Anna McCormack · Hetta Huskies

Anna is well known in the outdoor world as an explorer, professional endurance athlete and gear expert. As well as having some first ascents in the greater ranges to her name and having taken part in many individual and peer-group expeditions through the years, she has also led youth and scientific expeditions to the Tien Shan with BSES Expeditions as Chief Mountaineer and to Namibia, as Country Director for Raleigh International.

Masters in Forestry and Land Management from Oxford University
Has lived and worked in 12 countries and travelled through over 40
Led a paraplegic crossing of the Greenland Icecap in 2006
Awarded a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Medal for expedition leadership

Early adventures

Some of her favourite travel memories pre-University include scientific research in Kashmir and climbing Masuru Kangri in Ladakh at the age of 17; at 18, a solo jungle trek across NW Sumatra, over-landing across Java and the Nusa Tenggara and bivvying out on the shores of the crater lake of Mt Rinjani, Lombok (3,726m); and on her 19th birthday, trekking and climbing through thick jungle to the summit of Indonesia's highest volcano, Gunung Kerinci in Sumatra (3805m).

Later highlights included 'accompaniment' work in Central America during the El Salvadorian civil war, climbing and ski trips through the Pacific North West, Colorado and Western Canada, 3 months in remote West African villages researching non-timber forest product use, biking across the Nepali and Tibetan Himalayas, and circumnavigating Mount Kailash in the far west of Tibet.

Academic and professional life

Academically, Anna holds a Masters in Forestry and Land Management from Oxford University, a BSc in Environmental Science of the Tropics from the University of Aberdeen, and a PGCE in Science and Geography from Leeds University.

In all she has lived and worked in 12 countries and travelled through over 40. Professionally, she has worked for organisations as diverse as DFID, the World Bank and an international movement working alongside the FMLN guerilla army in El Salvador during the peace accords. Highlights include being Country Director of a development charity in Namibia and a regional manager of an international rafting company in Nepal. She also spent two years in the Royal Geographical Society's Expedition Advisory Centre in London and worked as an instructor at Plas-y-Brenin, the UK's National Mountain Centre. Her last corporate role was 2.5 years with General Electric as European Product Manager for eVent Fabrics.

Greenland and the move north

For five years Anna competed professionally around the globe as an adventure racing athlete, working closely with over 40 outdoor companies and becoming an expert in both sponsorship and gear.

In 2006 she capped two years of research into enabling outdoor equipment for disabled athletes with a successful paraplegic crossing of the Greenland Icecap, for which she was awarded a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Medal for expedition leadership. She loves her remote Arctic home and now concentrates on developing the family business in Hetta and growing the family.