I LOVE WHERE I live. I mean, really love it. I love it to the point where it feels more like an extension of who I am than simply a place I happen to be. Even though I grew up some 5,000 miles away in a thoroughly different environment, the environment that I now call
AFTER A WILD WEEK of snow and grayness, my little corner of Colorado has returned to horizon-to-horizon blue skies, to bright sunshine, to skin-soothing warmth, and to a rapid thaw. Deep snow is softening, sinking away. Water is gushing. Even though a certain dark cloud lingers on the horizon, today’s glorious brightness is keeping me
THIS BLOG POST is a little out of character, perhaps, but given recent events in the divided nation that I’ve chosen to call home, I wanted to share a short extract from the epilogue of my second book, On Sacred Ground. A few lessons learned. They feel, well, especially relevant right now. (Please note: if
NATURE DOESN’T LIE. It doesn’t cheat. It doesn’t demonize. It doesn’t hate. It offers only honest truth. It is there, always. Reliably itself. Going back to nature isn’t an escape – it’s a return home, a return to the way all things ought to be, a return to truth and beauty and meaning. And it’s
I’M THRILLED TO announce that High Summer: Backpacking the Canadian Rockies, by backpacker and author Chris Townsend, will be available for purchase on Amazon from November 1st 2024. This new and updated second edition of High Summer is being released through my independent publishing imprint, the Enchanted Rock Press. For those who missed my blogs
AUTUMN COMES EARLY to Colorado’s high country. It doesn’t wait until October to get going the way it does back where I grew up in London, but instead begins altering the landscape even before August is done. The thrill and wonder of it catches me out pretty much every year. When I set out uphill
SLOW AND IMMERSIVE travel in nature can bring HUGE rewards. I’ve been fortunate to have experienced a few of them myself, and I’ve tried to convey them in my writing as best I can. Moving gently, senses open and engaged, stopping often to lose oneself in the details of the land, strolling along, or sauntering
LAST YEAR I had a plan: to get to know one place. To spend twelve months travelling in only one spot. Why? Well, the reasons were many. Some were understood. Some were deeper and less understood. Some were probably hidden even from me. And some were shallow. One reason was to write a book about
SPRING COULD WELL be my favourite season in the High Country. The fading away of feet of snow, the re-emergence of the living earth after being buried for so long, the first flush of green, the first flowers, the return of blissful warmth on bare arms and legs that had previously been encased in layers
I’VE BEEN FORTUNATE to have experienced a number of wildlife encounters this year. Arguably the most memorable occurred in late July right at the end of a short weekend’s backpacking. I’d camped in a rugged away-from-it spot and was heading back to one of Colorado’s busiest mountain trails: the Mount Bierstadt Trail. The only
THE SUN DISAPPEARED behind the mountain at three twenty-seven in the afternoon. Prior to that, the day had been gloriously benign. There’d been warmth to bask in. Sunlight had dazzled off fresh snow. The ice that had built up inside my tent during the previous night had completely thawed away. Thermals had been removed, sleeves
AUTUMN IN COLORADO’S high country is often the sunniest time of year. This autumn was no exception. It began at dawn on September 16th, the first day that the closest fourteener to Denver bore its new ‘Blue Sky’ name. After five days of clouds, rain, sleet and snow the sun finally climbed into a sky
A FEW PHOTOS from a walk on Friday: a saunter away from Guanella Pass into solitude. The walk’s aim was to start from Guanella Pass (often an exceptionally busy place), wander south to the far-less visited Geneva Mountain, then head back north up the center of the broad valley of Scott Gomer Creek. The delights
OVER THE PAST twenty years I’ve enjoyed some truly special moments on and around the mountain now known as Mount Blue Sky. But few of the many previous visits were more special or more meaningful than Saturday’s. This wasn’t only another walk to a treasured place… it was also a celebration. As readers of this
IT HAPPENED LAST Friday – at roughly 3 p.m. on September 15th: the U.S. Board on Geographic Names (the federal board within the U.S. Department of Interior which has the final say on the renaming of all natural features on public lands) voted to rename the closest fourteener to Denver. The mountain that probably went
IF YOU VISIT the same wild place often enough your perception of it will inevitably change. On a first visit, its essential characteristics and nature might seem clear – and possibly even ‘fixed’. After all, you’ve just seen and experienced it as it is. How could it ever be anything else? But after a fifth
TWO WEEKENDS AGO I travelled up the same mountain twice, doing it two days apart. Both visits began before dawn, both visits provided incredible scenic drama, and both took me to the summit. But only one of the two ‘meant’ anything. Only one will last in my memory. The mountain that I visited is a
I HAVEN’T WRITTEN about this before, but I love to climb. I really do – I love to climb… but I’m definitely not a climber! I love the gymnastic exercise of climbing – the simple movement of it, the problem solving, the succeeding in physical challenges that often at first seem all but impossible –
‘ESCAPING’ INTO THE HILLS is not always easy. Perhaps you know what I mean? In a life that has responsibilities and commitments the hills often end up taking second place. Work, family and other practical realities can all-too-easily get in the way. And for good reasons of course – taking care of others is important.
