Nina Yves-Cameron is a downhill racer from Fort William, Scotland. At 18 years-old, she has a number of UK podiums to her name and has already competed in the British Cycling Dirt Crit Races, the Highland Hardline series, Scottish and UK National downhill series, as well as well as making her debut in a number of rounds at the UCI World Series last year. Earlier this year, Nina starred alongside fellow downhill rider Katy Curd in a TV ad for highstreet bank Lloyds, riding alongside the iconic black horses that the brand is synonymous with.

During this year’s UCI Downhill World Championships, Beth Chalmers caught up with Nina to chat about the place where she learned to ride, how growing up in the Highlands has shaped her as a rider, and her final year of racing as a Junior before moving into Elites.

Where did it all begin for you with bikes?

I started biking in my home town, Fort William, in my back garden on a wee balance bike that my parents gave me at the age of three.

When I was around the age of six, I joined an after-school bike club run by parents from my primary school. Then a year or so later I joined the local bike club, the West Highland Wheelers, and started attending the kids club on a Saturday morning. From there, I gradually gained more confidence and skill. With thanks to some local legends who coached at the club, Steve Bradley and Alastair Maclennan, I was encouraged to start racing.

How have you been preparing for this year’s race season?

Lots of bike time over the off-season. I have been doing lots of physical training in the gym and our local Cross Fit gym with my trainer Rico Martin. I have also done a lot of mental preparation for a more positive mindset towards racing with Ciaran King at Peakin High Performance which has helped so much with my pre-race nerves and doubts and learning how to handle them positively.

You must have ridden the downhill track at Nevis Range so many times. Can you remember how it felt to do it for the first time?

Beyond excited and very scared on my little green Specialized Stumpjumper. Still can’t believe I rode it on that bike…

What’s the community like with the other racers? Do you have a laugh or is it strictly business?

The downhill community is awesome. Races are always good fun. Yes, there is the serious bit where you get in the zone during the warm-up and focus on the run, but we share thoughts, help with lines, support each other, and always have a bit of a laugh. This has been the same wherever I’ve ridden or raced.

It’s your last season racing as a junior. How are you feeling about racing Elites next year? What will change?

This season I’m feeling excited and nervous because I’d like to do well. Next year will be a huge step up into a much harder and very talented field of elite women. I am planning on training and riding a whole lot more during the next off-season to try and be able to race as best I can at elite level next year.

Tell us about your laps of the race track over the World Champs weekend? How have you found the track?

The track was so much fun! I really enjoyed how fast it now is. It’s a lot easier in terms of technical sections but the jumps are a lot bigger compared to what they were.

What’s the atmosphere like at Nevis Range? Does race day on home turf have a different feel?

Racing world champs literally on my doorstep is amazing and having friends and family there watching me is so nice. The atmosphere is buzzing and makes it all feel a bit surreal compared to other world cups I’ve raced.

What’s next for you?

I have three more world cups in Europe and a national race in the UK, but as my last World Champs as a junior, I am celebrating with family and friends on my two weeks off until I head out to Europe again!

For most outdoor folk, Ellis Brigham is something of a household name. At the very least, most of us will have bought a much-loved bit of kit, an outdoor wardrobe essential or a trusty guidebook from one of their shops or online. The company has a long-standing history of serving the outdoor community, and this year, they’re celebrating 90 years of being a key part of it with their inaugural Explore Weekend event.

The event is set to be a jam-packed celebration of all things outdoors, with activities including hiking, running, climbing and swimming as well as an inspiring line-up of speakers and a family-friendly, festival vibe. But with so much to celebrate, we wanted to dig a bit deeper, to find out how it all began, where it’s all going, and how exactly you go about planning a birthday party for an outdoor store that’s been around since 1933?

We caught up with marketing director Mark Brigham to find out.

Can you give us a little bit of an insight into your position within Ellis Brigham, and why it is that you do what you do?

Well, it’s always been a family business – I started out working on the shop floor and driving vans, and now have the position of Marketing Director which I really love as every day is different.  Everyone at Ellis Brigham is really friendly and supportive and we are all united by a shared interest in the outdoors.

The company was established in 1933 by my grandfather, who was an avid outdoor fan really. He was mainly into bikes but was also quite an entrepreneur. He saw an opportunity to make things a lot better for people who were in the outdoors, so he set up the business. His background was in footwear, repairing and selling shoes, and the company grew from there, from really quite humble roots in North Manchester.

The aim has always been to make people’s outdoor experiences better by giving the best advice and stocking the best gear for adventure. That was the ethos back in the 30s and 40s and it still holds true today. So, my role is to facilitate that, to assist people in finding the right gear by finding their way to us. 

During the time that you’ve been working within the industry, what sort of changes have you seen?

Being a family member, I’ve been around the business all of my life, but I’ve worked here for 20 years now.

