Do you have a bucket list?

When it comes to adventure, bucket list items tend to involve four flights, a questionable insurance policy, two years of acclimatisation and a not insubstantial amount of discomfort – just so the box can be ticked, the Instagram post published and the story regaled in the pub.

But…it doesn’t have to be this way. 

Why, then, can somewhere less than six hours drive from home plus a smooth ferry crossing qualify as a bucket list destination? 

Partly because we’ve been unfairly conditioned to believe that true adventure requires suffering at altitude or a visa. Partly because Ireland – green, uncannily familiar, nearby – doesn’t trigger the same sudden dopamine response as somewhere that sounds harder to spell. But mostly because places like this are so unshowy, stubbornly themselves and resist the kind of modern tourism that flattens a place into content. You have to slow down to understand it.

Our adventure was a five-day road trip from Bristol to Pembroke (Rosslare looming through drizzle at dawn) to Bantry in West Cork by way of Waterford and a return leg including Cork and Wexford. 

Our main aim: the Sheep’s Head Peninsula in West Cork, veined with the Sheep’s Head Way – an 88 km long-distance trail which follows old tracks and roads around the jutland from Bantry to the headland and back. Mainly followed by hikers, at least half the peninsula is stunning, unsung gravel territory.

We headed south out of Bantry, climbing immediately into the kind of grinding road that rewards patience and gritted teeth. The Sheep’s Head (also of the ancient name Muintir Bháire) is the quietest of Cork’s three great fingers into the Atlantic, 27 kilometres of elevated spine with Bantry Bay to the north and Dunmanus Bay to the south, and the sense at all times that the Atlantic is deciding how much of it to reclaim.

The trails that branch from the main peninsula road range from tarmac lanes so narrow the foxglove-flooded hedgerows close over your head, to rutted bog tracks that require a certain philosophical acceptance of your drivetrain’s feelings. We took both. The gravel surface on the higher ridgelines was loose and unyielding with panoramic views east towards the Mizen and west to the open ocean that made regular gawp stops compulsory. The vegetation up here is all low heather, gorse, bog cotton, liverwort in the wet patches, the occasional stand of wind-bent hawthorn that’s been pointing east for a hundred years.

Lower down, closer to the water, the character changes entirely. We found ourselves bobbing and threading along tracks just above the tide line, past saline pools where grey herons stood, over rough field crossings and aside one seaside meadow that unexpectedly contained a raucous group of alpacas. The sea here smells different to the sea anywhere else – richer, more iodine-heavy. We stopped and swam off a flat shelf of rock above a cove that appeared on no map we had.

There are only so many times you can refresh the news before your brain starts to feel like a tumble dryer full of cutlery.

By the time I arrived in Imlil, in Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains, I’d spent seemingly months marinating in that very contemporary stew of anxiety. A very close friend had died. Work had morphed into an endless carousel of restructuring, aimless urgency and amateur politics. Every spare moment seemed occupied by fresh global catastrophes, market panics, culture wars, actual wars, genocides and whatever fresh instalment of Trumpageddon was dominating the algorithmically curated outrage buffet that day.

So when Hussein, a local mountain bike guide in Imlil, pointed at a map, traced two rough loops into the mountains and said, “These valleys. Just go ride,” it felt less like classic route advice and more like a prescription.

The plan was simple: two days, two valleys, one Scott e-MTB, a bag of snacks, water and no schedule beyond daylight.

April is one of those sweet spots in the High Atlas when the mountains haven’t yet committed themselves to summer. The air carries a cool edge in the morning, while afternoons can be surprisingly warm. Snow still clings to higher ridgelines and shaded gullies. Apple and cherry trees blossom in improbable pockets of green. Water runs everywhere.

I rolled out of Imlil shortly after sunrise. The town has become one of Morocco’s adventure gateways, and you can see the changes happening in real time. Satellite dishes perch on traditional homes. Mountain guides coordinate bookings and their multiple guiding lives on smartphones. Donkeys still haul supplies up ancient trails while teenagers scroll TikTok in villages that, not that long ago, felt disconnected from the outside world.

The Scott hummed quietly beneath me as the first climb began. Purists can debate e-bikes all they like imho. Standing astride this one in a cold mountain valley with eight hours of riding ahead and a dodgy night’s sleep, I regarded the motor with the same affection sailors reserve for favourable winds.

The further I rode, the quieter everything became. One of the unexpected pleasures of travelling alone is that conversations stop competing with observation and you notice things you wouldn’t usually. The sound of irrigation channels threading through villages, the smell of wood smoke drifting uphill, the scratching of a Barbary ground squirrel on the scree.