I WAS ONLY AWAY from ‘my’ mountains for two and a half weeks, but during that time the snowpack in the high country forests has all but vanished. Right before leaving for a family visit at sea level I experienced gruelling travel and a snowstorm camp… but on my return I’ve come back to summer-like
BACK IN EARLY APRIL, and again last weekend, I snowshoed into a spacious mountain bowl, the fabulously, poetically but often inaccurately named Hell’s Hole. Of course, it wasn’t hellish for me in any way – although some people might have considered it to be! For one thing, travel on both occasions was truly, truly gruelling.
DESPITE TRANSPORT CHALLENGES and family commitments I managed to squeeze in another brief foray into the hills over Friday night. In the dampness, the fresh snow and the wandering mists of what is turning into an exceptionally wet May here in Colorado, the outing was absolutely delicious. The heady forest scents, the roughness of being
TODAY, ON MAY 11, 2023, the rain here in Golden, Colorado is fabulously determined. It’s been cascading from the sky since late last night; the creeks are running high and are stained brown with earth; trails are muddy and gushing; the soil is saturated, with puddles spreading ever-wider; hilltops are lost within mist and sodden
JOURNEYS ARE BETTER when they don’t go as expected, when surprises lie around the corners, when plans go awry. And so are the seasons – or so I think – better when they don’t unfurl as they ‘should’, better when they slip from one to another and then back again in a way that makes
EARLIER THIS WEEK I went for a spur-of-the-moment run/walk up Rogers Peak in the Mount Evans Wilderness – although hopefully the area will one day become the Blue Sky Wilderness instead. It’s a wilderness area that I’ve spent a fair amount of time in so far this year, and all for a new project, a
MY IGLOO CAMPS last month set me thinking about my first igloo adventure. It took place in January 2016, in Rocky Mountain National Park, and it wasn’t only memorable for the igloo but also for whom I went with: the one and only Igloo Ed! I originally shared these photos and captions on social media
MARCH SEEMS TO have become ‘igloo month’ for me, and this year was no exception. Building a shelter from snow (ie, being an adult but playing like a child) and then sleeping in it is a hard-to-beat mountain pleasure – and it’s a pleasure that’s made even greater when shared with friends new to the
FOR THE PAST few weeks (well, months) I’ve been meaning to share an update on the status of my books, on a whole bunch of outdoor adventures, on life, and most of all on two exciting new book projects that I’ve been working on… but I haven’t quite managed to get to it – as
FOLLOWING ON FROM a blog post I made back in November, 2021 ( The Earth Beneath My Feet – in Colour ) I thought it was about time I added a similar post for On Sacred Ground. Consider it an extra to the book… for those that have read it. If you haven’t read it
RISING WEST OF Denver, Colorado, like a giant wave is an iconic fourteen-thousand foot mountain that millions of people stare up to every day. (When they remember to look up, that is, and when clear skies allow it.) This mountain is a reminder to everyone below that there is more to life than concrete, commerce,
SINGLE NIGHT OUTINGS might not provide the immersive depth of multi-month trips, but then again… For various reasons – mostly because of the area’s well-known popularity – I’d never before walked to Colorado’s Front Range lakes of Silver Dollar or Murray Lake, despite them being so close to home. But finally a spur-of-the-moment decision changed
ON SACRED GROUND is finally available! It can be found on Amazon as a paperback, an ebook and a hardcover (with extra photos!) For UK readers the book is here And in the US, here It’s no exaggeration to say that creating On Sacred Ground has been ‘a journey’. This book, like The