We’ve always put an emphasis on customer service and prioritised that element. We still believe that our physical stores are a really important part of what we do, connecting with the staff in stores who have their own personal experiences of being outdoors is a really important part of it. Going back 20 years, online wasn’t anywhere near as big as it is now, so I think one of the main things that has changed has been trying to make that experience move into online and across different platforms – it’s something I think a lot of retailers are still struggling to get right. We’ve not quite cracked that nut yet, but we’re working towards it.

With her sights firmly set on the 14 Peaks speed title, Kristin Harila embarked on her latest attempt on the world’s highest summits as part of her She Moves Mountains project earlier this year.

Originally from issue 10 of BASE magazine, I chatted to Kristin just days before she headed to the Himalayas, talking women in high altitude mountaineering, role models, and the importance of reliable kit when taking on the world’s most extreme conditions. 

A former professional skier from Norway, Osprey ambassador Kristin Harila climbed her first ‘8,000-er’ at 35. The ascent served as something of a revelation as she unintentionally set a record for the fastest traverse of Everest-Lhotse by a woman. Just 12 months later, she was back on the same mountains, making headlines as she broke multiple records, this time in hot pursuit of Nirmal ‘Nims’ Purja’s six-month 14 Peaks speed title.

The gender imbalance in high altitude mountaineering is still pretty big, and of course there are complex cultural and historical factors which are a large part of that. How do we go about closing the gap?

I think history is definitely a part of it. It’s always been about men on these expeditions. The first ascents are by men, and the films and the books have been about men. But we are seeing more and more women out there. We’re seeing more and more mothers also being out in the big mountains, and that’s also nice because it has been seen as acceptable for fathers to go in the past, but not for mothers.

I think if you’re going to change it, there’s two important things. One is that we need role models to show younger people, younger girls, that it is possible for them to do it too. And I think we need to make sure that women get equal opportunities when it comes to sponsorship.

Do you think it’s harder for women to get sponsorship? 

Yeah, for sure. For some reason some companies feel that we have a lower value. I’m not sure why, it’s probably historical. In Norway for example, we say that we are equal, but the biggest sports brands support mostly men. We need to start by giving female athletes the same amount of funding that we give the men. 

Ice and mixed climbing are having a moment right now. Participation in these activities and the media’s appetite for arguably the gnarliest forms of climbing is at an all-time high. Arguably one of the most preeminent alpinists of our time, champion ice climber Ines Papert knows a few things about climbing the cold stuff.

Born in Germany, Ines discovered her love for the mountains after moving to Bavaria at 19. Three years later, Ines climbed Watzmann, her first significant peak and the third highest mountain in Germany. Ten years after that, she won the Ice Climbing World Cup, and has won it three more times since then. With a first ascent of Likhu Chuli (6719m) in Nepal to her name, becoming the first woman to climb the mixed climbing grade M13, and both repeating and opening some of the most difficult routes in the world, including the first female ascent of The Hurting XI 11, one of Scotland’s most testing winter climbs.

Put simply, ice climbing is the act of ascending frozen water formations and features, but when you get into the specifics, it’s far more complicated and nuanced. Think tackling terrain including frozen-over rock faces, icefalls and free-hanging, vertical ice stalactites using axes and front-point crampons. There are weather systems to consider, avalanche risk, crevasses, freeze and thaw cycles and of course, the fact that natural ice is becoming scarcer and indeed more fragile as the world grows warmer.

Then there’s the equipment needed for ice climbing; ice screws are placed to protect the climber from a fall, but more typical climbing gear such as hexes and wires might also be required for mixed routes that cover rock and frozen turf too. Ice and mixed climbing have separate grade systems to get your head around, oh, and then there’s dry-tooling.

So, how has ice climbing changed since Ines’ career first began on the newly-formed competition circuit, 20 years ago? I caught up with this rock, ice and mixed climbing master on a rare rest day, whilst she and climbing partner Sarah Hueniken lay in wait for a weather window to progress on their latest project, opening up a new line at Helmcken Falls, Canada.

First of all, since the beginning of your climbing career, has climbing changed and how?

Yes of course, a lot. I’m really, really grateful that I was part of the earlier generations in a fresh, new kind of mixed climbing that we experienced back in the day. With the new shape of the tools, and when ice climbing became more than just a training sport for alpine missions and people started creating goals on steep ice and mixed lines around the late 1990s or early 2000s. We still had so much to explore, we still had lots of new routes to claim, which gets less and less since there’s more and more people doing it, which is great. But it felt like everything was kind-of fresh and new then.

And nowadays there is that kind-of social media mentality, it’s easy for young people to get the feeling that they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. The fear of missing out is something I can see in my son’s generation a lot. I encourage younger people sometimes to just switch off from social media for some time and to focus on what they’re doing. On one hand, you can crazy good information on social media, but you also can easily get lost. I get the feeling: Oh, what am I doing here? I am at the wrong place. It’s too warm here. I should be somewhere else right now because the conditions are good. And having patience, waiting for right conditions is a part of climbing.

