‘As a full-time adventurer, I often ask if I’m letting my children down’
I was standing on a sheer five thousand metre ridge in remote Alaska, joined to my teammates with a nine millimetre rope. Nothing but the crampon spikes below our boots secured us to the mountain. Perilous voids flanked the ridge. Swirling shards of ice sliced our faces and the freezing wind bit our lungs. The cold had formed our beards into a rigid matt of hair and ice, prising our jaws ajar. We stood slurping thin air as an ominous sound approached.
For 10 years I had dreamed about this expedition. For 18 months I had planned towards it. For 62 days I had strived harder than ever before to reach this point. Now at last we could see the summit. A sullen white ogre, glinting down at us from the heavens.
The sound reached a steady thud. Next, we saw it, breaching the clouds above us. A helicopter. Below the helicopter, a wire carried a stretcher which held the body of a fallen climber.
That morning I was messaging my daughter on my satellite tracking device. I promised I would take her camping when I got home. We would cook marshmallows. Nine long weeks had passed since I last saw her, when I kissed her and my one-year-old son goodbye at the doorstep of our Lancashire home.
Roaring now through the wind was a message from the mountain. A warning: Here, if success means life, failure means something unthinkable. I look at my teammates. Do we go on?
As a professional expedition leader, I have devoted my life to travel and adventure. I have led teams to Iraqi mountains, Syrian cities, Congolese volcanoes, remote Yemeni islands and many more wild destinations.
Through the years I have encountered spies, been detained for five days on the Afghan border and interrogated in 10 different countries. I have faced minefields, avalanches, earthquakes and have even spent a week in hospital after contracting meningitis in Somalia.
When I tell people about my job, then mention that I am a married father of two young children, I can sense the disconnect. “Why?” people ask. Why travel thousands of miles from your beloved children taking inordinate risks in dangerous places? I can understand the curiosity. I have asked myself the same thing countless times before: How can I justify the risks I continue to take?
First, what do we aim to do as parents? Beyond loving and caring for our children, we strive to ignite a spark within them, a burning curiosity for the world. We tell them stories of heroes and pioneers, of people who dared to reach beyond the ordinary. We encourage them to ask questions, to explore, to believe that the impossible might just be possible.
Here is the quandary I face. I have built my existence around pursuing big goals through global adventures and travel. How can I urge my children to chase their own dreams if I give up on mine?
When I began these adventures I was young and reckless. I was on a bullet train towards oblivion, relying on luck for success, and in the wild plain fortune is no friend.
Over time the near misses have taught me invaluable lessons about preparation, awareness, and the limits of human endurance. I have learned to make decisions based on reason, rather than ego and emotion. Today my expeditions are not careless forays into the unknown. I have now guided over 500 people on overseas adventures and maintained a 100 per cent safety record. These are meticulously planned endeavours where every risk is anticipated, weighed, and mitigated.
I bring these lessons home. Children of today inhabit an increasingly sterile and risk-averse world – this caution will not breed future pioneers. Our ancestors braved the bleak unknown and ventured across the globe. The human spirit of exploration has brought us space travel, skyscrapers and artificial intelligence. If our children are warned against every risk, where will the next daring innovators come from?
Life, I tell my children, is not about avoiding the storms, but learning how to weather them. I want my children to see that risk is not a barrier; it can be a guide, a reminder to prepare absolutely and act thoughtfully.
I stood on that Alaskan ridge, the helicopter’s echo fading into the abyss. The loss of my life would mark too the loss of all those precious lessons, failures, hardships and dreams I have not yet shared with my children. This fact more than anything holds me to account. I turn to my team: “Not today.” We returned to camp, recalibrated, eliminated every remaining element of complacency, then proceeded over the following two days to the summit of Denali (6,190 metres). I finished my 64-day 3,588-mile human-powered journey from the lowest point in North America to the highest.
A few days later I held my daughter in my emaciated arms. My beard was coarse and my scorched face flawed beside her tender cheek. I held her hand. “Dada,” she whispered in my ear. “When I turn four, can I climb a mountain with you too?” In the end, adventuring and parenting are not all that different. Both roles demand courage, commitment, and a willingness to face the unknown.
Five other memorable experiences from a lifetime of travel
1. Langmusi, Tibet
Reaching this high Tibetan village in winter was challenging. I followed waves of pilgrims to be the only foreign observer of the astonishing Tibetan New Year Festival.
2. Shirkent, Tajikistan
A whispered promise of adventure led to me this remote Tajik mountain village. I rallied a local team to explore some remarkable fossilised dinosaur footprints nearby.
3. Theth, Albania
On a family holiday, disaster almost struck as I got the hire car stuck in a stream. Friendly locals helped us out and showed us the best corners of Europe’s hidden mountain treasure.
4. Meroe Pyramids, Sudan
Sudan has more pyramids than Egypt. I love sharing this fact. Unlike Egypt, you can sleep alone under the stars beside these desert monoliths while nearby ancient crypts are still being discovered.
5. Socotra Island, Yemen
The most breathtaking place imaginable. The mysterious ‘Galapagos of the Indian Ocean,’ where we were personally guided by ‘Abdullah the Caveman’.