ON SACRED GROUND is now only four days from being published. I’ve been waiting a long time to launch this book, and I know that there are readers who have been waiting a long time to read it – so, thank you for your patience! If you haven’t read The Earth beneath My
TIME STOPS FOR no one. But there ARE ways to slow it down. Or, to borrow from what I’ve written in On Sacred Ground: “Time runs at a different pace in nature. Attention narrows to the immediate environment, and expands to fully encompass it. There’s less room for outside distractions. For me, this makes every
ON SEPTEMBER 1ST I’ll be releasing a new edition of The Earth Beneath My Feet – a hardback edition. The story inside hasn’t changed, but the book will contain a few extra elements. These include thirty additional photos, crisp white paper to help all the photos and maps stand out more clearly, and a foreword
When Andrew Terrill’s ice axe hit a bump and flew from his hand, he lost his only hope of self-arrest. As he hurtled headlong down the precipitous slope of the Hohtürli Pass like “a rag-doll on the way to oblivion”, he realised this is how it feels to die. Yet miraculously, he didn’t. As he
TWO MONTHS HAVE passed since my last blog – an update is probably well overdue! On Sacred Ground is pretty much finished. The book has been fully written, edited, typeset, proofed, and proofed again, and I finally have the first sample copies in hand. Getting this far has taken an epic amount of work, although
RECENT DAYS HAVE been full. Walking, camping, running, climbing, working, playing, cooking, cleaning, chauffeuring, presenting, learning, singing, sleeping, laughing; alone and in company: with family, friends, with strangers. Yes, full. Too full to have made time to pen any well-considered blogs! Over the last three weeks I’ve spent plenty of time on foot, several more
THE EVENING IN CAMP at 11,600 feet was undeniably peaceful, and deeply, deeply soothing. From the shoulder of the mountain, I watched day transition into night. It was a gentle ‘letting go’ of brightness and urgency, almost like a sigh, or a long-held breath being released, and it was made all the more peaceful by
FOR EVERYONE WAITING for On Sacred Ground I have an announcement and a sincere apology to make: I’m pushing back the release date to October 1. To be clear, I regret doing this. Many of you have told me how much you are looking forward to On Sacred Ground. Some of you – especially those
CHANGE IS THE only guarantee, stability is but a fleeting illusion. Few things illustrate this more clearly then the annual winter-spring-winter-spring seesaw that takes place here in Colorado’s Front Range foothills. Last week, temperatures soared. The sun shone with soul-caressing warmth. I strode across hills and open space watching the land emerge from its covering
FOLLOWING ON FROM last week’s igloo blog I thought I’d share a few extra photos from the weekend in Rocky Mountain National Park. As these images hint, it was memorably windy! (For the full story, please see the previous blog.)
EARLY LAST WEEK a backpacker made a comment on a social media group page that stuck with me. ‘I can’t wait for camping season,’ they wrote. ‘Does anyone think April is too early to start?’ Of course, several people chimed straight in, boastfully claiming that there is only one season for camping – all year.
NORMALLY, I’M EXTREMELY organised when it comes to backpacking – especially winter backpacking. But I just demonstrated the opposite – I forgot the bloody matches, again, exactly as I forgot them last June. Ironically, I forgot them upon the same mountain. I realised my mistake at the trailhead this time, not once I reached camp.