I guess partly thanks to its presence on social media, climbing in all its disciplines is more popular than ever these days. How do you feel about that?

I’m really happy that climbing became so popular in the past 20 years and that people love to explore the mountains, not just gyms. Inspiring people is a big part of my career and what I’m doing, I really like to inspire people and I enjoy seeing more and more people out there, even though I’m more the person that would prefer to go to places where it’s less crowded! There’s so much space in our environment that there’s enough for everyone.

Yes, there’s so much to learn about, and the list keeps on going on and on. Do you still feel as though you are learning even now?

Oh, yes, I do still learn every time I go out. I promise.

And the days I get to go climbing are getting less and less, which I guess has to do with global warming and the ice. We don’t often have the days to get out and climb ice any more, which I think for current generations makes it harder to get into it. You have to be flexible, and you often walk away without doing anything. That’s something we all have to learn now.

And of course making mistakes is a part of the learning process too. Has there ever been an occasion where you’ve made a mistake whilst climbing? And what did you learn from the mistake?

Oh, I think I made many mistakes in my career! Because I have always been learning by doing, I hardly had any mentors that showed me how to do things.

With ice I don’t really remember having any big failures, but on rock I did. That was my earlier life when I thought I had to take every single chance to claim a big mountain face, you know. I was so driven and super motivated and didn’t look into the weather during the rush. I ripped a huge flake off the mountain face and I fell and hurt myself really badly and my partner almost got killed. We were so lucky we didn’t die, and this story told me: Okay, often less is more. Choosing the objectives at the right moment, taking your time, preparing and finding the right window to do big objectives, that taught me a lot. So I got quieter I got more responsible towards myself and my partner after that.

So you’re currently making a film at Helmcken Falls about a new route there, is telling the stories of your climbing experiences particularly important to you?

The route we chose wasn’t actually chosen to create a film about, but the idea of filming it came up later on in that period. I would never climb a route just for a film, I would make the same decisions whether we film or not. But yeah, it’s just to give other people the chance to be part of it, that’s the motivation I guess.

An element that is very inspiring for me, is that it’s an all-woman team that you are a part of too with this particular route. Does that have significance in the film?

Doing it with another female climber, that’s pretty rare. I don’t know many on the planet that would love to do adventures like that, but Sarah is a pretty sweet and strong woman. She sometimes struggles with fears and she always says: Oh, you’ve never you’re never scared. But I am, honestly. I do watch the mountain and I ask myself what is the obvious risk? And is this just my kind of girlish, Oh, I’m scared thing? I try to push her a little bit and she gives me a good feeling that what I’m doing is right. So we are pretty good team and have lots of fun.

Do you think that the public attitude towards motherhood in activities that might be perceived as risky has changed to a more positive one, because of other athletes sharing that journey?

I never had bad experiences, but I’m also the kind of person that would never listen to what other people think anyway. Back then I didn’t have the chance to share it in the way female athletes are doing it today and I really love to see that, and the way it helps other women get rid of those fears. Seeing other athletes having babies and sharing their experiences with them and other women, yeah, it’s very positive.

Obviously, the overall opinion becomes more open when we talk about women having kids and climbing at the same time. People will always say they think it’s right or wrong because of course, we take a risk here and there. But we’re not stupid, we do think a lot about it. I think that when you’re a mom, you think even more about risk. Climbing was always part of my life, I couldn’t just run away and pretend I was happy without doing it.

Most people’s summer holidays don’t involve skiing hundreds of kilometres over a frozen fjord in the Arctic Circle, but adventurers Sarah McNair-Landry and Erik Boomer are not most people. On a romantic getaway with a difference, the duo set off on a bold, multi-sport 45-day expedition through the remote landscape of Baffin Island in Canada, in search of stunning cliffs to climb and unexplored rivers to white-water kayak.

With the Arctic Ocean and a team of dogs in her backyard, growing up, Sarah McNair-Landry called the wild and remote landscapes of Baffin Island home. Learning the skills of surviving in the cold at a young age, she soon started to venture on longer overnight trips. When she turned 18, she joined an unsupported expedition to the South Pole, and a year later she dog sledded to the North Pole, becoming the youngest person to reach both poles. 

Since then she has traversed the Greenland Ice Cap five times, completed a two-month long dog sledding expedition to Ellesmere Island and has returned to both North and South Pole as a guide. Always seeking new adventures, she headed to the Gobi Desert in Mongolia, along with her brother Eric to complete the first non-vehicle supported kite-buggy crossing of the desert, and since has spent a month traveling with a friend and four camels through the Eastern Sahara in Egypt. 

When did you first become interested in the idea of large-scale expeditions like The Last Overland, for example? Were you adventurous from a young age, or was it something that came about later in life?

It was at university, I think. I grew up in Manchester and didn’t travel very much. Even though I sort-of fell in love with tales of great expeditions from the past and I grew up watching people like Michael Wood, Dan Snow, Simon Reeve and Ben Fogle on the TV, I never really thought that I would be able to do that kind of thing.

