Your guide

Hi, I’m Sophie. I’m a multi-ultramarathoner, thru-hiker, urban and trail-walker, writer and environmentalist. But most importantly, I'm a human being for whom long-distance hiking has become life’s most valuable therapy.

I ‘found’ walking a decade ago. It was a response to a series of circumstances that left me in complete overwhelm. That first big hike was urban and ugly and undertaken in the worst possible weather conditions. But it gave me a sense of direction that I hadn’t felt in a long time. It cleared my path and became a safe space for me to retreat to, to take stock of life.

More recently, long-distance hiking has smoothed the transition into midlife, with all its trials and tribulations.

Now, with several global trails and ultramarathons under my belt — including one in the dust bowl of the Sahara — life feels different than it did before I really learned how to walk.

Endurance hiking is filled with moments of awe, unimaginable beauty, laughter, tears and bonds forged in the most unique of circumstances. It's being alive. But it’s hard. It hurts, physically and mentally. It forces you to find resilience you didn’t know you had.

And that’s the magic of it. I know now that when we tune into ourselves and our environment and push through the boundaries we imagined we had, most of us are so much stronger than we think.