FOR ME, GETTING out on foot into nature is a priority. I’m certain that I could manage just fine if I didn’t have frequent contact with wild places, but I’m profoundly glad that I don’t have to test this theory to find out if it’s true! I’ve made it a priority because nature
MY SECOND BOOK – On Sacred Ground – is coming along well. In fact, it’s almost done. The manuscript is fully written, and, aside from a few extra passages, it has been professionally edited. Alex Roddie, my editor, returned the manuscript to me shortly before Christmas. Since then, I’ve been working through his edits obsessively.
WINTER HAS FINALLY arrived in Colorado’s Front Range. And not before time. In truth, a day earlier would have been better. You may have seen the news: the wind-fueled wild fires on December 30th that torched over 1,000 homes and businesses south of Boulder. I saw the smoke from my home twelve miles to the
PROLOGUE: AN ALPINE BOUNCE The Bernese Oberland, Switzerland ON THE SECOND day of June, 1993, I fell down a mountain. It was a spectacularly unpleasant thing to do. As an experience it isn’t something I’d recommend, but for the way it changed my approach to life I remain eternally grateful. The accident took place
A FAIR NUMBER of people have now asked me: “Why isn’t The Earth Beneath My Feet in colour?” It’s a reasonable question, and one I completely understand. I’ve only ever read genuine curiosity in it – never criticism. I usually answer by saying: “I wish it was!” After all, the wild Europe I walked across
OVER THE LAST month and a half I’ve been lost in the wild – well, lost in writing about the wild! I’ve been deeply engaged in an epic reworking of On Sacred Ground, taking all the feedback I’ve received from my incredible beta readers and fully developing and articulating all the book’s themes. I’ve been
A book that goes one step farther – a rare book of honesty and insight. The Farthest Shore by Alex Roddie is a rare book. It is rare for several reasons, partly for the journey it describes – a challenging adventure attempted at a challenging time of year – but mostly for its honesty, its
BACK IN JUNE, I forwarded the manuscript of my second book, On Sacred Ground, to six trusted friends. Their task was to read it and provide honest critical feedback, with a focus on picking up sections that were slow, redundant, or simply didn’t make sense. I asked them to comment without holding back, to
I FELT AS THOUGH I was in my early twenties again as I charged along the trail, expanding my lungs and my horizons, feeling excited by each twist and turn, by everything that lay ahead: the night in camp, the quietness, the simplicity and adventure, and by the season – most of all by the
The Earth Beneath My Feet hasn’t been out for long, but it has received some great early reviews. If you are still on the fence, uncertain whether or not the book is worth your time, please see the reviews and endorsements below. And if you have read the book already – please DO let me
SPUR-OF-THE-MOMENT decisions can often be the best decisions we make. Throwing caution to the wind, acting on a whim, jumping upon an opportunity when it presents itself – what could be more adventurous, more freeing? The alternative – planning every detail minutely – can ruin a perfectly good adventure. Life is better when spontaneity is
OVER THE PAST TWO MONTHS I’ve been slowly reading an absolutely brilliant book: The Nature Fix – Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative. Within its pages, Florence Williams explores the many ways nature benefits us cognitively, psychologically, physically and physiologically, doing so through immersive visits into natural environments around the world and
THE FORECAST MIGHT have been off-putting. The scientists up at NOAA were predicting severe thunderstorms in the mountains, not as a possibility but as an absolute certainty. Lightning was likely, torrential rain extremely probable, and even flash floods were on the cards. From the look of it, rain was going to be falling from the
An enjoyable, fascinating and thought-provoking read by an author who truly knows his subject. I love going for long walks, as followers of my blog surely know by now! I especially love walks that last for weeks or months and follow routes few others have followed. But when I can’t go myself I love reading
I SHARE MY LIFE with Joan, my wife. She is an extraordinary person. Warm-hearted and tolerant. She is the adult in the partnership, competent at dealing with life’s complexities in a considered and practical way. Without Joan there probably wouldn’t be a roof over my family’s head or funds for clothes and food. Well, not