What’s the jumping off point for your planning process? Where do you begin when you’re planning something on the scale of The Last Overland?

With good people. You know, I’m good at some things – I think I’m good at finding a story, I’m good at fundraising. But for a large-scale logistical challenge like The Last Overland, I immediately partnered up with an old friend of mine who had run a travel company, Marcus. He’s not only a dear friend, but also a pedant. Somebody who was passionate about the detail, from fuel consumption, to mileage, to insurance to permits, without Marcus taking that burden and responsibility with a seasoned head and moving people safely in difficult environments, it would never have happened as smoothly as it did. In terms of the filmmaking side, I’m a producer, I know my way around a film set, but you’ve got to bring in professionals, and I had my friends Leo and David who came to run that side of things.

Particularly on an expedition, you’re going to live with these people day in day out; eat three meals a day with them, bunk down with them, wake up with them, get ill, get grumpy, get tired. So you’ve got to be good mates before you go. That being said, sometimes on an expedition, you can’t choose. Sometimes you end up with people and you’ve got to just learn to get on with them. So yeah, people. You can do anything with the right team around you.

What are the other essential characteristics of explorers for a successful expedition?

I’d say the ability to be flexible and realise that your plan rarely will survive contact with reality. When things do change, you have to keep a sense of positivity and enthusiasm, and I guess a commitment or a focus on the end goal. Which is why I think when it comes back to the beginning, it’s about that compelling story for me, story is king. So, everybody who joins this trip has to understand why they’re doing it and what the goal is, and why when it gets really hard or everything feels like it’s lost, they just keep going. A compelling mission is really important.

‘No longer can we assume the earth’s resources are limitless; that there are ranges of unclimbed peaks extending endlessly beyond the horizon. Mountains are finite, and despite their massive appearance, they are fragile.’

—Tom Frost and Yvon Chouinard, from the 1972 Chouinard Equipment catalogue

You grew up in the lakes and now you’re based in North Wales. In both of those places, you must be noticing that they’re becoming a lot busier, and that there’s a lot more people wanting to get outside, not only for climbing. It’s a really positive thing for people’s mental and physical health, but there’s also quite an obvious impact on the wild spaces within those areas. How do you think we can balance those two things?

I think because of Covid, a lot more people started to get outside to maybe go for walks or just to go to a scenic spot or to go wild swimming, and sadly things get left behind. Again, the BMC do a lot of work in organising clean-ups nationally, you have the Hills2Oceans campaign and within that you get people who love the outdoors going and doing litter picks, but really the education needs to be there in the first place to advise people of what is and isn’t ok.

I think a lot of it comes down to each local council to lessen the impact of those increased numbers of visitors. For example there is a little Park and Ride system here for the Llanberis Pass – better public transport to these places lessens the impact of vehicles on the areas. Maybe there’s some some sort of role to be made, to educate and raise awareness and encourage a bit more responsibility amongst people. I don’t 100% know what the solution is to that, like, do you have a sign at the foot of the mountains telling people to take their litter home? Should there be more fines in place for littering?

I think it’s great that more people do want to be outside. It’s really important for people’s mental health and well-being to actually get some exercise and be outdoors and enjoy it. But at the same time, there does need to be education. To look after these places and not just take them for granted, because if we can’t even do the basic, simple stuff like taking home our own banana skin, how are we supposed to start making changes that impact the much bigger issues at hand like climate change?

So how did this challenge come about and how does it fit into mental health?

I had this idea back in 2021 that I wanted to Everest in all 26 municipalities of Portugal and create a six month tourism piece in the process. Unfortunately, the plan fell through. By then though, I was pretty locked in on the idea of completing multiple Everests and so did some maths. I worked out that 52 Everests would give me 460,000m and then rounded up…to 1 million!

I’ve suffered from depression and mental health disorders my whole life and now being in the fortunate position to ride a bike full time, I made it my mission to do it for a larger cause. Cycling has helped me so much and so I want to give back and help those who suffer. The idea of raising €1 for every meter climbed seemed like a good but very ambitious goal and so I set my sights on trying to achieve it.

What is it about elevation that is so significant in cycling – why measure this challenge in metres climbed rather than distance travelled?

We always measure everything in distance, yet we forget the significance of elevation. The part of these challenges that I enjoy is in looking to do something that hasn’t been done before and that pushes the envelope of what’s possible, both in an attempt to push myself and grow as an athlete, but to inspire others. I’ve always loved climbing and so thought I’d spend a whole year doing it!

And you’re looking to get as many people physically involved as possible – what’s the thinking there?

Yeah, like I say, I want to inspire people and want my story to be heard. The more people that get involved, the bigger the story becomes and the more people that are positively impacted. Fundraising is hard, especially as a one-man band, cycling 30+ hours a week. Having the support of others is huge and if we can raise more funds to help others, then I consider my job as an athlete a success. I genuinely want to make a difference and it takes a team to do that.

