Welcome to the Our Sporting Life hiking blog. I’m Stacey and I’ve been hiking religiously since 2020. Lockdown helped me discover local trails and since then I’ve been bagging munros, Wainwrights, as many hills and mountain ridges as I can find, plus flatter trails too. I’m absolutely hooked. Most of the hiking blog posts here are written by me. I cover routes, reviews, gear and other features relating to hiking (mostly in the UK because that’s where I am). And I’m a firm believer that nobody should write about a route they haven’t done themselves. That’s why we don’t have thousands upon thousands of route reviews, but instead a smaller number of the ones we’ve done ourselves and can do into more detail on.
Sometimes, other members of our team of guest contributors may share hiking articles here too, but we only publish content on topics that the writer has experience of.
In a bid to bag as many of the UK’s finest scrambles as possible, I headed to the Crib Lem Spur (Llech Ddu Spur) in Snowdonia on a very, very hot and sunny Friday. Here’s my take on this spectacular scramble and the wider hiking route that takes in 3 of the Welsh 3000s (Carnedd Dafydd, Carnedd Llewelyn and Yr Elen)
Jack’s Rake is an incredibly fun scramble up the face of Pavey Ark in the Lake District’s Langdales. It has been on the list for a while so I took a sunny morning off to go and get this one in the bag. Here’s the route I took and review of the morning.
Got way more hiking gear than you need and a potential addiction to acquiring more? Yes, me too. So I’ve been having a little nosey at storage ideas and here are some cracking ones.
Having done Sharp Edge up to Blencathra last year, I wanted to head back and explore some other routes. My 8 year old also wanted to level up his scrambling and try a ridge. Hall’s Fell Ridge is less exposed (though more sustained) than Sharp Edge, so we headed out in April 2023 to scramble our way to the summit.
The weather was sublime and my deadlines were in the bag! So of course it called for an early start, a drive to the Lake District and hike up Blencathra via Sharp Edge. Here’s the route and how the hike went.
I first visited Corrie Fee in August 2022 en route to the Munro summits of Mayar and Driesh. I was blown away so decided to go back just to see Corrie Fee alone with more time to explore. I did that in 2023.
So you want to hike the UK’s wonderful hills and mountains in winter? Not sure what equipment you’ll need. Here’s our check list.
After crossing both Crib Goch and Aonach Eagach, I’ve taken a bit of time to weigh them both up. Here’s my comparison of the two ridge crossings and an attempt to answer the question, “which is tougher?”
After crossing both Crib Goch to Snowdon and Striding Edge to Helvellyn, how do the two ridges compare against each other? Which one was the hardest?
After crossing both Crib Goch to Snowdon and CMD Arête to Ben Nevis, how do the two compare and which is the hardest? Here’s my take.
I climbed Ben Nevis with my 7 year old child. Here’s my take on climbing Ben Nevis via the mountain path with kids.
I finally ticked off a big hiking wish list item and scrambled my way across the Aonach Eagach ridge. Reputedly mainland Britain’s longest, narrowest ridge, I knew to expect a tough scramble and lots of exposure. But how was it? Here’s how I found the difficulty, exposure and route on Aonach Eagach.
I hiked across Crib Goch in July 2022 as part of a Snowdon route. I’ve done a lot of mountain hiking but this was only my third exposed ridge. Beautiful and exhilarating with the weather conditions on my side, this is how I found the crossing.
The UK’s highest mountain by its most spectacular hiking route. That’s what the CMD arête to Ben Nevis promises. But how is it in reality? And how does it fare for beginners? I hiked to Ben Nevis via Carn Mor Dearg and the CMD arête. Here’s how I found what was my first notable ridge hike.
Striding Edge is a popular ridge route to the summit of England’s third highest mountain, Helvellyn.
But how’d you get there? How safe is it? And who is it suitable for.
We took a little wander out there to take on Striding Edge for ourselves and here’s our take on it along with some photos and video from a sunny day on Helvellyn.
If you’ve been hiking, you’ve probably bumped into other walkers carrying poles. But what’s the point in hiking poles and do you even need them? Let’s take a look.
Traditionalists may not like it! But personally, I don’t like to risk being stuck on a hill or mountain with a dead phone or head torch battery. So I like to carry a portable charging device (or 2, or 3) with me. Here are the best portable charging banks for hiking that I’ve used. (And I’ve used a lot, by the way).
We don’t post loads on social (shock, horror, we know). But we will try harder… promise!