I SPENT MUCH of last week cloud watching, lazy chap that I am. From a remote vantage point beneath Colorado’s Sangre de Cristo Mountains I spent five days doing little but watching clouds form, drift about, and then fade away. To some people, such a pastime probably sounds dull in the extreme. But to me
IN LAST WEEK’S BLOG I mentioned backpacking discomforts. I commented on how photos of backpacking trips seldom show them. I suggested that backpacking photos lie because of it. I was thinking about it again during this week’s outing, a single overnight trip in the Colorado foothills with good friend, Igloo Ed. The discomforts of backpacking
THE PHOTOS LIE – especially mine. Or so I have suddenly realized as I look back at the photos of my most recent walk (a two-night tour through Colorado’s James Peak Wilderness). I mean, the images do show some truth. They show places that really exist and conditions as they really were. But they also
A MONTH AGO, on May 11, I set out for a short overnight trip. It was to become one of the most unforgettable ‘spring’ camps I’ve ever made. Conditions were cold and wet down in Golden, and up in the mountains snow was still piling up. In fact, the snowpack was as deep as it
I FINALLY SHARED a mountain night with one of my offspring this last weekend. Pretty late in the year, but goodness was it worth the wait! My approach to getting my children into the outdoors has always been gentle – to not force it. We’ve all seen parents dragging reluctant kids on walks, which never
SATURDAY WAS A BIG DAY for me. After 30 years of dreaming about publishing a book, and after many years of writing one, re-writing it, and then re-writing it again, my book was finally ready to publish. Originally, I’d chosen May 1 as the day it would happen, a symbolic date – the date that
THE FORECAST LAST night was too good to resist: clear skies, little wind, mild temperatures, a full moon, and shortly before sunrise a lunar eclipse… sleeping indoors with all that on offer would contravene everything I believe in! The only argument against heading out for my 20th mountain night of the year was the extravagant
I’VE BEEN ON a journey. And what a journey it has been! It’s been long, for one thing. And challenging. And full of unexpected twists and turns. It’s taken me to places I never expected to visit. It’s led to discoveries, to growth, to moments of joy. And goodness, but also to moments of frustration,
MY LAST BLOG was all about The ‘Other’ Places, and so this week I thought I’d follow up with a few photos from The Other Italy – the wild side of Italy that most visitors miss… To simplify things, I’ve limited the photos to just one region of Italy – the Abruzzo region in the
TWENTY-FOUR YEARS ago today I stood alone in an Italy that very few people know. I was three days into my 18-month walk across Europe, and surrounding me were mountains that were far wilder than I’d expected, and far harder to cross than I wanted. It was a bit of a shock. The location was
IT’S NOT EASY running a new independent publishing imprint dedicated to wild nature when wild nature itself calls. Talk about distractions! There are a thousand and one details I ought to be taking care of to make certain that The Earth Beneath My Feet doesn’t sink without a trace when I launch it on
WINTER HAS RETURNED to the foothills of Colorado’s Front Range, as it so often does this time of year. Mid April? Spring? Hah! With flakes wafting down and cold nipping at one’s exposed digits you’d barely know it. Which made it the perfect time to share a night in the hills with Igloo Ed. Igloo Ed is
Or, The Unexpected Benefits of Sleeping Without a Tent. ONE OF MY goals this year (aside from successfully publishing The Earth Beneath My Feet) is to sleep out at least fifty-two times. That’s once every week on average. Fifty-two mountain nights. As quests go, it should be easy, right? Once upon a time it would
The location wasn’t anywhere well known or especially scenic. It was merely a rustic little cabin perched beside a modest little brook, a tumbling watercourse similar to many thousands right across Colorado. At first glance it looked like ‘just another mountain stream splashing across a few ordinary gray rocks‘. Nothing special. And technically, that was