How can people follow along and get involved themselves?

Jump across and follow the adventure on instagram (@jackultracyclist) or make a donation at jackultracyclist.com – I hope to ride with you guys somewhere, someday soon.

So, Lexicon, tell me about that. 

I certainly couldn’t have predicted the amount of interest in the route so quickly after completing it, that’s for sure. I knew Steve McClure was super keen to get straight on it after but I absolutely didn’t foresee the likes of Dave MacLeod, Neil Mawson, Craig Matheson, and Franco Cookson paying such interest. 

Reflecting back, I wonder if the post-Olympic hangover played its part? Indoor climbing being as popular as it is and its relationship with Generation Z, I think outdoor climbers wanted to rise up and be counted riding the post-lockdown zeitgeist. I heard people talking about indoor climbing – how it’s all well and good but when is the channel going to change? I did feel like the tide was being held back somewhat, everyone was waiting for the Olympics which didn’t go entirely to plan, then there was a bit of clamour surrounding the format with people saying it was an anticlimax. Then suddenly boom, there was this new hard, and dare I say cutting-edge trad route on Pavey Ark – so for me it felt like a personal antidote to the boom of indoor climbing and recent global affairs. 

On the surface it seems the Lake District is all climbed out. Would you agree with this?

You have to cut between the hearsay and what you see with your own eyes. For me it was about going out and seeing for myself. Sure enough, I’ve heard soundbites singing the narrative that all the obvious lines have been done and what’s left are just fillers – contrived gaps between already established routes or totally blank protection devoid death walls. The truth I think is somewhere in the middle. 

If we use Lexicon as an example, it is the super direttissima on the crag, but it shares some climbing with another route in the middle section. Is that to say it’s not worth doing? The likes of Dave Macleod and Steve McClure certainly didn’t think so. 

Another example would be If 6 was 9 at Iron Crag, realising the original route only goes two thirds of the way up the crag with a huge headwall which hadn’t been climbed was a ludicrously obvious feature to me. I agree it was still a new finish to another route but with that came significant amounts of additional climbing. It goes without saying that everyone is going to have their own opinions on whether they think something new like Lexicon or Final Score is worth climbing, but if you look at every other popular crag in the UK like Malham or Raven Tor for example, routes are getting extended all the time. 

There has been a bit of resistance regarding some of the new routing I have done. A feeling of indignation and this perception that I’m the first person to do what I have done, which to me is just utter nonsense. It’s always the case that the obvious lines of weakness get climbed first with things evolving afterwards with harder starts or the more direct lines. I think this is the somewhere-in-the -middle I referred to earlier, not super independent lines or features but more direct lines to already well established routes. 

Despite that, I convinced myself that you wouldn’t actually hit the deck, even if you fell the entire 90ft of the crag. I had done the usual bag fall tests, measured the distance etc and I genuinely felt confident with the aforementioned conviction. Steve McClure however was not convinced. When I first took him to take a look, he immediately looked at the slope at the bottom of the route. I wasn’t sure why he was looking at this at first, he explained after that he genuinely thought you might deck if you come off higher up. I realised that in fact I knew this all along but had shut this proposition from my mind in order to justify going for the send.

Subsequently having belayed Steve on it and seeing him come so close to decking after a monster fall with two moves still to go. I know now that a ground fall could well be likely unless you get your belay system exactly right and have a lot of luck on your side. 

Reflecting more critically on my climbing now, compared to the Indian Face era. Back then I would climb any type of route regardless of whether they were chop routes or not – the risk factor was almost certainly higher back then. But these recent trad routes are much more like hard trad-sport hybrids. If you ask Steve McClure the same question he’ll tell you that being a dad, he’s not wanting to climb things like Meshuga or Indian Face. He is much more interested in routes that effectively enable him to fuse his sport climbing ability with trad; and to be honest that’s the way I see Final Score and Lexicon – not safe but spicy, the gear might rip but you shouldn’t deck. I feel now I’m a more calculated climber building in a much higher safety threshold, whilst simultaneously drawing on 25 years of experience. 

In 1993 your girlfriend Rachel Farmer died unexpectedly and in 1995 you climbed the Indian Face. I’m curious to learn if there is a correlation to the dramatic change here, given your trad climbing experience prior to this was way below the grade of Indian Face?

You are absolutely right to draw this distinction. Losing Rachel and the whole experience derailed me like nothing I’d experienced before or since – I was so lost after that. I was 21 and living in Sheffield immersed in the sport climbing obsessed scene, a scene which was very much my entire world. I’ve subsequently learned that the body can become traumatised by emotional injury, we don’t always notice the true effects. 

So tell us about the project – what inspired this challenge in the first place?

