In the footsteps of history’s forgotten female explorers
Adventurer ELISE WORTLEY went back to the 1940s for a trek through Cairngorms National Park, tracing the path of writer-explorer Nan Shepherd
IT was 4am. The noise was so deafening, I hadn’t slept again. As the roaring wind whipped up my 1940s canvas tent, I spread my body out, hands and feet in opposite corners, clinging down onto my only shelter for the next 17 nights.
Shivering in the pitch black, dressed in my 1940s Scottish attire, this wasn’t exactly the relaxed journey I’d had in mind.
And it wasn’t the first time I’d been in an uncomfortable situation since I started following in the footsteps of history’s forgotten female explorers.
The last time was in the Indian Himalayas, dressed in a 1920s yak wool coat, carrying a wooden backpack I’d made out of an old chair. Night temperatures were dropping to -15°C, and as I lay in my tent, with frost on my forehead, my yearning for home was stronger than ever.
My interest in these women started at the age of 16, when I discovered French-Belgian explorer Alexandra David-Neel’s memoir, My Journey To Lhasa.
The book recounts the final stages of her 14-year journey through Asia into Lhasa, the forbidden capital of Tibet. She was the first European woman to enter the city and the first to meet the Dalai Lama. I was inspired by her determination and ability to travel in such harsh conditions, especially at a time when travelling for women was so unusual.
Alexandra’s book had a profound impact on me, and for the next 12 years, I often thought about her. After a bout of crippling anxiety throughout my 20s, I decided to re-read My Journey To Lhasa, attempting to find some of her strength in myself. This woman was fearless, and I wanted to be too.
I decided to follow in her footsteps, trekking through the Indian Himalayas towards Tibet. To understand what Alexandra would have really experienced,
I dressed in her 1920s clothing, carrying only what was available to her at the time. This meant no modern equipment whatsoever.
After returning home to London, I began to research other women like Alexandra. There were so many fascinating stories, such as Freya
Stark who travelled to the Valley of the Assassins in Iran, and Annie Smith Peck, the first person to climb the north peak of the Huascaran in Peru. But there was one woman in particular who really grabbed my attention, whose journey was a little closer to home.
This is how I ended up face down in a cold wet tent, following in the footsteps of Scottish explorer Nan Shepherd. Part funded from my own pocket, with sponsorship from adventure company Wilderness Scotland, I set off to discover Nan’s mountain world.
Her book, The Living Mountain, is a literary masterpiece, but surprisingly – even though she’s the face of the new Scottish £5 note – she’s widely unknown.
Written during the last years of the Second World War, The Living Mountain is Nan’s homage to the Cairngorm Mountain range in Northern Scotland. The book was very much ahead of its time, in terms of structure and style, which is perhaps why, after being turned down by one publisher, Nan left the manuscript untouched in a drawer for more than 30 years.
Kitted out in 1940s equipment mostly from ebay, I set off to Aviemore, a small town south of Inverness. I was wearing a vintage tweed coat, leather boots, a cotton blouse and an itchy pair of highwaisted pants with a rather fancy rocket bra. My old army backpack was loaded with a heavy canvas tent, wartime food rations, blankets and emergency dry clothing.
Joined for the first part of my trip by camerawoman Emily Almond Barr, we walked from Aviemore, through thick pine forests leading up to the border of Cairngorms
National Park. From the smallest elevation gain you could see for miles, the pine forests below now looking like huge blankets of dark green moss.
As we scrambled up small rocky paths towards the main peaks, black clouds rolled in and the rain poured down. With my backpack wet and heavier than ever, I knew I couldn’t carry on for much longer, but finding a suitable camping spot was harder than I’d imagined. The ground was steep and rocky, covered in bushy heather, which made pitching tents impossible.
We had to keep walking, and headed towards a large valley below the peak of Cairn Gorm, with the hope that we would be sheltered from the worsening weather. For five nights we stayed there, fighting with our tents in the wind, walking when we could, hoping to see and experience some of the places Nan mentions in The Living Mountain.
Draped in half of my tent, which also doubled up as a ‘waterproof ’ poncho, I wandered for hours through the mist and rain trying to reach places Nan talks about in her book. The weather, mixed with my old equipment, massively slowed our progress. It was frustrating to feel like we weren’t experiencing Nan’s whole journey, but after a few