1#5 Ross Worthington: the RAW Adventurer, part 2
“You can absolutely do this. Let’s do this together.”
If Episode #5…
… is going to teach us anything, it’s what Ross Worthington has “triple bagged and buried” in his back garden. But don’t just stay for that tantalising snippet, because Ross, along with Kate “off-of-episode-4” Worthington, is a co-founder of RAW Adventures. That means there’s much to be said about living below and working on planet Earth’s “busiest mountain” (prove me wrong), and the joy that comes from helping others discover the challenges and beauties of its slopes. Perhaps most fascinating of all is Ross’ journey to this exciting point in life, which has seen him skive college for the love of motorbikes, work undercover as a police officer, and enjoy life-affirming experiences on peaks from Malaysia’s Mt Kinabalu to Patagonia’s Cerro San Lorenzo.
To learn all about RAW Adventures point your browser here… raw-adventures.co.uk
[episode recorded on 22/01/21]
00:00 - Introduction
02:00 - Welcome (pub chat)
05:33 - The World’s Busiest Mountain, sez Dan
07:30 - “The notoriously mountainous county of Kent”
15:43 - Motorbikes, pubs and planes
18:25 - Joining the police: “it’s a genetic disorder for our family”
19:13 - The Wire, Poirot or The Bill?
21:40 - … ah, so it’s a bit like The Bill
22:20 - … oh no, wait, it’s definitely The Wire
24:40 - “My homeless person kit is still triple-bagged and buried in my back garden… and I don’t even know where in the garden it is”
27:30 - Mountain escapes from a working life
30:30 - Mt Kinabalu’s “… a sea of green… and satanic horns flying out of the canopy”
32:35 - Mountains take over. Kate enters the scene
35:25 - The C.H.A.O.S. Club
37:05 - Running RAW Adventures, 10 years in
39:40 - Nonny gets in on the action
41:47 - Balmoral, Loch Muick and bothies
44:05 - “Snowdon’s a really achievable goal for a lot of people, but that doesn’t detract from the fact that it’s a substantial UK mountain”
46:00 - “You can absolutely do this. Let’s do this together”
49:10 - The Three Peaks Challenge the “right” way
53:55 - Snowdon, Everest and the Snowdonia Ambassador scheme
56:24 - Greatest Mountain Memory: honeymooning on snowy peaks in Chilean Patagonia
61:15 - All the time, money, freedom… where do you go? Antarctica (the “Ross Ice Shelf”, of course)