks and something caught my eye.
“Oh,” I thought, “that looks like a bag. That’s odd”...
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Writing Competition Winners: Magsie Hamilton Little - 2nd Prize
One afternoon I sold my flat. I unplanted myself, like a bean. I closed the front door, gathered up my heartbreak splinters and bought a plane ticket and just like at a crowded, sweaty party where everyone is absorbed in their own separate conversation London did not notice me leaving.
Two days later I was in Tamanrasset in a remote region of Algeria. I saw red light behind my eyelids and felt the crunch of rubber on dust. I breathed it in, this universe of yellow, like a newborn.
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Writing Competition Winners: Seanna Fallon - 3rd Prize
Society taught me that if I ever got attacked it would be late at night, I’d be walking alone down a dodgy street, I’d be wearing something revealing and I’d be intoxicated.
The first time it happened however, I was working in a coffee shop, wearing my frumpy apron, it was the middle of the morning and I’d only been drinking espresso, and I was attacked by a colleague when I was tidying the stock room.
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Who can call themselves an adventurer?
Al Humphreys has gone as far as saying “Anyone who calls themselves an adventurer is basically a prat.” albeit with the caveat that one may be allowed to do so on a self-promoting web site.
I actually think this is a bit harsh but nevertheless the sentiment is understandable and, for what its worth, in my book he does qualify as one (an adventurer, not a prat).
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2017 WILD Writing Competition Winners
The time has come to announce the winners of the The Armchair Mountaineer 2017 Writing Competition.
Once again a huge thank you to everybody who took part. It is the first competition to have been run on the pages of this site and I think it was a great success. I sincerely hope there will be many more!
The competition has been judged by Sarah Lister, Alex Roddie, Chris Townsend and me. Each of us cast our votes blind. In fact there were some very differing opinions which really goes to show there wasn’t much between the top few!
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Wilderness and Wellbeing: The Writing Competition Shortlist
When I set up the writing competition I was thinking very much about my own story; how I have spent more time outdoors in the last year than in the previous 10 and how nature as been both a catalyst and a coping mechanism when re-designing my life...
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How to get your kids outdoors
I have just been writing an article for a magazine about how to travel a little more adventurously, with young children and, at the risk of sounding like Carrie Bradshaw, it got me thinking...
How did I manage to get my own daughter to enjoy spending time in the outdoors?
Emma is six now and she is pretty adept with an ipad, she loves reading, colouring, cartoons, dressing up, and o of course "anything from Smiggle". Sound familiar?
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