After exhausting maps, articles and travel guides we had both come to the same reluctant conclusion: there was no way. It’s 39 miles as the crow flies between Marigot and Anse-à-Pitre – a distance covered in less than 40 minutes on the average US interstate. How could it be that the only public transportation between the last town accessible by road in Sud-Est Haiti and the region’s only border crossing to the Dominican Republic was a perilous seven-hour sea voyage, to be taken in the dead o

Imagine you are standing on the edge of a cliff. You can feel a gentle breeze bristling the hair on your arms. Looking down, the water below you looks impossibly far away. Shuffling your feet to find a comfortable position that doesn’t really exist calms your nerves, provides an action to focus on. You close your eyes and visualise the next few seconds. In direct contradiction of every human instinct that you hold, you will leap from the rock. Your muscles twitch, anticipating their imminent

As the familiar pips at the start of my Skype call fade, they are replaced by the cheery, gravelled voice of Gavin McClurg, energetic to the point of booming. The American is on good form, despite recovering from a dislocated shoulder. We dwell on the obvious irony that after surviving his most epic adventure yet – the one we are due to talk about – he injured himself in a relatively innocuous mountain-bike accident. Gavin seems to have a different mindset to most of the population. He gets

In Sidetracked Volume Eight Ian Finch tells the story of enduring torrid days with the paddle, negotiating the Yukon River’s furious whitewater to study the region’s remaining native cultures. Ian continues the story here, focusing on the end this immense expedition and the impact that it has had on his life. Just off-shore, our battered canoe jerked from side to side in the afternoon swell. 68 days of dry mud sat cracked and flaking under my feet. Although the four of us had paddled every

The lines on Ande’s face darken to his intricate task of carving reindeer bone into Tupilaks, the totems of his Inuit ancestors. The quiet air of this craftsman is later shattered by a story I’m told by Matt Spenceley – mountain guide and adopted son of the East Greenland village of Kulusuk. ‘When he was younger Ande was sailing south, alone,’ Matt tells me, ‘when his boat sank. The water was 2˚C, but he swam 200m in full clothing to an iceberg, and just sat on it until another boat came by.

7.15am I stand, kayak on shoulder, on a small cliff overlooking the Fairy Glen. Just enough light now enters the gorge to see the brown water. Welsh rivers flow as if poured from a teapot, a peaty infusion carried from feral moor to brackish mouth. I’m still half asleep as my eyes scan for a gauge, familiar rocks or markings that might give clues about the river’s height. For now, the river Conwy is an increasingly rare thing: free flowing and untroubled. Transecting the Snowdonia National

The aircraft’s thermometer registered -20˚C as we circled over Lac Laporte in eastern Quebec. To the far north, miles of low snowy hills and frozen waterways stretched to the Arctic border. A team of 40 Innu walkers from Quebec and Labrador were waiting on an area of hard-packed snow they had chosen for our safe landing. A husky scampered around crates of provisions; a dead wolf was slumped in a toboggan, blood at his mouth, long grey tail touching the ice. The group had been walking for two

Hajla, a mountain 2,403m high, stands on the border between Peja in Kosovo and Rozaje in Montenegro. On one side the rakija (brandy) is toasted with a cry of ‘Ziveli!’; on the other, ‘Gëzuar!’. 30 years ago, people in these towns lived under the same republic, Yugoslavia, whose implosion in the late 1980s heralded two troubled decades throughout the region. When the border was open, shepherds and mountain villages above Peja were able to trade directly with Rozaje, and Hajla was more accessi

Jonathan Rider and Edmund Le Brun make the first descent of the Oxus River in Afghanistan by packraft. This is their joint account of the adventure. A smooth stretch of river cuts through low gravel banks under a heavy sky. Silence but for the water and wind. Either side, mountains stretch in a drama of snow-capped peaks and sheer outcrops. Although we have never rafted before, we aim to be the first people to raft from the source of the River Oxus in Afghanistan. How ridiculous that now se

We’ve all heard of the tales of Narnia, hidden behind fur coats in a cupboard in the English countryside. Narnia is a land that few are able to enter from the outside world – a magical place where the inconceivable is possible. Looking back on a recent trip to Narvik I have found myself thinking about these two places, one real, one fantastical. I couldn’t help comparing their similarities. Before visiting this seaside town on the west coast of Norway I had heard many stories about the regio