There is a particular solitude available in mountains that isn’t loneliness. In fact, it may be the opposite. For hours at a time, I encountered not a soul. Then suddenly a village would appear around a bend, children shouting greetings and small donkey trains passing. Then that luxurious silence returned. Modern life tends to alternate between overstimulation and isolation but the High Atlas somehow manages to avoid both.

By late afternoon I dropped back towards Imlil beneath lengthening shadows. The day’s riding covered some rough traverses, boulders left from the 2023 earthquake, several steep climbs, loose descents and enough technical trail to keep concentration permanently engaged.

If the Imlil Valley feels just about connected to the outside world, the Azzaden Valley definitely feels one step beyond.

The second morning began with another long climb.The route threaded steadily westwards through increasingly open terrain. Villages became less frequent and the slopes grew steeper but the peaks seemed closer.

April’s light painted the valley across in subtle colours. A sun-baked, earth-toned palette of burnt oranges, terracotta, ochre and pale desert yellows, softened by dust, stone and faded clay. Fresh green vegetation lined watercourses lower down. 

Above roughly 2,000 metres, the landscape shifts again into something more austere but the riding, though, was magnificent. E-bikes often get accused of making mountain adventures easier and, yep, sometimes they do. But what they actually do here is make the mountains bigger. Instead of spending the day doing overly detailed route-planning, calculating energy and expenditure, I found myself exploring side valleys, climbing additional ridges and following intriguing trails simply because they existed. The freedom is addictive.

What do you think of when someone says ‘Andalusia?’ Sunburn, sangria and lulling off in a sleepy siesta to the muffled clunk-clang of a distant donkey’s bell?

Maybe it’s time to think again, amigo.

We’re here in the Sierra de Aracena, tempted by the promise of minimal trail traffic, secret routes and rooty lines in an area ripe for reconsideration and refuelling on the very best jamón ibérico.

We’re greeted and guided by snow-hound couple Daisy and Eliott who have transported their Alpine mindsets to the gnarlier lands of the sierra to see what can be achieved by introducing e-MTBs into the equation. A fair bit, it turns out. Harnessing the same spirit that Daisy’s parents used to reimagine and carefully cultivate the farm from destitute ruin post-Franco to a flourishing and nourishing place overflowing in flora and fauna, Daisy and Eliott are applying it to old smuggler routes and mule tracks. Their cheat code? The game-changing possibilities of e-MTB.

This is an area veined by ancient and hidden village-to-village routes. An area where the remote pueblos blancos are connected by timeworn trails often unmarked but now privately and personally logged by Eliott and Daisy, offering soulful riding through Andalusia’s rustic heartland.

Those trails join up with the aforementioned narrow cobbled mule tracks (veredas empedradas), themselves remnants of centuries-old trade routes. The stone-paved paths climb and drop steeply through remote valleys, grippy when dry, slick and probably pretty punishing in the wet. Not that we see any of that in the balmy spring sunshine.

Looping all this together are rolling dips, occasional rock gardens and flowy trails through open woodland (where you can ride all day and barely see another human) and paths into la dehesa.

La dehesa is a human-shaped landscape maintained over centuries, deeply tied to rural Andalusian identity and tradition where we now zip through the patchwork of scattered holm oaks (encinas) and cork oaks (alcornoques). The trees are spaced out to allow light (lots of that round here, you know) through, creating a savannah-like environment perfect for grazing and, now we know, trail visibility.

For the lion’s share of the day, the trails are not too dense and not too steep, just the right kind of fast, snaking single track that lets you keep your momentum. In between stops at waterholes and for refreshments, we reach several rolling ridgeline traverses with open vistas. These long, airy traverses above the valleys give stunning views over the lush and green Sierra Morena foothills with the more exposed, wind-whipped sections and sporadic slabby rock gardens to keep us alert up top.

There are sometimes rocky, more technical descents off some of the ridgelines. These have exposed sections with loose baby heads and embedded bedrock requiring pretty precise line choice and solid braking control. But nothing too drastic as to kill the rhythm we’ve struck.

En route to Daisy’s parents’ new farm, some 40km away across the sierra for lunch, we pick up flowy singletrack through the dehesa oak woodland. These undulating ribbons of dirt wind through ancient holm oak groves, with faster, pumpable terrain under a canopy of twisted trunks, scattering the pigs as we pass. We let our guard down for a wee moment dismounting for a gate and one of the more confident swines steps up to try and bite a chunk out of Eliot’s front tyre. A touch of piggy revenge, perhaps.

Daisy’s family roots in the region mean that the local farming fraternity have granted exclusive access to their land and pastures for our e-MTBs and us. That means pretty much every ride carves a new route or at least a new tweak. Today we cut a swathe across la Coronada which is their friend Antonio’s farm. The name translates as ‘the crowned’ and with Spanish spring in full bloom, the pastures are freckled with yellow wildflowers and dashes of purple.

