The mornings are cold, like castles of medieval days. Although, unlike those bygone gentry that filled them, we’d have no fire to warm us. Instead, a cold wind curled under our skin and raked her fingers through our hair. It was the fourth day into our journey to reach North Despair in the Cascade Mountains. The previous three had involved hauling our gear up through the forests, and the hills that rise above Baker Lake. It was a different scene now, in contrast to the waves of sweltering, mu

I turned to see only dust. Even with the deafening wind as our overbearing host on the plateau, a thunder of hooves had made itself heard in fits and starts. It is a sound that can promise great flights of freedom, or awful depths of despair. This time it was almost certainly the latter. I held on tightly to the rough leather tether of Rebelde and stepped forward into the cloud. He was the horse we’d always thought would cause trouble, but his name was misleading. He was stubborn, yes, but n

In the second part of the Challenge series Sophie and Charley Radcliffe head to the mountains to put their newly learned ski touring skills to the test whilst venturing into new areas high above the Chamonix Valley. I arrange my kit the night before a ski touring adventure. Everything that goes into my bag is crucial for me to take and I can’t risk forgetting something in the sleepyness of an early morning start. Avalanche transceiver, skins, skis, boots, poles, down jacket, warm hat, two p

Half way through our sunrise shift in the mine, we get a brief moment to take it all in. The sun’s rays are just ready to break the crest of the wall and fill the cavern with bright morning light. The air is still and crisp allowing us to almost hover in place, a thousand feet below the Earth’s surface in a hot air balloon. Balloons were once cutting edge technology, the first craft to take humans into the sky. The principles are still the same, hot air rises and balloons go with the wind.

Like most adventures, the concept for my motorcycle journey around China’s rugged northwest was born far away, in an oasis of art museums, corporate skyscrapers, and glamorous Beijing nightlife. The pattern is always the same: for every few weeks I spend roughing it on the open road, I spend months beforehand plotting routes in cafés with fast enough internet to support my Google Earth habit. After the journey ends and I return safely home, I begin to edit photos into a reconstructed narrati

Everything about our magazine is intended to present those narratives in the most compelling and visually stunning way possible. Words and images portraying the inspirational truth of the experience. It’s more than a magazine – it’s about being immersed in the journey of those with captivating stories to tell. The Sidetracked Journal is released three times each year and brings together some of the finest stories of exploration and adventure. From extremes of human endurance to both cultura

My feet are numb with cold and the tips of my fingers are sore beneath my pale, wrinkled skin. My hood hugs tightly around my ears as I seek shelter from the driving rain. I look over each shoulder to check my two friends are still with me. When the weather turns in Patagonia, it doesn’t do it in halves: it’s persistent and menacing, sneaky and forceful. Yet, from the shelter of my hood, I’m still able to appreciate the unbelievably rich landscape that now engulfs me. Patagonia is a staggeri

When I’m stuck in the city, chasing deadlines and dollars and other men’s dreams, I often wish I could escape to something different. When I’m jostled by crowds, hammering furiously at emails, working for money not love, I like to let my mind drift away to something that I really care about instead. Imagine, I say to myself, imagine this: I could jump on the sleeper train tonight, fall asleep in London and wake up in the massive silence of the mountains. Imagine that. I really could do it.

I tell my daughters to beware of strangers on the internet. They delighted in reminding me of this as I kissed my family goodbye and headed out the door with my fatbike, loaded only with essential gear and that DSLR I never can bring myself to leave behind. They were absolutely right: I had never met Mr. Joe before. I live in a slightly posh area of town in a not so posh house. I stubbornly refuse to conform, and I haven’t yet convinced myself that I need a drivers licence. In this part of N

Our strong team of 4 had trained relentlessly for over a year and consisted of Ian O’Grady an RAF Helicopter Crewman and creator of the Beeline Britain concept, Adam Harmer a professional kayak coach and University Lecturer, Nick Beighton a retired Royal Engineer, double amputee and Team GB Paralympian and Tori James who was the first Welsh woman to stand on the summit of Mount Everest. Our equipment was tried, tested and loaded. Fo

