A Slovenian wolf has inspired a 1,600km walk, a brand-new long-distance trail has opened in the Alps, and an amateur archaeologist landed in police custody hunting a musketeer's bones. This week's adventure reading rounds up the best of it.
Start with the wolf. In December 2011, a young Slovenian wolf wearing a GPS collar left its pack and travelled more than 1,600km north through Slovenia, Austria and Italy. Writer Adam Weymouth retraced the entire route on foot, walking through snowy forests, mountain villages and the Dolomites to explore how Europe's changing relationship with wilderness, farming and predators is playing out on the ground. His encounters with shepherds, hunters and farmers living alongside returning wolves make this one for anyone who likes their travel writing with big questions attached.
If that puts you in the mood to lace up boots yourself, Slovenia has quietly delivered: the new 307km Kamnik-Savinja Alps Water Trail threads through valleys, forests and historic villages in the Kamnik-Savinja Alps. It grew out of a 2022 project that mapped and protected 54 natural springs, and the final route passes three lakes, four rivers, several waterfalls and more than 200 springs and streams. Expect 37km of elevation gain and 14 peaks above 2,000m — serious but achievable.
In the Dolomites, Austrian climbers Marian Aßmair and Michael Stadler pulled off the kind of day most of us can only dream about: five major north faces of the Tre Cime di Lavaredo in 14 hours and 15 minutes. Starting at 4:30am on September 5, they climbed the Cassin-Ratti, Comici-Dimai, Preuss Crack, Via Dülfer and Innerkofler routes — roughly 2,000 vertical metres and 56 pitches between summits.
There's a sobering companion piece, too: a look at the death of climber Fiona Layton in a rappel accident and the poorly understood hazard of "knot migration" or "rope creep." Andy Kirkpatrick's analysis shows how small, individually reasonable decisions — bad weather, wet ropes, time pressure — can stack into tragedy. Worth reading before your next multi-pitch descent. On a gentler note, a botched tagline rappel on Wyoming's Pingora Peak ended in a cold night and a rescue, with guides weighing in on when lightweight taglines are and aren't a good idea.
Beyond the mountains: indigenous women in Peru's San Martín region are opening up their version of the Amazon. The Awajún have turned the Nuwas Forest into a centre for ancestral knowledge, growing medicinal plants and sharing sacred-tree traditions with visitors, while the Yana Rumi collective in Chazuta keeps pottery, basketry and textile traditions alive. Also odd and irresistible: retired archaeologist Wim Dijkman dug up a church floor in search of the real D'Artagnan, found a complete male skeleton, and ended up in police custody after refusing to hand over bone fragments bound for DNA testing in Munich. The dig lacked permits; the mystery remains open.
Who's this for? Armchair adventurers, anyone planning a European trek with fewer crowds, and climbers who enjoy reading about risk from the safety of a sofa. Credit: ExplorersWeb.