IT WAS A fairly typical spring week along Colorado’s Front Range: snow one day, warmth the next; clear one moment, cloudy the next. As winter ebbed into spring and then slipped back into winter each day brought something new. For a wanderer on foot, it was just about perfect. Despite a busy week I
I’M A LITTLE LATE with this blog… but that’s okay: the snowstorm it covers was a little late too. Storm ‘Xylia’ (and who else dislikes the naming of regular weather systems as though they are hurricanes?) trundled through seven days ago, dropping almost two feet of snow on Golden – but for a while it
TWO WEEKEND’S AGO I camped at 11,200 feet high in the Colorado wilderness. To say the February night was cold would be an understatement. Sure, it wasn’t Himalayan or polar cold, but the minus five Fahrenheit (minus twenty Celsius) I recorded INSIDE my tent wasn’t tropical either! For me, it teetered right on the edge
I WAS ON assignment this week… well, on speculative assignment. A photographer friend kindly suggested my name to a prominent Colorado magazine. They were looking for photos to illustrate a ‘how to’ feature on winter camping and wondered if I had any. Sure I did – plenty. Far too many perhaps. Snow camping shots from
ON THE WAY back from my recent quinzhee stay I meandered by Brainard Lake. In summer the location can be horrendously busy and the atmosphere far from wild, but on Sunday February 14, with the temperature at minus twelve Fahrenheit (minus twenty-four Celsius), and snow burying the land, and no one else about, it wasn’t
THE FORECAST was irresistible. It called for snow, arrival of an Arctic airmass, and with it the coldest temperatures of winter so far. Overnight lows were forecast to plummet to -13 Fahrenheit, -25 Celsius, which was impressively frigid, or even life-threatening, under certain circumstances. But as I saw it, perfect conditions for my fifth night
I DIDN’T PLAN another blog post this week, but this morning’s atmospheric mists were too irresistible not to photograph, and seeing that I now have photographs, I figured I may as well share them! I’m tempted to write about the morning as well – but I’ll resist that, and let the photos and simple captions
ENCOUNTERS WITH STRANGERS in the mountains can be truly extraordinary. Such meetings are often more intense and meaningful than encounters back in ‘real life’. Here’s a story about one that took place decades ago – along with the heart-warming follow that occurred just last week. As you may know (if you’ve visited my website before)
A short walk on North Table Mountain, February 2, 2021. IT’S NOW BEEN ELEVEN DAYS since I danced a little jig on a loose trail to avoid an out of control dog and badly sprained my ankle. But at last I have some good news: I can finally walk without crutches. But there’s bad news
Golden Cliffs, North Table Mountain, Golden, Colorado I’VE BEEN FEELING considerable sympathy for the many people I know back in Britain who are currently stuck in lockdown. For that reason, I decided to sprain my ankle on Friday and put myself in a comparable situation – stuck at home unable to reach the hills. How’s
Time travel is possible. Yes, it really is! Don’t believe me? Okay, well, consider this… I escaped for another night out this weekend – up in the James Peak Wilderness beneath the Continental Divide. The forecast called for strong winds and up to three inches of snow, so I packed a tent, figuring I’d need
JANUARY 10TH was the first morning of the year that felt like a real winter morning. For sure, it wasn’t close to as cold as January can be, and the single inch of snow was hardly midwinter deep, but for the first time in 2021 the foothills above Golden were white, and for the first
WHAT A WEEK! One could despair, very easily. But honestly – what would that achieve? Or one could head outdoors… The year’s second night out took place a modest six-mile walk from home. I’ve been outdoors every day of the year so far, loping in shorts over sun-kissed hills, but finally on the year’s ninth
JANUARY 1ST, and what better way to start the New Year than a quick night out beneath the stars? I mean, what could be better than sleeping outside without a tent, on a summit, in midwinter, in the snow, alone? Would a soft bed be better? Four solid walls? Heating? A warm body to snuggle
JUNE 21, 2020 I grew up NOT with the earth beneath my feet but with pavement, concrete, and carpet. Carpet: Hah! Not a surface fit for human feet! Suburban London was home and it offered few surfaces that were wild or untrammeled. Not that I knew anything about wild surfaces… or cared. How could I