Natural switchbacks crop up on the ancient caminos reales. Hand-cut by generations past, these trails wind steeply through the cork oak forests with tight, uneven turns and loose loam which is perfect for our agile Moustaches.

Like it or not, winter is well and truly upon us! For some, the temperature drop is a solid sign that it’s time to head inside for indoor climbing or nights in watching Netflix, but for some, those rimed-up rocks and snowy peaks are calling.

Have you got winter climbing aspirations this freezing season? There’s nothing quite like hot aches and head torch approaches to really give you that thrill of adventure (or maybe just Type-2 fun), get you outdoors and making the most of everything UK winter has to offer. It’s a fickle beast, with unpredictable conditions and inconsistent weather patterns, so sometimes you’ve got to act on instinct – when those crisp, bluebird days rock up, you’ve got to grab your axes and go!

So, you’ve got some solid climbing and scrambling skills, a taste for heights and a cool head? We’ve racked up a handful of our favourite UK winter climbs that are totally attainable with a bit of pre-planning, some basic safety precautions and the necessary kit to keep you warm and comfy for a day out in the white stuff. Read on for our top five epic UK winter climbs for first-timers…

LOCATION: SNOWDONIA (ERYRI), NORTH WALES

GRADE: I

ASCENT: 850M

This 3-star ridge is a firm favourite with scramblers in the summer months, and packs a real punch in the winter. This route takes on the east ridge of Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa), to the west of Crib Goch. Following the PYG track until you reach an obvious path leading to the foot of the ridge, you’ll tackle a tricky traverse with plenty of exposure and knife-edge peaks of rock before reaching the summit of Garnedd Ugain. On a clear day, you’ll be treated to stunning views of Llyn Llydaw and Eryri National Park.

The route can be treacherous and icy with steep terrain and large drops, so you need to be well prepared with winter kit (and know how to use it!).

With more than 60% of the country’s landmass belonging to the Eastern Alps, Austria’s stunning network of winding gravel roads, glacial rivers and high passes, could just be the ultimate Alpine destination for the adventure cyclist. To test the theory, gravel aficionado Katherine Moore teams up with Salzburg mensch-in-the-know Max Riese to discover what makes his home city of Salzburg the perfect one-stop-shop for a long weekend in the saddle.

I’d been hearing all about the riding in Salzburg for years after one of my best friends emigrated there, so when the chance arrived to explore it myself, naturally, I jumped at it. Surrounded by mountains and the gateway to the Austrian Alps, it’s become one of the definitive European adventure hubs where a savvy international crowd has flocked. With gravel also really taking off there, I wanted to see what could be possible within a long weekend or a week’s revitalising break.

Hopping on the bike really is the best way to get to know the city. While the baroque plazas are breathtakingly beautiful to ride around, we hauled up the steep cobbled climb on the castle-topped city mountain, Mönchsberg, for the best views. From this vantage point at eye level with the bell towers, copper domes, spires and turrets, you look across the old city and the patchwork of terracotta, slate and metal roofs.

Besides the urban centre, Salzburg feels genuinely relaxed, lush and green. Locals sunbathe and dip next to Almkanal (the mountain water canal), gravel trails line the river and gorgeous estate parks are open to the public. There are plenty more quirky places to visit and where local riders love to hang out, from speciality coffee at Kaffee Alchemie to FUXN’s buzzing beer garden.

Sticking with a theme, my base for the week is Hotel Jakob, a pioneering sports hotel on the edge of Lake Fuschl, just half an hour from Salzburg and also the site for Red Bull HQ. A passionate cyclist and triathlete himself, fifth generation hotelier Jakob Schmidlechner saw the opportunity to create a dedicated offering for cyclists here in the mountains.

Equipped with everything you might need from secure bike storage and hire to sports massage offerings, Jakob and his team have not only created a cyclist’s paradise in this mountainous adventure playground, but also fostered a community of like-minded souls.

And the riding? Well, while you can access plenty of excellent gravel trails directly from the city, the out-and-back can add significant mileage if you’re planning on exploring deeper into the mountains. Thankfully, Salzburg is super well connected with trains that offer regular services and free bike carriage, so you can save your legs for the long Alpine climbs and sublime balcony gravel roads instead. Even my steed is Austrian; a carbon fibre, custom painted 1of1 gravel bike from Mondsee.

A real treat is in store for you after you pass the Vordersee, as you continue onto the supreme tarmac road through the Strubklamm gorge. The road is pure bliss, though you’ll want to stop by the side of the quiet road to take in the magnitude of the sheer rock faces surrounding you.

