[ad_1]
(CNN) — Elise Wortley didn’t want to be an adventurer. After moving from rural Essex to busy London in 2017 when she was in her late twenties and diagnosed with anxiety disorder, she took up walking as a way to calm her mind.
But her small steps gave way to unexpected adventures.
While reading about the Franco-Belgian explorer Alexandra David-Néel, Wortley remained obsessed with the details of her pioneering travels through Tibet. Besides hiking, David-Néel camped and slept in caves for two years, all in the clothes of her time.
“A lot of[female explorers]dressed up as men because it was easier,” Wortley explains. But others hiked, climbed, biked, camped and more in petticoats—yet another hurdle these women had to go through in order to be taken seriously and realize their dreams.
In addition to recreating famous treks, Wortley set out to recreate the same period-specific clothing and gear the women had used to better understand their mindset.
“I found I understand their reading and writing a lot better now that I’ve done it with the old stuff,” Wortley says.
Wortley wants to encourage other women to experience nature on their own terms, away from the stress of everyday life.
Emily Almond Barr
Visiting Iran in the midst of a pandemic is difficult in itself, but it’s also challenging to track down a vintage 1930s Burberry coat to wear for the walk.
To follow in the footsteps of Anglo-Italian explorer and travel writer Freya Stark, Wortley had to arrange visas and accommodation for her visit to Iran’s Alamut Valley, often referred to as the Valley of the Assassins.
But she was determined to do it in the same attire that Stark wrote so passionately about in her travel journals, namely a 1930s Burberry raincoat the explorer wore on her travels.
It took weeks and many emails to collectors of antique clothes, but Wortley finally found one of the coats—along with a matching hat—in time to wear it on her trek.
That’s not all. For her David-Néel trip to Tibet, Wortley didn’t just carry her gear and supplies – she carried a 1920s-style wicker chair, much like the one that had carried her inspiration herself.
Where the road leads
Wortley says she has a list of “about 150” female adventurers whose travels she would like to follow. But since she pays for most of her trips herself — lately she’s attracted some sponsorship from brands like North Face and Clinique — she has to be sensible about which one to pursue next.
The pandemic only made that more challenging. A trip closer to home was a hike to Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the UK, which recreated a journey by the writer and explorer Nan Shepherd.
Shepherd, a Scottish woman who lived for most of the 20th century, is best known for her book “The Living Mountain,” in which she writes passionately and lyrically about people connecting with the outdoors.
It was Shepherd’s words that Wortley had in mind as she watched day-trippers try to get to the top of Ben Nevis as quickly as possible, just to say they were there.
She points out how much “discovery literature” is about bragging, with mostly white men from the West wanting to say that they were the first person to go somewhere, climb something, or name a place. Some male explorers would not even visit an area once women had arrived, claiming its beauty had been ruined or the tension had disappeared.
Wortley says she has a list of “about 150” female adventurers whose travels she would like to follow.
Olivia Martin McGuire
More feet on the track
She reaches out to local women to join her for some or all of the hikes depending on their comfort level, raising awareness about the history of female adventurers.
While traveling, Wortley tries to hire a local female guide. That can be discouraging, as many of these areas are sparsely populated.
Meanwhile, in planning her Ben Nevis expedition, Wortley used Jane Inglis Clark as her inspiration. Clark co-founded the Ladies’ Scottish Climbing Club in 1908, which is believed to be the world’s oldest all-female climbing club in 1908. original members to find her traveling companions.
Still, the idea of a multi-day hike through the Himalayas with a chair on your back may deter some people from going outside. Wortley says that while she likes to challenge herself, the main distraction from her job is that the world belongs to everyone.
“These women were naughty,” Wortley says, “but you don’t have to be fit to get that from nature or have a little adventure.”
Her goal? Encouraging other women to experience nature on their own terms, away from the stress of everyday life.
“On one trip, I literally only had my notebook to write in. So I really learned to just sit and be. I’d really like to do that — just take a bunch of people, maybe people obsessed with their phones or social media and things like that, put all the phones in a box at night and just let people sit and slow down.”
[ad_2]
Source link
