Running from the summit of Mullach an Rathain, the westernmost of the two Munros on 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.

Among countless memorable day’s climbing, those that stand out the most were spent on sea stacks including the Old Man of Stoer and the more remote crags such as Carnmore, tackling the classics like Dragon and Gob, described by Paddy Buckley in Hard Rock. In the years that followed I completed circumnavigations of all the major Scottish islands: the Isle of Skye in 2011, Shetland in 2012 and in 2016, crossed the Minch via the Shiants, kayaking from Uig on the Isle of Skye, to Lochmaddy on North Uist. In 2018 I kayaked around Cape Wrath, before running back from Durness to Scourie to close the circle. It was a turning point in more ways than one.

In 2019 I completed my Bob Graham Round, fulfilling a long-held ambition, before focusing once again on 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, took the reins from Kieran Carr, as RO for the Tour of Pendle.