Obsession is, more often than not, seen as a negative trait. Common wisdom tells us that we need balance, perspective, the ability to take a step back. But obsession can be useful. In the long term, it allows us to maintain focus on our goals, not deviating from the objective when others question. It is the drive that keeps us training throughout dark winter nights, or spend hours packing and repacking kit. Most importantly it means that sometimes we just keep on going, long after we stopped

Mount Yasur is an active volcano on Tanna, one of many small islands that make up the Republic of Vanuatu in the huge expanse of the South Pacific Ocean. Standing 361m above the sea that surrounds it, Yasur is modest in height, yet it somehow defines the island. It was the glow coming from this active volcano that first attracted Captain Cook to the island in 1774, so the story goes. Some 250 years later, Yasur retains its draw on visitors, from tourists to those looking to test themselves a

Bad weather on the walls of the tent; bad weather in my head. Patagonia’s San Quintín Glacier lay open as a love confession on the opposite side of the lake, but obscured by a frozen white mist. With each window of clarity the icebergs revealed their silent wanderings, swept and reshuffled by a playful and murderous wind. Inside my little one-man tent, cocooned in my bivouac and sleeping bag, I was the only still feature in a turbulent landscape. Drifting ever further into unexplored corners

The first explorers in the vast Siberian wilderness had to endure unbelievable physical stress. If we had known that we would have to expect similar hardship almost 300 years later, we would probably have never set out on this expedition. In the 18th century, a special geographical feature drew pioneers like Vitus Bering to the Far East of Russia. The continental watershed between the Arctic Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk is not far from two neighbouring rivers, the Yudoma and the Urak. Waterw

This is the first in a new foraging and wild cooking series exploring different landscapes and ingredients within the UK. To follow the routes and for more ideas, visit Viewranger.com.  Sun dried pine needles and twigs crackle underfoot as we step off the trail and into the undergrowth. Hints of vanilla and coconut scent the air on this unseasonably hot April morning; on the far northwest reaches of Wales it can only mean a large swathe of gorse. Carefully teasing the bright yellow petals a

In celebration of the launch of the brand new Sidetracked Volume Seven, we’re releasing one story online from each of our previous issues. In this story from Volume Two, a team of four women travelled one of the world’s greatest and least known free flowing rivers, the Amur, from the remote Mongolian headwaters to a massive delta in Russia. The horsemen evaporate into the enormity of the steppe, leaving us standing and staring at each other across the emptiness. They’d taken us to the launc

In celebration of the launch of the brand new Sidetracked Volume Seven, we’re releasing one story online from each of our previous issues. In this story from Volume One, Luc, Jim, Steve and Todd travelled to Mexico City, bought cheap bikes, cycled 140 miles, climbed Orizaba – the tallest mountain in Mexico – and then packrafted 80 miles to the Gulf of Mexico. JIM: With packrafts rolled in tight burritos and strapped to our handlebars, we roll into the rising sun. The very first pothole loos

In celebration of the launch of the brand new Sidetracked Volume Seven, we’re releasing one story online from each of our previous issues. In this story from Volume Three, Matt Cairns and Jocelyn McLean paddled over 990 miles from Winnipeg to the arctic town of Churchill, where no roads will reach. The journey lasted 64 days. ‘Ready. Pull.’ At this point of mental exhaustion, the energy needed to speak these words is all I’m willing to spend, and even then I’m pinching pennies. Today is our

In celebration of the launch of the brand new Sidetracked Volume Seven, we’re releasing one story online from each of our previous issues. In this story from Volume Four, Dan Milner was part of a pioneering mountain bike traverse of Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor. Following only horse trails, they looped 250 Km through one of the most remote and inclement areas on the planet, crossing three passes above 4900m and camping every night in temperatures down to -10C. We watch the pack animals cro

In celebration of the launch of the brand new Sidetracked Volume Seven, we’re releasing one story online from each of our previous issues. In this story from Volume Five, Jan Vincent Klein finds the edge of his comfort zone during a packraft expedition to Iceland. We quietly gaze out of the window, studying the world outside with a mixture of curiosity and respect. We are seated in the back of a large 4 x 4 that crawls forward across this seemingly lifeless desert on a rough track that is o