We then reached a fork in the valley. Should we go left or right? Dad called it left. I had a very powerful intuition that right was the choice we should make. Dad insisted left. I insisted right.It w...
We soon reached a dam and had to make a decision.We knew it was forbidden to cross a dam, in the same way that it was forbidden ever to use a footpath or forestry track. (Unless it was part of the dre...
We can’t always choose our circumstances but we can choose how we respond to what life throws at us, and there is power when we realize our ability to alter our destiny.A life in the wild has taught m...
To get, first you have to give.Even in extreme physical or survival situations, maybe you and your hiking buddy are so thirsty you can hardly walk straight. Go on - let them sip first. Give them the g...
This quote from T.E. Lawrence means a lot to me: Our job is to be the dangerous type. The one who dreams by day and acts to make those dreams come alive and actually happen.So take some time to get th...
There’s a poignant poem by Christopher Logue that I’m often reminded of when people tell me their ‘reasons’ for not embarking on a great adventure.I have a sneaking suspicion that if you can just take...
There are few greater feelings than finding out you can achieve more, and endure more, than you had previously imagined, and it’s only when we are tested that we realize just how brightly we can shine...
The infamous South Col awaited me over the top.I longed to see this place I had heard and read so much about. The highest camp in the world at twenty-six thousand feet--deep in Everest’s Death Zone.I...
The final examination came and my mother came down to watch it. She hated watching me fight. (Unlike my school friends, who took a weird pleasure in the fights--and more and more so as I got better.)B...
The day before our final exercise had begun, the DS had made the briefing crystal clear.Don’t give them anything or they will exploit it. Be smart. Stay focused despite the pain and fatigue. Slip up f...
The best advice came from the legendary actor the late Sir John Mills, who I sat next to backstage at a lecture we were doing together. He told me he considered the key to public speaking to be this:...
Sometimes it takes a knock in life to make us sit up and grab life. And I had just undergone the mother of all knocks.But out of that despair, fear, and struggle came a silver lining--and I didn’t eve...
So there we were.No money, and freezing cold--but happy and together.That night, all wrapped up in blankets, I made a simple promise to Shara: I would love her and look after her, every day of our lif...
So here is what I tell young Scouts or young adventurers who ask me what the key is to living a fulfilled life. I keep it pretty simple. I call them the five Fs.None of them requires a degree, and all...
Sir Edmund Hillary, Everest’s first conqueror, once said that the mountains gave him strength. I’d never really understood this until now. But it was intoxicating.Something deep inside me knew that I...
Mum was always so generous to Lara and me growing up, and it helped me develop a very healthy attitude to money. You could never accuse my mum of being tight: she was free, fun, mad, and endlessly giv...
Listening carefully to this voice is how we distinguish ourselves from the rest of the crowd who so often barge through life, too busy or too proud even to acknowledge their intuition’s existence.
Lesson one: Pack light unless you want to hump the eight around the mountains all day and night.By the time we reached Snowdonia National Park on Friday night it was dark, and with one young teacher a...
In the end I concluded, nothing ventured, nothing gained. (A vital ethos to follow if life is to have flavor, I have since learned.) I knew I should at least attempt Selection.If I failed, well at lea...
I was so proud to have been made a lieutenant-commander in the Royal Navy in 2005 (Dad would have approved!), and through the expeditions that I have led in Antarctica, the Himalayas, and the Arctic,...