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My Long Distance Walks


Over the years I've walked tens of thousands of miles on trips long and short. This is a list of walks of the major walks I've completed. Apart from these really long walks I've done sixteen TGO Challenge coast-to-coast crossings of the Scottish Highlands, the Pennine Way, the Southern Upland Way twice, the GR20 in Corsica, three treks in Nepal and many one to two week walks in the Scottish Highlands and also in Norway, the High Sierra, the Grand Canyon and other areas. And on skis I've done two to three week camping trips in Arctic Norway & Sweden, Greenland, Spitsbergen, the Yukon Territory, the High Sierra, Yellowstone and the Wind River range.
 
1978 Land's End to John O'Groats
1250 miles end-to-end cross country through Britain.

1982 The Pacific Crest Trail
2,600 miles from Mexico to Canada through the Mohave Desert and the mountains of the Transverse Ranges, the Sierra Nevada and the Cascades.



1985 The Continental Divide Trail
3000 miles from Canada to Mexico along the Rocky Mountains, the watershed of the USA.

1988 Canadian Rockies End-to-End
1600 miles along the length of the Canadian Rockies from Waterton Lakes to the Liard River, the first time such a walk has been done.

1990 Yukon Wilderness Walk
1000 miles from the Chilkoot Trail in SE Alaska to the Richardson Mountains north of the Arctic Circle, the first time such a walk has been done.

1992 Scandinavian Mountains Walk.
1300 miles from the North Sea to the Arctic Ocean through the mountains of Norway & Sweden.

1996 The Munros & Tops
1700 miles and 575,000 feet of ascent over the 517 3000' Scottish summits listed in Munro's Tables, the first time these have been climbed on a continuous walk.



2000 The Arizona Trail
800 miles from Mexico to Utah through the deserts, canyons, forests and mountains of Arizona

2002 Tour of the High Sierra
500 miles starting and finishing in Yosemite Valley.



2010 The Pacific Northwest Trail
1200 miles from Glacier National Park to the Pacific Ocean

2013 The Scottish Watershed
700 miles from the English border to Duncansby Head


2016 Yosemite Valley to Death Valley
450 miles from Yosemite Valley to Badwater Basin in Death Valley via Kings Canyon, Mount Whitney and Telescope Peak


2018 GR5 Through the Alps 
450 miles from Lake Geneva to the Mediterranean Sea


2019 Southern Colorado Rockies
400 miles from Copper Mountain to Wolf Creek Pass on the Continental Divide Trail. This was a section where snow forced me to take a lower mostly forested route on my CDT hike in 1985.

6 comments:

  1. Great post. Thanks for sharing!

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  2. Brilliant hiking career! Few people have trekked as much..
    Have you considered doing the INT?
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_National_Trail

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  3. A true inspiration and long distance pioneer,congratulations on so many years of epic trips and hopefully more to come.

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  4. My wife and I met you on August 1, 1988 during your hike in the Canadian Rockies when you came to our campsite near Poboktan Pass encountering a grizzly up on the pass. You spent the night and we hiked together for a couple days before you continued north and we circled back to complete our 120 mile loop.

    After we got home, I was in a bookshop and saw a copy of Backpacker magazine with your now completed hike as the cover story. I bought the magazine, brought it home and saw that you were writing a book about the hike, which I immediately pre-ordered. When my wife got home, I showed her the article and told her I had ordered your book. Since, at the time, that book was kind of expensive for us, she scoffed and said, "Why? Do you think you're gonna be in it or something"?

    A couple months later, when the book arrived, I quickly flipped through it to find your grizzly encounter... and a couple hours later, when my wife got home from work, I showed her the page where, sure enough, we were in the book!

    Glad you're still hiking, Chris. Warm regards,

    "Bill and Susie from Ohio"

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  5. Will, great to hear from you! That walk was wonderful. By coincidence I've been thinking about it and the book recently as the latter may be republished next year after many years out of print.

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