A wash would be welcome. God knows I needed it; knees with a dirty black shine to them, a thick growth of itchy stubble matted across my face and my hands cracked and broken, with a mysterious sick-grey hue to them that had developed over the past few weeks here at high altitude. No, a wash and shave would be very much appreciated, although where exactly our host Orozbek the hunter was taking us to do it – and why we’d chosen to travel atop a truck laden with freshly-cut grass to get there –

“Get ready! Ten… nine…” Six months ago I’d never heard of Speedwings, I was totally obsessed with climbing and had no time for any other disciplines. My life revolved around continually preparing for the next climbing mission: training, researching, training, researching. But then, abruptly, a unexpected spanner was tossed into the works: training, researching, training, injured. I had over-trained and paid the price, sustaining serious tendon damage to my righ

All is movement and noise. In a field of supersized scree, stone stacks around us tremble like terrible towers in a giant game of Jenga. Rocks fall relentlessly from above and below the glacier is popping and exploding in a fantastic, cacophonous symphony. I look across at my climbing buddies Wilson Cuthbert and Cody Tuttle. We’re climbing Thunderbolt Peak in the Palisades, scouting out an alpine highline that will crown a project a year in the planning. Thunderbolt is spectacular, but whil

‘I don’t know, lets just see where it goes!’ my friend shouts from a tall stand of bamboo high above the Chiang Dao valley. Famous last words if I have ever heard them. I am hot, drenched in sweat, lugging camera gear, and attempting to fend off spiders and their seemingly indestructible webs. Having ridden an hour or so north from the northern city of Chiang Mai, Thailand’s second largest city, we are visiting the Chiang Dao caves, a huge, albeit somewhat touristy stop on a loop through the

Deep in the Danakil, our little game of hit-the-stone-off-the-palm-frond-fence was just heating up when shouts went up across the village. Men had suddenly emerged from the cluster of dome-shaped aris, traditional Afar huts, some clutching old Kalishnikovs and others wooden staffs, all with curved gile daggers hanging from their belts. Without hesitating they began sprinting across the desert, defying the limits of their 20-birr plastic sandals, gliding over the rugged, stony ground. The wom

I stood looking at the Potala Palace from across an oddly quiet, very wide road with newly laid tarmac you could almost see your reflection in. Red Chinese flags proudly lined the road as far as the eye could see in both directions, and the unmissable police booth, with its blue light shining cold in the cooling night air, felt imposing and watchful in the shadow of the iconic building. I had to admit, this wasn’t quite the Lhasa I had in mind when I was planning my visit to Tibet. I had b

Our camp is perched on a heather promontory deep in the Cairngorms. To get here we walked through ancient woodland bustling with life until gradually, as the trees thinned and then disappeared completely, the space around us grew and the ‘big world’ of the Northern Cairngorms took full effect. These mountains might not be large by international standards but there is a sense of space here that you just don’t get anywhere else in the UK. The scale is different, everything seems further apart

As summer drew to an end, Kim and I hastily readied ourselves for an Autumn trip. We’d been toying with a few ideas, but the Wrangells were calling and a long bike/raft traverse in the mountains was what we desired. We loaded our truck with bikes, rafts, camping gear and food and began the long drive east from our south central Alaska home. The Wrangells are a range of massive, heavily glaciated, volcanoes in eastern, interior Alaska. They are both where I was raised and where I lived as a y

As I ran stark naked from the crudely whitewashed, low ceilinged concrete building I sweated furiously. The late afternoon breeze immediately brushed my skin and with a few more giant bounds I leapt into the cold Volga. Not far behind, two large, hairy similarly attired Russian men followed suit. Moments before they had together violently attacked me with the leafy branches of a birch tree. Russia. Despite knowing better, despite 12 months of research, reading, watching and learning, it h

The cityscape that greets us on our arrival in Nepal takes us by surprise. Everest has always dominated our image of this Himalayan powerhouse, with the recent tragic avalanche fresh in our minds. Our own journey, however, begins in the sprawling capital city of Kathmandu. From there we will travel on to lesser-known sites that offer the adventurer a different perspective of Nepal. We are in Nepal searching for inspirational sustainability stories that form the heart of our four year Earthduc