Forested gravel tracks form the final climb with some testing gradients of up to 15%, though you’re mightily rewarded while descending on tarmac between wildflower meadows back towards the city.

After refuelling, it’s time to relish the incredible descent from 1,350 metres back down to the Lammer Valley, this time taking some sublime tarmac on the toll road, Postalmstrasse. The single carriageway descent twists and turns as you head down through the forest and through more farm pastures, weaving between traditional mountain chalets. You’ll struggle to keep your eyes on the road though, with the spectacular jagged silhouette of both the Tennen Mountains and the Gosaukamm range’s high peak of Bischofsmütze — the Bishop’s Hat — before you.

The annual Arc’teryx Alpine Academy event in Chamonix-Mont-Blanc is attended by hundreds every year. With the effects of climate change on the glaciers, mountains and wild spaces that facilitate these activities and events rapidly and dramatically accelerating in recent years, brands and events organisers have a responsibility, now more than ever, to facilitate change.

BASE writer Hannah Mitchell went along to the event in June this year, taking part in clinics and joining in with the ReBIRD experience in the Alpine Village. Through the ReBIRD program, Arc’teryx aims to educate consumers and event participants, engaging them with more environmentally-friendly practises when it comes to outdoor kit, reframing sustainability to mean more than just a word on a label. Here she discusses how the brand are transitioning towards circularity in production and retail through engagement, transparency and awareness.

My cynicism regarding words like ‘up-cycling’, ‘sustainable’ and ‘green’ when used in a commercial or retail context is widely known among my friends. Not forgetting of course, that catch-all, feel-good prefix, ‘eco’, which is the subject of much of my disdain and a pet cause for eye-rolling. Basically, I’m really fun at parties.

Joking aside (I am actually quite good fun), whilst I do have a healthy wariness of environmental promises that seem too good to be true, I’m a huge cheerleader for the imperfect, the incremental, and for those businesses and brands who hold their hands up and say ‘look, we’re not perfect, but we’re trying to do better’. Let’s be honest, humankind didn’t warm the world up overnight, so we’re not going to solve our climate crisis all that rapidly either. That isn’t to say that we should take our foot off the (renewable energy fuelled) pedal either – the climate crisis is exactly that, a crisis, and we can’t trivialise it.

Back to those words that make me grimace, ‘recyclable’ or ‘recycled’ can get in the bin too. We sort-of know that our recycling systems are broken to a degree, many recyclable materials have been rendered worthless by humankind’s relentless consumption over time. Yet still, when something is branded with that little green arrow sign that suggests some good will come of it eventually, we buy, and we feel vindicated in doing so. It’s making things worse. In relation to outdoor brands, there has been a really evident drive towards producing more sustainable textile options, manufacturing processes, repurposing offcuts previously destined for landfill, and towards garment repair schemes and end-of-life solutions. I do have to ask though, are these ranges, schemes and buzzy, feel-good campaigns just another clever branch of faux-environmentalism, cleverly capitalising on the consciences of well-meaning outdoorspeople who want quality kit for their activity of choice, but genuinely want to lessen their impact too?

Over the long weekend, queues for workshops and sessions at the stand snaked across the square. The ReCARE experience, in partnership with Gore-TEX, offered guidance on how to maintain outdoor gear in order to prolong its lifespan, with advice on washing and waterproofing. A repairs station offered the opportunity for people to drop off their Gore-TEX gear (of any brand) to be repaired for free by experts.

Being in the industry, I’ve seen a few of these pop-up repair shops hosted by various brands at outdoor events recently, and believe them to be commercially, pretty clever, but also an applaudable initiative. Many brands now offer repair schemes, but all too often they include brand-specific caveats, postal charges and fees for repair that in today’s financial climate will quite likely drive consumers to simply replace their damaged garment with a cheaper option – even if they’d really rather do the more planet-friendly thing. It’s sort-of like telling people that eating a healthy diet is better for them, but then pricing them out of the fruit and veg section so that they are forced to buy a processed ready meal. Free, in-person experiences like ReCARE go a long way to engaging consumers with the repair process too, and when we’re engaged, we’re far more likely to absorb the meaning behind the act. It’s not just about patching up jackets and fixing zips, but reducing the 92 million tons of textile waste that ends up in landfill worldwide every year.

Undoubtedly the most popular features of the experience were the ReCUT workshops that took place daily. Led by expert apparel and equipment designers from Arc’teryx, participants were invited to delve into a pile of factory offcuts, end-of-life garments and prototype textile swatches which they would then craft – with the help of the pros – into a bespoke bag, pouch or pencil case. Naturally, an activity like this is going to attract attention, and believe me when I say that I dove into the pile of scraps like an overexcited child! Crafting something out of cut-up waterproofs destined for landfill while chatting to infinitely cooler people than me about designing gear is pretty fun, and again serves that all-important purpose of engaging people with the real reason for doing so. It opens up a dialogue and spotlights a problem that folk might otherwise not know existed. Oh, and I walked away with a very cool bag to boot.

