The Farthest Shore

In February 2019, award-winning writer Alex Roddie left his online life behind when he set out to walk 300 miles through the Scottish Highlands, seeking solitude and answers. In leaving the chaos of the internet behind for a month, he hoped to learn how it was truly affecting him - or if he should look elsewhere for the causes of his anxiety. The Farthest Shore is the story of Alex's solo trek along the remote Cape Wrath Trail. As he journeyed through a vanishing winter, Alex found answers to his questions, learnt the nature of true silence, and discovered frightening evidence of the threats faced by Scotland's wild mountain landscape.

Alex Roddie is an award-winning outdoor writer, photographer and professional editor who lives in Lincolnshire. After a childhood spent in Cambridgeshire and Suffolk, albeit with regular visits to the mountains, he moved to Glen Coe in 2008 and got a job as a barman at the Clachaig Inn. Three years of non-stop alcohol-fuelled climbing and hillwalking later, he moved back down south to be with Hannah, his partner and later his wife - but the mountains have never been far away. In 2015 he hiked his first Cape Wrath Trail, which marked the beginning of an intensive period of long-distance hiking including the Tour de Monte Rosa, West Highland Way, Skye Trail, Jotunheimstien, Mercantour Traverse, Haute Route Pyrenees, and many more. He has also spent several summers in the Alps trying to climb big snowy peaks. Since 2015 he's been a regular feature contributor to various UK outdoor and photographic publications, including The Great Outdoors, UKHillwalking, Trail, On Landscape and others. Since 2014 he's worked as a freelance editor and has helped many outdoor writers to hone their own manuscripts before publication. To read more of Alex's work, including a wealth of free resources on long-distance hiking, head to www.alexroddie.com. He's also active on Twitter @alex_roddie.