I just love pain and no sleep! [laughs]. No, my Sea To Summit Extreme journey started in 2017. I had just had major surgery and been diagnosed with cervical cancer. I decided there and then that I wanted to do something crazy that would give me a goal to focus on and help me recover. I didn’t want it to be something that had ever been done before. I wanted it to be something that would hopefully help build a platform that I could use to promote awareness and encourage people to talk about menstrual health.

This UK challenge, which consisted of swimming the 3 longest lakes in Wales, England and Scotland, running the 3 peaks and cycling in between, was supposed to be my second challenge in 2020, but unfortunately Covid put a stop to that. I completed it in just 4 days, 7 hours and 58minutes. Yes…the minutes are important!

Reaching the summit of the world’s third highest mountain is no mean feat for some of the most hard-core mountaineers, but for British explorer, Rupert Jones-Warner, the top of Kanchenjunga was only the beginning of 695-mile Himalayan expedition. 

Rupert is no stranger to grand expeditions and several fortunate (and unfortunate) factors led to this adventure. Like many people the pandemic interrupted Rupert’s plans – only his plans were to complete a double ascent of Everest. Incidentally, COVID led Rupert to a new passion, trail running. Then, when he met author and Fastest Known Time (FKT) runner Lizzy Hawker during the Ultra Tour Monte Rosa, he was inspired to combine his two passions and set his own FKT on a unique Himalayan expedition.  

Over an 8-week period Rupert set out to complete a 695-mile journey, which incorporated a range of disciplines including high-altitude mountaineering, trekking and ultra-running through some of the most beautiful and demanding environments on the planet. The expedition was set up into three phases: The first phase was the ascent of Kanchenjunga. Phase 2 was the massive journey on foot from the summit, back to basecamp, through the Himalayas and then on to Everest basecamp. The final phase (Phase 3) was the journey from Everest and back to Kathmandu. 

I caught up with Rupert to hear more about this mammoth expedition, which took him through freezing temperatures in the ‘death zone’ and extreme heat where he faced monkeys, snakes, leeches, giant insects, dehydration, rope bridges and dangerous river crossings.

Let’s start at the end, you aimed to complete the expedition in 8 weeks, how long did it take in reality? 

The expedition from the summit took 518hours, 53 minutes and 43 seconds (approximately 3 weeks) but the whole expedition, including the initial climb, took almost two months. According to my GPS watch, I clocked 1,119km (695miles), with 31,117m of ascent and 35,145m descent. That’s the equivalent of walking from London to Edinburgh and back and climbing the Shard 100 times! 

This expedition felt unlike any other I had experienced before. You’re normally almost done when you reach the summit of a mountain, but when we made it to the peak of Kanchenjunga, I knew, the greatest challenges still lay ahead. How long the next phase would take was completely unknown to me at this point.

I was expecting to move a lot faster once I left the mountain behind. The route I had originally planned on Fatmap would have been roughly 330 miles, I thought I could do this in little over a week, but with some last-minute local knowledge I had to change my route.

I was hoping to get over a high pass near Everest which would have made the route a lot shorter, but it was impassable without mountaineering gear. This meant I was forced to rewrite my route and instead I headed south, navigating off my map. Fortunately, I was told this the day before I made my journey to Kanchenjunga! When I finally stumbled into Kathmandu my watch said I had travelled double what I had originally planned!

Aysha Sharif is one of the inspiring individuals part of The Wanderlust Women, a grassroots organisation and movement working to create a safe space for Muslim women to access the outdoors and adventure. The group, founded by Amira Patel, is on a mission to normalise Muslim women in the space, empowering thousands to throw on hiking boots, stomp the soil, and access the magic of the outdoors.

For over 10 years Hannah Bailey, has worked tirelessly to authentically represent and shine a spotlight on women in outdoors and action sports. Her mission as a photographer and journalist has been to challenge the media, and industry to support inspiring stories, events and women in the scene, to encourage more participation and representation. Her latest project, Wandering Workshops, is a grassroots community organisation that aims to make splitboarding accessible to more people, welcoming new perspectives into the snow space.

Hannah recently caught up with Aysha, to understand the cultural and societal barriers her community faces, and to gain her perspective on their path so far.

It is really exciting to have this chance to chat with you Aysha, to learn about your story and that of the Wanderlust Women. Can you tell me your outdoor story and how it came to be part of your life?

I’ve always loved the outdoors since I was little as my dad was outdoorsy. So we grew up with all these stories of him out in the mountains, trekking and solo camping. As a South Asian woman these activities and the outdoors weren’t accessible to us at that time. It wasn’t a landscape we were able to access because our mums weren’t doing it. It’s not that they didn’t want to, but they‘d come from a different country, they didn’t speak the language, and they were raising young families so they never had the opportunity to do anything else.