Running rivers before they are dammed has become the perpetual chase of the international whitewater kayaker. But navigating the experience without falling in love with both the river and its surrounding community is tricky, at times traumatic. 

After witnessing the demise of the White Nile to large-scale hydro, followed by a twelve-year hiatus from international kayaking, I finally made the pilgrimage to the Zambezi. Images of this river have captivated me since my early teens. Re-entering this world of whitewater created a surge of passion to pair my experience as a photographer with my experience as a kayaker in order to document such environments as closely as I can. In trying to understand what hangs in the balance for this environment and its culture, I have never felt more hopeful that the local voice is being transmitted. But is it being heard?       

Few rivers make their presence known so distinctly whilst remaining hidden from sight – tucked in a cleft scored into an immense open plain, the mist rises and the drum beats louder than ever. I’m here, and whilst I won’t see the river until tomorrow morning, as the vapour rises above where I know Victoria Falls to be, the anticipation of what the Zambezi holds in store for me builds. The same images I obsessed over as a teenager, along with those very first beats of the drum, now flick through my mind.

I feel the heat on my skin – inhale – I take in the sensation of finally being here. My girlfriend Alex is sitting beside me ‘Africa looks great on you,’ she says with a smile as we roll into Livingstone, Zambia. Whilst I’ve never been here before, I have that strange sensation of content that comes from arriving on familiar grounds. Our driver pulls me out of my reverie, advising us to buy Nyami Nyamis – carved pendants of the serpent river god – before getting on the river. This deity is said to have flooded the river in the 1950s in response to the Kariba dam which separated him from his sweetheart downstream. We’ll take all the help we can get. 

Before we head into the Batoka Gorge, let me take you back some years, beyond the start of the beating drum of the Zambezi, to when this sense of needing to chase rivers took hold. ID2 by Shaun Baker was the first kayak movie I ever bought. It followed an unusual storyline of kayakers running man-made dams and weirs, prophesying of a sport that would fall into folklore after the rivers had all been dammed. It was a sad vision but one that clearly left its mark. As a remedy, I bought a second kayak movie, Wicked Liquid II, which showcased the kayaking elite of the era weaving through huge crashing rapids of the White Nile and Zambezi. Hooked, I set about manifesting a cold (faked is such a strong word) to allow me the next day off school so I could commit the moves and belting tunes to memory. Kayaking these rapids struck me as the perfect ambition… likely more than my careers advisor could cope with. The most chaotic, noisy, thrashing playground imaginable. Perfect.

Sat in the dusty pickup with kayaks overhanging the tailgate, we’re acutely aware of our heightened senses; of everything we see, hear and feel. Both Alex and I have a level of apprehension for different reasons. Alex is a highly capable kayaker with experience of Scottish and Alpine rivers, which run at volumes in the 10-50 cubic metres per second (cumecs) range. The Zambezi weighs in at approximately 500 cumecs for its rafting season. This puts it in the category of ‘big water boating’ and this is a perfect practice ground. Alex knows that in the next few hours, she’ll be getting her first taste of floating over the threshold into rapids that will crash overhead, hurl us over backwards, wrench at our paddles and blast out our sinuses – not necessarily in that order. I can see her picturing it in her mind. Imagine the sensation of queuing for a particularly terrifying roller coaster, then imagine that 21 times in a row. Take away the safety net, forget about the control switch and swap out the manmade rail and electrics with the raw power of nature and gravity behind you. Part of the apprehension in these lulls, as you approach something daunting with so much time to think, is second guessing what your reactions might be; Will I be able to paddle hard enough? Will I freeze up? Will I get a thrashing? Will I be able to roll back up? In big water the answer is ‘time will tell’. I have every confidence in Alex’s ability, and I’m excited to see her build that confidence herself.

Whilst I used to consider such rapids as my natural playground, my apprehension today revolves around questioning if I might have lost something in the interim. I can assuage the fact I’ll be rusty by setting my expectations appropriately and not ‘going too big, too soon’. Having been privileged enough to grow up kayaking and canoeing, ‘home’ to me has always been connected to the closest waterway. Journeying on the water has always felt natural, some of my earliest memories are of fishing off the back of a canoe with my parents. That connection is what I’m afraid I might have misplaced, as my relationship with water has felt somewhat hot and cold in the last decade, as I’ve spent more time looking to the mountains (can’t build dams up there!) and creatively immersing myself as a self-employed adventure photographer. 

