Running along the ridge of Liathach in Torridon at the age of six is one of my earliest memories. Many similar days on the Scottish hills and Lakeland fells followed, those early experiences providing the foundation for a what would become a way of life.

I claim no notable ability as either a runner, climber or kayaker. These pages, which remain far from complete, are simply an attempt to capture at least some of those days, and will, I hope, provide a space to record those still to come. Perhaps others will find inspiration here and a resource of sorts, and possibly, within that, a rebuttal to the reductive process of commoditisation that our hills particularly have become subject to.

A runner first, my formative years were also influenced by classic mountaineering literature, which led inevitably to the Lakeland crags and before long, to bigger walls in the Alps. Aspiration and reality do not always meet where we imagine and on more than one climb, I learned humility the hard way.

Sea kayaking, which offered something no less committing and a means to explore where few others could reach, eventually led back to the hills and what had been an obsession with individual pursuits, broadened into a greater passion for the wild places that the running, climbing and kayaking had taken me to.

In 2019 completed my Bob Graham Round, fulfilling a long-held ambition, before turning my attention once again to the Scottish hills and soon after, a new project, Northern Horizons, which was published in February 2025 and subsequently won the Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival Guidebook Award.

In August 2025, I launched a new fell race: the Hartsop Hop and in 2026, I will take the reins from Kieran Carr, as RO for the Tour of Pendle.