When we were little my dad would take us up Pendle Hill in Lancashire. For me, it felt like I belonged there. As I grew up and went to university, it just wasn’t the culture amongst my friends. Then I had a difficult marriage and now I have a difficult divorce. I started pushing myself a few years ago, because I just needed to get out. But there was no one in my circle who could help me access the outdoors. I know it sounds like a silly thing to say, ‘to access the outdoors’, when it’s just there, but it’s not that easy. You have to drive there, hike this new area, in which you don’t know who you will meet, and what sort of reception you will get. At the beginning I was apprehensive. I used to solo hike, and I remember I met this guy on Snowdon who was with his family, and I stopped where everyone else had to take a breath. He turned around to me and he asked ‘do you think you can make it?’ Was he asking because I was a woman, because I am brown, because I am covered? Which part of me makes you think that I’m not going to make it, but everyone else is? It became a competition and I beat him to the top.

Then, a woman with her older children on a family day out asked if I was there by myself. For me it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, but obviously you didn’t see many brown people up hills in the images used in media or marketing. There was hardly any representation even just 18 months ago. But we were there before!

So after solo hiking, how was it you came across Amira and the Wanderlust Women way?

Well, I moved up to the Lake District about 18 months ago and met Amira on her first retreat in June last year. We clicked, it was love at first sight and she lived with me for a while. When I moved here as a single mum with my three girls, my family kept asking when I was coming home. But here is where I feel I belong, where I feel safe. It’s the first place I’ve ever felt home. I think it is the same with Amira. She went out to the hills to seek solace, and grieve through her personal problems and she found peace there. The type of characters we are, myself, Amira and The Wanderlust women, we want to share that with everybody. 

I understand what you mean about finding peace in the hills, and wanting to share that. What has it been like to open that out to more women to gain the benefits of the outdoors and understanding of its magic powers?

Last year when I was on her retreat, there were so many divorcees and single mums on it. As a woman from South Asian culture, it is hard to go through that, for example you can feel isolated as a divorcee as there is just not that support network. As we were all going through these things, we found an anchor in faith and part of our spirituality is the connection to nature and God. So when you are out there, on the mountain and you see everything that is created, without your help, and realise that life has been sustained, how can you not be empowered to sustain your life.

I remember this one young woman on the retreat that first year who was a single mum with two small daughters. She started hiking but was finding it difficult to get childcare. People around her couldn’t understand why she needed to go hiking, they would say why not just go to the cinema or go shopping. But those activities don’t fill your heart with peace! She persevered and now she is doing solo hikes all over the place. That one woman was empowered after just that one weekend, and in the future her daughters will be empowered.

I think for me and Amira it’s that ripple effect. It’s not just about taking women on hikes – it’s about sharing it and making it as easy for people as possible to join us in the outdoors. We have all been through dark times and we knew how bad they were. So if we can help one or two get out of that, it’ll all be worth it.

Gender disparities still exist in many aspects of life, and sports, the outdoors and adventure is no different. Pregnancy and motherhood are areas within our community often overlooked or misrepresented. But, thanks to a growing number of women publicly sharing their journeys, we are seeing those misconceptions slowly dismantled. Albeit one step at a time.

One of those women is Olympic climber Shauna Coxsey. In an exclusive conversation with BASE, Shauna shares her insight and experiences of remaining active and adventurous during pregnancy.

In 1988, Alison Hargreaves climbed the Eiger Nordwand whilst six months pregnant with her first child, an ascent that Hargreaves considered to be relatively conservative. In that pre-social media era, and owing to her relative obscurity within the mountaineering community at that time, no one raised an eyebrow. Fast-forward to May of 1995, and Hargreaves was thrust into the international spotlight when she became the first woman in history to summit Everest, doing so alone and without bottled oxygen. She received high praise, her tenacity and strength applauded.

In a radio transmission from the summit, Hargreaves said – ‘To Tom and Kate, my dear children, I am on the highest point of the world, and I love you dearly’.

Later that year, Hargreaves tragically perished whilst descending K2 after being caught in a fierce and unprecedented storm on the mountain. The media backlash that followed her death was one of judgement and criticism – suddenly Hargreaves was considered selfish, lambasted for leaving her children to put herself in harm’s way.

Where does your passion for endurance come from?

And how did you find your way into coaching?

Who are some of the athletes you’ve been training with in recent years?

What do people take from endurance sports that they might not from regular sport?

What are the big challenges faced by your athletes and also you as their coach? 

Can you tell us a bit about how you started mountain biking and formed a passion for it?

Growing up, I was immersed in bike riding culture. My dad was heavily involved in organising races in South Wales. I tagged along, and was always around the scene as a child. And then I transitioned into riding. When I got older, and could travel around, the mountain bike world was a great place for me, and an exciting scene to be in, full of great people and it was a good challenge. 

It was a gradual transition into the competitive scene. With my dad being part of the race scene the way he was, I was very lucky – I went from local races, where I was riding for fun, and just gradually made my way onto the international scene. It was never a huge jump, and all of a sudden I was on the World Cup stage as a Junior! Back then, 10 years ago, there weren’t as many women racing. My first year out of school, I decided to give it a go and race full-time, putting everything into it. That led to me continuing for six years on the World Cup circuit. 