Having bought Nyami Nyamis from our porters James and Manyando, we set about a sweaty warm-up before tucking knees into our boats and straining our sprayskirts on. The first splash of warm water as we slide off the rocks reminds us that this is in fact, very much not home. So too does the massive train of waves emerging from Rapid #1, which we need to cross to gain access to the gorge proper. It’s an intimidating first move as the waves pummel straight into a rock wall, causing a lot of messy, reactionary whitewater – exactly where you don’t want to be.

Set to make the move, we hear a blood-curdling scream. We look up to see a bungee-jumping backpacker mid-leap from the Victoria Bridge, followed by a massive bellowing jet-boat, hooning up the rapid. There’s a lot going on here, and whilst there’s a lot to be said for the tourism on offer, at this exact moment in time I’d love it all to bugger off. Alex and I chat about the timing as we watch friends we’ve met from New Zealand and Colorado navigate across the train of waves with varying degrees of success. 

High in the Swiss Alps, this is not somewhere I typically find myself riding a bike. We’re exploring the outer reaches of an out of season ski resort. These tracks are ordinarily the reserve of hikers and – in winter – ski tourers, and right now there’s not another soul up here.

It’s the first time for me setting foot in these mountains, and I’m revelling in this glaciated basin our small group now finds itself in. What perhaps feels like the more significant of firsts for me though, is that this is my first experience on an electric bike. A fat tyred, full suspension, unbelievably capable one at that. There’s no denying the weight of this thing (which I made no delay in learning as I tried to manoeuvre it out of the rental shop in town) but here, where it counts, the fully charged Bosch motor on the down tube, doesn’t flinch.

With a smile stamped firmly across my face, accelerating over exactly the kinds of awkward rocks that would force me off my standard mountain bike, the e-bike feels like it could just be the greatest invention the world has ever seen. The entire mountain resort is ours and I’m having a blast.

You can’t beat a night under the stars. Getting back to basics, escaping the crowds and switching off for some well-earned R&R in a beautiful location has powerful effects on our physical and mental health, and a night or two of wild camping can be a brilliant way to bring the family together too. However, a hectic schedule or busy working week can see you screeching into Friday feeling less than fresh, and certainly not on form for packing and organising an entirely off-grid weekend.

Spring in the mountains is great. Often you can ski in the morning and ride your bike in the afternoon. It’s the perfect time for a creative adventure.

The goal wasn’t to be the first to do anything or to break any record. Ski-to-bike has been done many times before and during some epic, much larger, more ambitious expeditions. The three of us just wanted to share an experience from home – it was just about having fun and getting right back to basics.

First, we’d ride over the Col du Corbier, which takes you into the next valley. Just crossing from one side of the mountain to the other makes so much difference, you feel like you are in a completely different region. On the other side of the pass, we’d then ride down into Abondance, a small village, right on the Swiss border. It’s just over in the next valley but in contrast to Morzine, Abondance is much more rural. The local traditions are still very much alive and the town is renowned for its cheese – perfect for fondue.

Then after staying in a remote hut, we’d ski tour up to Point of Ardens, an 11km climb with 800 metres of elevation gain for epic views of Lake Geneva and the Dents du Midi.

First on the agenda when we woke was a little mission to find a postbox in town to get the key for the refuge. Then we slipped into our ski boots and skinned up to the tiny hidden hut. As you climb up through the trees it’s only in the last few metres that you catch sight of the hut within a small clearing. It’s just about big enough for six people but inside there is everything you need: a little gas stove, fondue pans, and a kettle which you can fill from a small spring outside. There’s also a compost toilet across from the hut, perched on the edge of the mountain – it’s the ultimate loo with a view!  

As soon as we arrived, we unloaded a bunch of gear to lighten our packs and took the chance to head up behind the hut for a quick ski before dark. We followed a route that we had pencilled on the map up through the forest, just below a cliff band that leads up to a small col. 

When we imagine adventure, we often think of something far from home, but in my experience there is something so uniquely special about discovering a new place right around the corner. Exploring locally made it easier to plan something with friends and without the extra complication of something bigger and further away. We didn’t have to factor in time away from work, childcare, or the extra money for travel costs. 

My favourite part of the whole adventure was that we were on our own schedule. We could take our time to pack the bikes, riding, stopping for coffees, to laugh and tell stories. There was no real rush because there was nowhere we really had to be by any fixed time. It was our adventure to play out exactly the way we wanted it to.

The green walls of our tunnel tent glow, light shimmering and flowing in waves, the dawn chorus ebbing, reminding us that time is a wasting. Waking slowly in cocoons of silk, down and nylon there’s delicious sense of lethargy, we’re slow to get moving.

