All articles filed in Philly

It took me 51 days to get here. For lo, though I may act like it sometimes, I am not in fact God’s representative on earth, and I needed a bit more than 40 days and 40 nights to get through the desert. Arriving at Kennedy Meadows was a watershed moment I’d been dreaming about…

This day was for Pete. When I was small, my family went to the Lake District every New Year. Being short of leg (ish), we’d mostly pop over cols, climbing the shoulders of mountains to roll into new valley views and the odd pub with the golden promise of a half of Coke. Summits weren’t…

‘The thing is, you’ve got to be tactical about it,’ says Mary, thunking a gallon of iced lemonade down on the table. ‘Don’t go up to the guy in the corner with the motorbike and tattoos, who looks like he just got out of jail this morning. Approach the family with the kids and the…

The San Felipe Hills can kiss my ass. After that windy night on a ridge somewhere outside Mount Laguna, I emailed in some updates to the PCT water report. (Essential reading for those with a keen interest in staying alive in the desert. Consider it the TripAdvisor of water sources, but where your baseline expectations…

‘I have an issue to take up with you,’ I say to Mark at a break on the first day. ‘A way back you said it was downhill all the way to Hauser Creek.’ ‘Myeeehhh, there’s real downhill and then there’s trail downhill,’ he explains. ‘With trail downhill you’re bound to sweat up some stuff…

‘California is kind of a long-ass state,’ says Barney ‘Scout’ Mann apologetically as he rounds up his evening’s chat and points us all to dessert. This is the third dinner talk I’ve enjoyed at Scout and Frodo’s, a trail angel couple in San Diego who give an incredible gift to the thru-hiking community every year.…

It started well when the G4S security guard looked up from searching my bag and said, ‘thank you sir’. I mean, it was 8am and I’d been up half the night with waking nightmares of the Spanish Inquisition, but come ON. Actually, it started even better 24 hours earlier, when – being the catastrophiser that…