Okay, so it’s a little late in the day to still be Christmas shopping, but I suspect there are a few of you out there that are still searching for a stocking filler for your hiking mad loved one. Here’s three recommendations for you - two I have read in recent months, another is a favourite I reviewed a couple of years ago.

I usually fail to write more than a few short paragraphs in my trail journal, and sometimes don’t use one at all. I enjoy writing about other people’s adventures, but I find it hard to know what to write about my own.

Recently, I received an unexpected email from American adventurer Leo Le Bon. I hadn’t heard of him before, which isn’t surprising in the adventure world, where many fly under the radar or, like Leo, belong to an earlier generation with less online visibility. A quick Google search revealed a few articles about Leo, including one titled Leo Le Bon, the Godfather of Trekking.

For a few months a year the world’s largest volume freshwater lake freezes over, providing locals and visiting cold weather fanatics the chance to drive or walk across its surface. Following in the steps of a small number of previous trekkers, a friend and I travelled to Russia to walk across the frozen surface of Lake Baikal.

In March 2025 Dan Jones and I plan to ski 200km across a frozen Lake Inari in the far north east of Finland.

Small rock stacks now litter many of our mountain sides and wilderness areas globally. Here’s why hill goers should stop building them.

In February 2024 Daniel Jones and I will head to Norway to ski around 110km from Alta on the west coast of Norway, to Karasjok on the border with Finland.

A growing number of the well publicised protagonists in the adventure world seem to have followed this path. Relative beginner takes on a record, get’s a lot of guided help, breaks the record, and leverages the publicity for commercial gain. Should the adventure community continue to facilitate this trend?

In July 2023 my regular teammate Phil Sturgeon and I will head to Greenland to hike around 200km from the foot of the second largest ice sheet in the world, to the waters of the Davis Strait.