Here, beneath stark basalt mountains on the Isle of Skye, the scent of sun warmed earth and heather flows into the tent. Still in our bags, there’s good natured banter as to who has to leave the comfort of a warm bag to light our stove and get breakfast going.

Descending to the stream, Vreni slides up a sleeve and fishes for the dry bag wedged between boulders and fill the kettle for a brew. Inside, chilled overnight in this makeshift fridge are wild salmon fillets, and hard boiled eggs, cooked the night before. The flesh of the salmon holds a dark pink hue, far removed from the pale colours of their farmed brethren.

Coming across a farm yesterday added the final element of free range eggs to this mornings breakfast. Handing over cash, crumpled in a ball to the farmer who raised the animals gives a far greater sense of human interaction than any chip and pin transaction in a supermarket.

These type of exchanges are still an everyday occurrence in the area from which we gather the elements of our meal. Rice and spices from markets mingle with the colonial addition of fish and eggs transforming the local dish of kichirī into today’s kedgeree.

Back in March, BASE reported that the annual Arc’teryx Climbing Academy would return to Langdale in the Lake District over the 2023 May bank holiday weekend. Offering a packed roster of climbing clinics and workshops led by International School of Mountaineering (ISM) experts, as well as daytime activities at basecamp including yoga and creative drawing workshops; live music, talks and film screenings at night, the event was set to be the biggest yet.

The Climbing Academy aims to offer participants of every ability the opportunity to develop and advance their climbing skills, with clinics covering trad, multi-pitch, bouldering, scrambling and toprope climbing, as well as mountain safety and rescue skills.

BASE writer and rock enthusiast Hannah Mitchell went along to the event, intent on fine-tuning her climbing skills, checking out the latest gear and enjoying a local beer or two. Here she reports on the weekend’s goings-on, and the greater purpose served by the Climbing Academy.

I’ve been climbing around five years now. My ‘outdoor career’ began with a baptism of fire during a Spanish sport climbing trip when a very mellow Canadian climber offered me a belay if I ‘fancied a lead’ on a prominent limestone pinnacle I’d been eyeing up.

Taken aback, I told him I’d never led before. Truth be told, I’d only been climbing a matter of months. Patiently and confidently he explained the process, before guiding me as I nervously made my way up the needle-like formation. In the years since that day, I’ve become a stronger, safer, more competent climber and have myriad skills and knowledge under my belt (or harness). But with climbing – and any instructor worth their salt will attest to this – there is always room for progression.

A space for conversation

From sessions for total beginners hungry to learn the basics, to rescue techniques for competent climbers who need to know how to retreat safely or assist their partner, the clinics on offer at the Arc’teryx Lake District Climbing Academy catered to every level of ability and were led by climbing and mountaineering professionals from the ISM. I mentioned before that I’m a big advocate for refining your skills, so with that in mind, I signed up for the Women’s Fine Tune Your Leading and Rescue Techniques clinics respectively.

I was particularly excited by the women-only offerings at the Academy. Hear me out, because I know there are folk out there who question why these sorts of sessions are still necessary in a sport that has been significantly ‘levelling up’ in terms of women and non-binary participation lately. But with centuries of historical imbalance, imposed gender norms and their aftereffects to unpick, these spaces, – along with those for other marginalised or underrepresented groups and communities – and the empowering, healing conversations they facilitate, will still be needed for many years to come.

The world of cycling events is largely dominated by endurance, competition or challenge. While for some, the thrill of a frantic chase or lung-busting feats of endurance might be the allure of such events, they’re definitely not for everyone!

In the vast and unspoilt region of Ariège in the French Pyrénées, a group of friends dreamed up an idea for a small-scale cycling festival where the focus was on enjoyment, unwinding and meaningful connection with likeminded souls over bikes, local food and a beer or two.

This is the story of Gather, how three women came to be at this festival with a difference, and the ways in which bikes have shaped their lives.

Interviews by Chris Hargreaves and introduction by Mike Tucker, photographs by Tomás Montes and Dan King. 

What is Gather?

Sitting around the table one day, discussing ideas, there was one thing that immediately jumped out at us; many of the events already on the calendar were competition or challenge-based. We are being introduced to more and more ‘ultras’, and the announcement of a new gravel-based event was an almost daily occurrence. Whether you’re entering to win or to simply get around the parcours, there always appeared to be a pressure to achieve associated with these events.

We wanted to create something different; a festival style ‘gathering’ that was community-led and unpretentious; a place where everyone felt welcome and meaningful connections were made. The only pressure found on site would be linked to tyres.