As you have progressed, where has your motivation with riding shifted to?

Before the end of my racing career, I decided I wanted to go back to university. I’d always thought I would do that but it had been put on the back-burner while I was racing. I had some big injuries and felt like I’d put everything I had into my racing career. So once I started feeling like I was done with the race circuit, it was time to step away. 

When I stepped away from the race scene I was just riding for fun, riding for me and enjoying bigger adventures, heading out and getting lost for the day. I have played in lots of different areas of mountain biking since then, but really enjoying the adventures I can have on a bike and taking the time to be outside. When you are racing, everything is about going as fast as you can and improving as much as you can, so, for me, over the last few years, it’s been nice to slow down a little and just enjoy.

Right now, I mix studying for a PHD in Geology part-time with bike riding, which is what I do with my time off. What I am doing in biking is constantly evolving but I like the balance that the mix of study and bikes gives me. They are two completely different perspectives and two completely different worlds. I have also transitioned into the media production-side of mountain biking, managing a few smaller films recently. And this past year I have been delving into a bigger project, looking into how we access spaces on mountain bikes. It is all quite varied! 

Where do you call home and your local trail? And what is it like?

Caerphilly, just outside Cardiff in South Wales is my home. I travelled a lot during my years racing, but here has always been home for me. I can ride in three different directions from my house and be out in the hills for hours. Most of the trails are in the trees, steep and rooty, with lots of turns, which is a common theme in South Wales- winding through the trees! There are quite a variety, which is surprising because we are on the edge of Cardiff – the capital city of Wales. There really is a lot that can be found.

So how did the film idea come about?

I got inspired around this time last year on a bike ride. I was thinking how great it is, getting to explore through riding bikes off-road. Last year, we could go for a ride from the house, do a loop within the local area and just have a great day out. I thought how great it is, but then realised how much of what we ride isn’t official – or isn’t necessarily allowed – and also how inaccessible it is for so many people, who wouldn’t know where to start. 

I got chatting with filmmaker and mountain biker Tommy Wilkinson, who I knew was interested in similar topics. It’s complex, and has taken a while to develop exactly what we want to show with the film, but we want to look at how we access trails in the UK, the benefits MTB can bring, and speak to people with real experience of managing trails, or land. We want to think about what the future for trails might look like, and how that can be achieved. 

As riders, a lot of us aren’t really aware of what goes on behind the scenes, either about the riders building the trails, or the people that manage or own the land and are deciding what to do about it. It has been really interesting to learn about all of this, and to bring it together in one coherent project. 

Do you feel a responsibility to share these messages and awareness to educate others?

Yes, for different reasons. During the past year, there have been real examples of tension between different users, such as walkers and cyclists. It’s important that we raise awareness around what we can do on our side about that; being responsible cyclists and not making a mess, being aware of where we are riding and how we interact with others on the trail. I have benefited so much from the trails in my area and across the UK, so I’d like to create, or add to, some important conversations. I’m sure there will be many different opinions out there, which is why we want to speak with people with real experiences and get a range of views. 

Do you think the mountain bike community is going to be welcoming to this topic?

It’s a hard one. There are definitely riders who are happy with how things are, and want to continue getting away with whatever we can. But there is also the fact that more and more people are taking up mountain biking, and there are more people discovering the outdoors in general. It will come to a point where something needs to change. So I think many will welcome a discussion. Irrespective of whether there will be a definite conclusion – or just offered opinions – it will be interesting!

How did you come to be working with Patagonia?

I started speaking to Patagonia last summer, telling the team about my plans and what I wanted to do in the future. I had just finished my undergraduate degree, and we were just chatting about all sorts of topics that we aligned on. I was invited to a Patagonia Virtual Ambassador summit last summer. We mountain bikers joined in as the newbies. It was cool to meet everyone and get involved. It went from there!

What is it about Patagonia’s values that resonates with you?

I have always respected Patagonia as a brand – the way I think any outdoor enthusiast would. It really seems to be a company that cares, and leads the way in talking about, or acting on, social and environmental issues, as well as producing really high quality outdoor gear. 

I try to make conscious or positive decisions on my impact. It’s not perfect but the intent is there to do better and I think that is very much the same with Patagonia: trying to do better and trying to use its influence where it can.

What do you think it could bring to the MTB scene?

I think Patagonia is really excited about coming into the scene and amplifying the climate and environmental discussion. It’s not talked about a lot in mountain biking, but it is definitely creeping in. 

There is space for a lot more conversation! It will be interesting to see how that goes, and how Patagonia will approach that. 

There are brands in mountain biking starting to make products much more responsibly, and Patagonia will contribute to that in a big way. It leads the way on doing things better in many sports, but now Patagonia will be coming into a scene as the new kid on the block! I think it will be a positive addition, and there is a lot of knowledge Patagonia can bring from years of experience producing technical equipment for other outdoor pursuits.