About

At one time I didn't have a particularly adventurous life style. I wanted to be a musician and that was all I saw myself doing, it was my dream. Meanwhile my sister, Joely, had set off on an amazing journey to travel alone down the east of Africa. She spent a month in Marrakesh before flying to Ethiopia, then she didn't leave the ground until 8 months later when she had made it all the way to Cape Town in South Africa. I on the other hand would watch the odd episode of Bear Grylls and climb the odd tree, but that's about as far as it got. Deep down I had a huge passion for adventure. Joely's achievement definitely inspired me, but I think my sense of adventure was always there, equally as strong as hers but with no way to use it. I always had an interest in climbing. When I was little on the rare occasion I got the opportunity to do it with school or summer camps I would be the first to give it a go. At one point I even started going to an indoor climbing club for kids. Although I enjoyed it, we were just going up and down the wall each week on top ropes, not even doing any particular routes. After a while nothing really excited me in what we were doing and I soon stopped going to the club. I don't think I had any idea of what climbing really was or what it involved. It was a few years later that I found a way to channel my passion for adventure. My school went on a residential to Keswick, where a few of us given the option, set off up Scafell Pike. It was tipping it down and instead we went on to the cloudy summit of Great End. The following year a D of E trip at school gave me a good excuse to buy a tent and proper pair of walking boots. After being in all these outdoor shops I found myself keen to get out and do it. D of E wasn't until the summer and I had already built up a thirst to get out onto the hills. After a navigation course, I started heading out into the fells on my own often wild camping. And by the time the D of E trip came around it seemed quite insignificant compared to what I had already done.

Later that summer I went to Northern Spain with my parents to stay with some friends who had a cottage in Matienzo. The following week we went up to the Picos de Europa and stayed in a holiday cottage there. I had been planning for quite a while before the holiday to go up a mountain there called Pena Vieja (2613m). Half of me didn't expect it to work out whilst looking at it in the guidebook in my bedroom back in England, but it did. It was the highest summit I had been on to that date. I had never felt such freedom before. I couldn't hear a sound and sat gazing over clouds and to further peaks in the distance. It was at that point I knew I had found something so special and close to my heart, and from then on I realised my dreams and was determined to never loose sight of them. When I got back home I started rock climbing and running and fantasising about anything I could think of to do with the mountains and adventure.

I am currently studying B-tech level 3 in Outdoor Adventure, I am determined to have a career in the outdoors and see and do some amazing things with my life. This blog is where I plan to write about them and you can follow what I do. 

fellfeet.blogspot.com 

The fells around my home of Cumbria are where I found my feet and no matter where I go they will always have been the thing that first sparked off my passion for the outdoors.