I've loved hiking and camping since I was 11, when I was lucky enough to be taken on multi-day hiking and ski-touring trips in the Sangre de Cristo range and others in northern New Mexico. I was lucky enough to do some trekking in the Himalayas as a teenager, camping above Rishikesh in what was then Uttar Pradesh. When I moved to Virginia to attend university, I often hiked in the Appalachians and worked part time as a ropes course and outdoor team-building instructor. During this time I did a lot of hiking, including a three-day solo wild camping trek on the Appalachian Trail. I also went on group expeditions to Mount Katahdin in Maine and the Great Smoky Mountains. When I moved to Germany in 1999 and then to London in 2003, there was a lull, but I started hiking again in 2010. I then got back to doing solo expeditions, which I love, first on Hadrian's Wall in 2013 and later along the Esk Valley Way in Yorkshire. Lately I've rediscovered my love of camping - this had fallen by the wayside with illness, but the habits of a lifetime's camping serve me in good stead.
In recent years, I've enhanced my mountain skills through trad and indoor climbing. I have better foot placement and can tolerate more exposure when scrambling. This helps when spotting clients. I took a winter skills course in January 2023 and have since then taken every opportunity to use my crampon and axe skills.
My passion as an ML is to help people connect deeply with the landscape - not just the big views, which are beautiful, but also the glorious microcosms created by ferns, mosses and lichens, as well as rocks and unusual land formations. After university, I wanted to work in environmental policy, but life got in the way. I now hope to help other people connect with our wild landscapes so that they may feel inspired to tread just a little more lightly.