India

‘Recently I spent two months bikepacking around Mexico after a six week stay with a Mayan family, but it was only during the tail end of lockdown restrictions that I first took up cycling. I was working in London as an events director, organising networking opportunities for corporate clients and the bike just offered this sense of freedom that I was craving. Fast-forward two years and I now spend my summers working for an active travel company as a bike tour guide which leaves my winters free for travel. It was during one of these extended periods of riding that I got talking to some people from komoot and learnt all about the Gather Festival. 

‘For me, cycling has been a real catalyst for change – professionally and also in my attitude to how I want to live my life. So when I heard about this event in the south of France, there and then I decided to swing by and join in the fun. 

Weronika

‘For the past four years I’ve been based in Tenerife over the winter. I’m a software engineer so I can work remotely for six months on freelance projects and then spend the next six months travelling. 

‘My bike acts as this wonderful means of transport that I use to reach beautiful places – camping out along the way. And when I return to Tenerife to start working again, I use my bike to explore and discover new places on the island. It’s fun to enjoy some food at a local bar after a long ride and capture the amazing scenery with my camera. 

‘Inspired by meeting Lael Wilcox on a women’s komoot rally last summer, when I heard there was a free spot on the Kromvojoj ultra-endurance race after someone had cancelled, I decided to enter. So quite by accident I found myself riding a 1,400 km self-supported cycling event. And it was there that I first met Tomas Montes, co-creator of the Gather. He suggested that I should join them for the festival weekend. So when I finished the Kromvjojo, I took a few days to rest and then got back on my bike and rode down off the Pyrénées to Zero Neuf and their converted farmstead. 

‘I was one of the first guests to arrive and straight away I felt I could relax in the beautiful surroundings. Everyone was so friendly and it was nice to spend time with all these people that had similar interests – to be able to connect with them and build friendships. Some people that were attending I knew, but only online. So it was fascinating to finally put a face to an Instagram feed. 

Travelling and adventure can mean all sorts of things to different people – from the challenge to the places it takes you. For BASE Collective member Sami Sauri, it’s about discovery and connection. And the tool she uses to make that happen is the bike.

‘Through the bike, you can approach people and landscapes in a way like nothing else. I think it’s the fact that it can take you to these places that you’d never reach by a car. You can be totally in the middle of nowhere, like really out there. Especially if you’re riding gravel,’ she explains. ‘I’ve surfed and done other sports but nothing else provides me the same feelings and curiosity with people that the bike does.’

Born and raised in Barcelona, Sami discovered cycling relatively late on in her life. Hooked initially by the city’s fixed gear scene in her mid-20s, she discovered the connection between body and machine and soon the communities that simply turning the pedals provided. Hours in the saddle became weeks and from riding the hills close to home, she moved around Europe and later to the US in the pursuit of a professional career as a racer.

‘In La Paz, you’re really up there. These people are living all year at altitude. We saw a football match – can you imagine the guys who are from the city down at sea level? To come and play in La Paz, they have to do altitude training!’

Based for the past several years out of the European cycling mecca of Girona – with an elevation of just 76m – Sami knew that riding the gravel trails up into the Yungas that surround La Paz (a narrow band of forest along the eastern slope of the Andes) would mean undergoing some altitude training of her own.

‘I did two and a half weeks of training with a coach at the Cenit Sports Centre here in Girona,’ she says. ‘First I went to Andorra for a long weekend to ride around and sleep on the top and then he gave me the altitude machine. I was doing all the workouts wearing the mask, spending between two and four hours a day with it set to 3,500 to 4,500m. So I’d be sat down with this thing on and my housemate was like what the…?!’

Heading up out of La Paz into the Yungas, straight from the off, Sami was grinding her way up remote, challenging gravel tracks well above 4000m.

‘I was really happy to have that help because I don’t think I would have been able to even sleep one moment or even just walk around La Paz without it. Put into perspective, my route was going up to 4,700m on the first day. That’s nearly the same as Mont Blanc.’

A reminder of the rawness and volatility of this landscape, that same day Sami and the support vehicle became separated by a recent rockfall across the road.

‘It was the only day that I left my suncream in the car too,’ she says. ‘I carried on past the block and about two hours later I was like, Oh, this is really hot and realised I was starting to get really burnt. All I had with me was this little stick for lip protection and just started rubbing it all over my body. It took me nearly five hours to find them again because they had to do a massive detour.’

Once again, subject to the steep valleys of the Yungas, Sami was soon descending into the villages below.

‘The climb back up was absolutely mental. I think it was from 1600m and I had to go back to that track at 3,500m. I was like, guys, I can’t do this. There’s no way. I’m absolutely cooked!’

Slated for release in the summer, new documentary feature film The Engine Inside tells the stories of six everyday people from all over the globe, who reveal the unique power of the bicycle to change lives and build a better world. You can watch the trailer below: