Inspiring Adventure by Vertebrate Publishing – Détails, épisodes et analyse

In this episode of the Inspiring Adventure Podcast by Vertebrate Publishing, we are joined by Sabrina Verjee, ultrarunner, adventurer, and author of Where There's a Hill. Best known for her record-breaking completion of the Wainwrights round, Sabrina discusses her journey from adventure racing to ultrarunning, the planning and execution of her challenges, and the importance of confidence and resilience in the face of failure. She shares insights on the camaraderie within the running community, the role of Peak Bagging, and her life in the Lake District. Sabrina also hints at upcoming projects, including a new book focusing on philosophical questions related to running and personal growth.

Sabrina Verjee lives in the Lake District, where she spends a lot of time running in the fells she loves. She has a background in adventure racing and modern pentathlon but is best known as an ultrarunner. She set a female record for the Pennine Way in 2020, was the overall winner of the 2019 Summer Spine Race, and has finished the ultra-endurance Dragon’s Back Race three times. Fuelled by a love of cake and supported by her husband Ben and a team of fell-running friends, Sabrina made four attempts on the 214-peak Wainwrights Round, and in June 2021 became the first person to complete it in less than six days. She runs her own independent, small-animal veterinary practice in Lancashire, which provides twenty-four-hour care to emergency patients. Where There’s a Hill is her first book.

00:00 Introduction to Sabrina Verjee

00:30 Discovering the Wainwrights

03:46 Planning the Wainwrights Round

05:43 Navigating and Team Coordination

07:13 The Joy of Running and Socialising

11:37 Learning Navigation Skills

18:18 Embracing Failure and Independence

24:27 Favorite Running Spots

26:32 Reflecting on the Wainwrights Round

27:23 Support System and Spontaneity

29:06 Helping Others and Community

30:08 Balancing Work and Play

32:22 Achieving the Wainwrights Record

33:28 Life in the Lake District

38:09 Writing 'Where There's a Hill'

45:23 Philosophical Musings and New Book

50:58 Future Running Goals

52:40 Closing Thoughts and Where to Follow

Links

Where There’s a Hill book by Sabrina Verjee

Peak Bagging Wainwrights book by Karen and Dan Parker

Follow Sabrina on Strava

Follow Sabrina on Instagram

References

Alfred Wainright

There is No Map in Hell book by Steve Birkinshaw

Joss Naylor

Alan Heaton

Ed Douglas

Fastest Known Time (FKT)

Host & Recording

This episode was hosted by Sarah Lister, author of Mountain Walks Kinder Scout. It was recorded online on 2nd October 2025. 

Social media

Follow Vertebrate Publishing on Instagram, Facebook and Bluesky. 

Music

Music by Mikhail Smusev from Pixabayhttps://pixabay.com/music/future-bass-no-copyright-music-394971/

In this episode of the Inspiring Adventure Podcast by Vertebrate Publishing we are joined by Anna Paxton, author of Peak Bagging: Peak District. Anna discusses her guidebook and shares personal insights on some of the Peak District's most rewarding routes. From her favorite trails to the influence of local landscapes on her writing, Anna provides both practical advice and heartfelt stories. Perfect for aspiring authors and enthusiastic peak baggers.

Anna Paxton is a hillwalker and ultrarunner who has completed ultramarathons in the Alps and the USA as well as closer to home. She works as a freelance writer and film producer on a variety of outdoor-related projects. Born in Sheffield and now living just a short walk or run from the gritstone edges of Froggatt and Stanage, she is especially knowledgeable about the Peak District. Her first guidebook, Day Walks in East Anglia, was published in 2021; this was followed by Day Walks in Lincolnshire and Peak Bagging: Peak District in 2025.

00:00 Introduction to Anna Paxton and Peak Bagging

00:32 Exploring the Peak District: Must-Visit Spots

01:01 Personal Connection to the Peak District

01:58 Writing and Adventure: A Natural Blend

03:17 Journey into Writing and Outdoor Industry

09:31 Creating the Peak Bagging Guidebook

12:47 Comparing Landscapes: Dark Peak vs. White Peak

14:29 Adventures in the Howden Area

16:16 Anna’s other guidebooks

20:49 Appreciation for home in the Peak District

22:00 Challenges of Writing a Guidebook for Lincolnshire

23:52 Connecting with the Peak District Through Writing

26:57 The Joy of Peak Bagging

29:42 The Ethels 

31:49 Encouraging Responsible Outdoor Exploration

35:00 Practical Tips for Using the Guidebook

41:31 Where to Find More from Anna Paxton

Links

Peak Bagging: Peak District book by Anna Paxton

Day Walks in Lincolnshire book by Anna Paxton

Day Walks in East Anglia book by Anna Paxton

Ethel biography by Helen Mort

Anna’s newsletter: Outdoorista 

Follow Anna on Instagram

Vertebate Publishing website 

References

Helen Mort

Ruth Allen

Host & Recording

This episode was hosted by Sarah Lister, author of Mountain Walks Kinder Scout. It was recorded outside at Cressbrook Dale (Route 22 from Anna’s book) on 28th September 2025. 

Social media

Follow Vertebrate Publishing on Instagram, Facebook and Bluesky. 

Music

Music by Mikhail Smusev from Pixabay

https://pixabay.com/music/future-bass-no-copyright-music-394971/

‘When an accident occurs, something may emerge of lasting value, for the human spirit may rise to its greatest heights. This happened on Haramosh.’

The Last Blue Mountain is the heart-rending true story of the 1957 expedition to Mount Haramosh in the Karakoram range in Pakistan. With the summit beyond reach, four young climbers are about to return to camp. Their brief pause to enjoy the view and take photographs is interrupted by an avalanche which sweeps Bernard Jillott and John Emery hundreds of feet down the mountain into a snow basin. Miraculously, they both survive the fall. Rae Culbert and Tony Streather risk their own lives to rescue their friends, only to become stranded alongside them.

The group’s efforts to return to safety are increasingly desperate, hampered by injury, exhaustion and the loss of vital climbing gear. Against the odds, Jillott and Emery manage to climb out of the snow basin and head for camp, hoping to reach food, water and assistance in time to save themselves and their companions from an icy grave. But another cruel twist of fate awaits them.

An acclaimed mountaineering classic in the same genre as Touching the Void, Ralph Barker’s The Last Blue Mountain is an epic tale of friendship and fortitude in the face of tragedy.

We published 200 special edition hardback copies of The Last Blue Mountain in March 2020, signed by Ed Douglas, author of the 2020 Introduction, and numbered. This special edition hardback offer is available exclusively from our website on a first-come, first-served basis for £24 per copy inc. UK P&P. The trade paperback edition of The Last Blue Mountain will also be published in March 2020 and will be available to purchase at the same time for £12.99 inc. UK P&P.

AUDIOBOOK AVAILABLE HERE

Also available as an ebook:

• Kindle UK 
• Kindle US
• Kobo
• iTunes
• Google Play

'Even the most casual reader among you will by now have worked out that the whole thing is little more than a delightful ruse for having a very good time.'

Experienced climber Charles Sherwood is on a quest to find the best climb on each continent. He eschews the traditional Seven Summits, where height alone is the determining factor, and instead considers mountaineering challenge, natural beauty and historical context, aiming to capture the diverse character of each continent and the sheer variety of climbing in all its forms.

The author's ambitious odyssey takes him to the Alps, the Himalaya, Yosemite, the Andes, Kenya, New Zealand and South Georgia. His goal is neither to seek glory nor to complete a box-ticking exercise, but simply to enjoy himself in the company of his fellow climbers, including Mark Seaton, Andy Kirkpatrick and Stephen Venables, and to appreciate the splendour of his surroundings. On classic routes like the North Face of the Eiger and the Nose on El Capitan, it is hard not to be swept away by Sherwood's unfaltering enthusiasm.

Also featuring fascinating historical detail about each route, Seven Climbs is a compelling account of Sherwood's efforts to answer a much-debated question: which are the world’s greatest climbs?

Buy it now:
ebook: Kindle UK and Kindle US
Hard copy: Vertebrate Publishing

‘It’s a preposterous plan. Still, if you do get up it, it’ll be the hardest thing that’s been done in the Himalayas.’

So spoke Chris Bonington when Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker presented him with their plan to tackle the unclimbed West Wall of Changabang – the Shining Mountain – in 1976. Bonington’s was one of the more positive responses; most felt the climb impossibly hard, especially for a two-man, lightweight expedition. This was, after all, perhaps the most fearsome and technically challenging granite wall in the Garhwal Himalaya and an ascent – particularly one in a lightweight style – would be more significant than anything done on Everest at the time.

The idea had been Joe Tasker’s. He had photographed the sheer, shining, white granite sweep of Changabang’s West Wall on a previous expedition and asked Pete to return with him the following year. Tasker contributes a second voice throughout Boardman’s story, which starts with acclimatisation, sleeping in a Salford frozen food store, and progresses through three nights of hell, marooned in hammocks during a storm, to moments of exultation at the variety and intricacy of the superb, if punishingly difficult, climbing. It is a story of how climbing a mountain can become an all-consuming goal, of the tensions inevitable in forty days of isolation on a two-man expedition; as well as a record of the moment of joy upon reaching the summit ridge against all odds.

First published in 1978, The Shining Mountain is Peter Boardman’s first book. It is a very personal and honest story that is also amusing, lucidly descriptive, very exciting, and never anything but immensely readable. It was awarded the John Llewelyn Rhys Prize for literature in 1979, winning wide acclaim. His second book, Sacred Summits, was published shortly after his death in 1982.

Audiobook available, and also available as an ebook:
Kindle UK
Kindle US
Kobo
iTunes
Google Play

This week's episode features a chapter from the award winning Tides by Nick Bullock. 

• Winner: Mountain Literature Award, Banff Mountain Book Festival 2018
• Shortlisted for the 2018 Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature

Nick Bullock is a climber who lives in a small green van, flitting between Llanberis, Wales, and Chamonix in the French Alps. Tides, Nick’s second book, is the much-anticipated follow-up to his critically acclaimed debut Echoes.

Now retired from the strain of work as a prison officer, Nick is free to climb. A lot. Tides is a treasury of his antics and adventures with some of the world’s leading climbers, including Steve House, Kenton Cool, Nico Favresse, Andy Houseman and James McHaffie. Follow Nick and his partners as they push the limits on some of the world’s most serious routes: The Bells! The Bells! on Gogarth’s North Stack Wall; the Slovak Direct on Denali; Guerdon Grooves on Buachaille Etive Mor; and the north faces of Chang Himal and Mount Alberta, among countless others.

Nick’s life can be equated to the rhythm of the sea. At high tide, he climbs, he loves it, he is good at it; he laughs and jokes, scares himself, falls, gets back up and climbs some more. Then the tide goes out and he finds himself alone, exposed, all questions and no answers. Self-doubt, grieving for friends or family, fearful, sometimes opinionated, occasionally angry – his writing more honest and exposed than in any account of a climb. Only when the tide turns is he able to forget once more.

Tides is a gripping memoir that captures the very essence of what it means to dedicate one’s life to climbing.

In 1986, the legendary fell runner Joss Naylor completed a continuous circuit of all 214 Wainwright fells in the Lake District, covering a staggering distance of over 300 miles – plus many thousands of metres of ascent – in only seven days and one hour.

Those in the know thought that this record would never be beaten. It is the ultimate British ultramarathon. The person taking on this superhuman challenge would have to be willing to push harder and suffer more than ever before. There is No Map in Hell tells the story of a man willing to do just that.

In 2014, Steve Birkinshaw made an attempt at setting a new record. With a background of nearly forty years of running elite orienteering races and extreme-distance fell running over the toughest terrain, if he couldn’t do it, surely no one could. But the Wainwrights challenge is in a different league: aspirants need to complete two marathons and over 5,000 metres of ascent every day for a week.

With a foreword by Joss Naylor, There is No Map in Hell recounts Birkinshaw’s preparation, training and mile-by-mile experience of the extraordinary and sometimes hellish demands he made of his mind and body, and the physiological aftermath of such a feat. His deep love of the fells, phenomenal strength and tenacity are awe inspiring, and testimony to athletes and onlookers alike that ‘in order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd’.

You can get the audiobook and ebook via links below

• Kindle UK
• Kindle USA
• Kobo
• Nook
• AUDIOBOOK AVAILABLE 

The wonderful John D. Burns reads an extract from Wild Country - The man who made Friends.

In early 1978, an extraordinary new invention for rock climbers was featured on the BBC television science show Tomorrow's World. It was called the 'Friend', and it not only made the sport safer, it helped push the limits of the possible. The company that made them was called Wild Country, the brainchild of Mark Vallance. Within six months, Vallance was selling Friends in sixteen countries. Wild Country would go on to develop much of the gear that transformed climbing in the 1980s. 

Mark Vallance's influence on the outdoor world extends far beyond the company he founded. He owned and opened the influential retailer Outside in the Peak District and was part of the team that built The Foundry, Sheffield's premier climbing wall - the first modern climbing gym in Britain. He worked for the Peak District National Park and served on its board. He even found time to climb eight-thousand-metre peaks and the Nose on El Capitan. Diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in his mid fifties and robbed of his plans for retirement, Vallance found a new sense of purpose as a reforming president of the British Mountaineering Council.

In Wild Country, Vallance traces his story, from childhood influences like Robin Hodgkin and Sir Jack Longland, to two years in Antarctica, where he was base commander of the UK's largest and most southerly scientific station at Halley Bay, before his fateful meeting with Ray Jardine, the man who invented Friends, in Yosemite. 

Trenchant, provocative and challenging, Wild Country is a remarkable personal story and a fresh perspective on the role of the outdoors in British life and the development of climbing in its most revolutionary phase. 

Mark Vallance (1945–2018), the man who made Friends.

***

John D. Burns is a bestselling and award-winning mountain writer who has spent over forty years exploring Britain’s mountains. Originally from Merseyside, he moved to Inverness over thirty years ago to follow his passion for the hills. He is a past member of the Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team and has walked and climbed in the American and Canadian Rockies, Kenya, the Alps and the Pyrenees. John began writing more than fifteen years ago, and at first found an outlet for his creativity as a performance poet. He has taken one-man plays to the Edinburgh Fringe and toured them widely around theatres and mountain festivals in the UK. It is the combination of John’s love of the outdoors with his passion for writing and performance that makes him a uniquely powerful storyteller. His first two books, The Last Hillwalker and Bothy Tales, were both shortlisted for TGO Magazine’s Outdoor Book of the Year. His third book, Sky Dance, is published in 2019. He continues to develop his career as a writer, blogger and outdoor storyteller while exploring the wild places he loves.

Helen Mort is a writer, trail runner and climber who lives in Sheffield. She teaches creative writing at Manchester Metropolitan University, and her published work includes poetry, fiction and non-fiction, with a particular interest in women and mountaineering. Her first poetry collection, Division Street (Chatto & Windus, 2013), was shortlisted for the Costa Prize and the T.S. Eliot Prize, and won the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. In 2015, Helen was chosen as one of the Next Generation poets. Her first novel, Black Car Burning (Chatto & Windus, 2019), was longlisted for the Portico Prize and the Dylan Thomas Prize. Helen is the author of Lake District Trail Running (Vertebrate, 2016) and editor of Waymaking (Vertebrate, 2018); and she has written for Alpinist, Climb, the Guardian, the Independent and Radio 3. In 2017, she was a judge for the Man Booker International Prize and chair of judges for the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature. She was a judge for the 2019 Banff Mountain Book Prize. She has lived with a variety of dogs, but thinks a house is not a home without a whippet, which leads us to Helen's latest title Never Leave the Dog Behind which explores the relationship between people, dogs and the great outdoors. The book comprises interviews with dog owners and experiences with a variety of dogs as well as the author’s own observations as a runner, (initially nervous) dog owner and poet.

We’re offering a unique opportunity to have a photo of you and your dog printed in Helen's latest narrative, Never Leave the Dog Behind: Our love of dogs and mountains. Visit our Kickstarter for more details. 

Martin Boysen reads a short extract from one of his contributions to climbing classic, Hard Rock, followed by compiler of the new edition, Ian Parnell, reading his favourite essay from the book, Great Wall by Ed Drummond.

We're still shipping books out directly from our office in Sheffield so head over to our website and enjoy the 30% site-wide discount: www.v-publishing.co.uk