Beyond the boy's club: The women at the frontier of adventure
Yun Sun Park/ BBCFrom ice swimming to desert crossings, these explorers are redefining what modern adventure – and modern adventurers – look like.
For generations, the archetype of the explorer has been male: Shackleton in the Antarctic, Hillary on Everest, Chatwin crossing deserts. But modern exploration looks different.
While history celebrates female adventure pioneers like Amelia Earhart, Nan Shepherd, Adela Breton and Junko Tabei, a new generation of women is reshaping exploration in real time. They are mountaineers, ice swimmers, conservationists, ultrarunners and filmmakers. They are crossing deserts on foot, paddling oceans solo, documenting disappearing ecosystems and reframing what it means to move through extreme landscapes. Increasingly, the emphasis is not on planting a flag, but on purpose, mindset and impact.
For International Women's Day, we're spotlighting seven women who are breaking boundaries right now, from record-breaking endurance feats to conservation-led expeditions.
Photo courtesy of Hazel FindlayHazel Findlay: Professional rock climber
Findlay is one of the UK's most accomplished traditional climbers, known for her thoughtful approach to fear, risk and mindset in high-consequence environments. In 2011, she became the first woman to climb a British E9 trad route. She later became the first British woman to sport climb 8c and one of the first British women to climb 9a, one of the hardest grades in the world at the time. She has free-climbed El Capitan in Yosemite four times and established first ascents in countries around the world, including big walls in Greenland and Oman.
Alongside her climbing career, Findlay founded Strong Mind, a company that helps climbers build confidence and resilience. Using her decades of experience, she coaches climbers of all abilities on facing their fear of falling, fear of failure and performance anxiety, empowering more people to take on climbing in the great outdoors safely and with joy.
Photo courtesy of Alice MorrisonAlice Morrison
Morrison recently became the first recorded person to cross Saudi Arabia from north to south on foot. Over 112 days, she covered 2,195 km – around half a marathon a day – navigating sandstorms, headwinds and remote terrain. Along the way, she crossed landscapes layered with history, from ancient petroglyphs to Stone Age tombs, and through communities undergoing rapid cultural change.
She is also the first woman to walk the Draa River in Morocco and has cycled 12,000 km from Cairo to Cape Town in the Tour D'Afrique, the longest bike race on Earth. Other adventures include taking on the notorious Marathon des Sables, running around Everest, hiking the length of Jordan and climbing Mount Elgon, an extinct volcano in Uganda.
Many of Morrison's journeys involve long-term immersion; a 7.5-month trek across Morocco and the Sahara saw her travel north to south with six camels and three Amazigh guides. Morrison says that she wants to bear witness to what is happening to the planet as our climate and societies change, and tell the stories that bring us together rather than the ones that drive us apart. Through her books, podcast and BBC series, she documents these encounters with local communities along with the realities of endurance travel.
Photo courtesy of Lizzie CarrAfter being diagnosed with cancer at 26, Carr turned to paddleboarding as part of her recovery – and soon began setting records. In 2016, she became the first person to solo paddleboard the 400-mile length of England's waterways unsupported. A year later, she became the first woman to solo paddleboard across the English Channel, and in 2018, she completed the 170-mile length of New York's tidal Hudson River.
During her journey through England's waterways, she documented more than 20,000 pieces of plastic litter. The experience led her to found Planet Patrol, a non-profit that combines community action with data collection. To date, thousands of volunteers across 98 countries have helped remove and record more than half a million pieces of rubbish using the Planet Patrol app. In 2021, Carr was awarded an MBE for contributions to environmental work and activism.
Photo courtesy of Eva zu BeckEva zu Beck: Adventurer, vlogger and travel TV host
Zu Beck realised early on that most adventurers she'd seen on TV were white, middle-aged men. They looked nothing like her – but inspired a vision of what the world of adventure could look like with more women in it. Zu Beck wanted to become an expert in long, solo, remote expeditions in extreme locations. And slowly, step by step, she began to turn that dream into reality.
Today, Zu Beck is a travel and adventure YouTuber and host of the National Geographic series Superskilled. The show follows Zu Beck as she explores extraordinary human skills in some of the world's most remote locations, from training as a porter on Mount Kilimanjaro, running 27 miles in sandals alongside the Rarámuri (Tarahumara) runners and spending five days with the Hadza, one of the last hunter-gatherer communities on Earth.
One of her most challenging adventures was running a 320-mile ultra marathon in the Arctic Circle... in winter. Over 10 days, zu Beck dragged a fully loaded sled across the snow and ice in temperatures dropping to -20C (-4F), sleeping in a tent while battling intense winds, cold, darkness and physical pain.
Her forthcoming book, The Wilder Way (May 2026), explores her solo expeditions and her decision to pursue long-distance, self-supported journeys in extreme environments.
Photo courtesy of Lucy ShepherdLucy Shepherd: Explorer
After years of struggling to fit in at school, Shepherd challenged herself by taking a survival adventure course in Scotland. She soon realised that she thrived as an expedition leader. Inspired by the freedom and insight of TV's new generation of young adventurers, such as Bear Grylls, she soon started to write her own bucket list.
Today, Shepherd undertakes long on-foot expeditions through some of the world's most remote environments, from the Amazon rainforest to the polar regions, often working closely with Indigenous and local communities. In 2021, she travelled with a team deep into the jungles of Guyana to cross the Kanuku Mountains from east to west on an ambitious 50-day, 400km journey. The aim was not simply to become the "first", but to raise awareness of what can be achieved when land is protected.
Shepherd self-films her journeys for television, including Channel 4's Secret Amazon: Into the Wild and the upcoming Secret Africa: Into the Wild. Past expeditions have seen her stranded for two weeks on Mount Denali in −40C conditions and collaborating with environmental organisations in the Peruvian Amazon.
Photo courtesy of Bárbara Hernández HuertaBárbara Hernández Huerta: Extreme ice swimmer
Known as "The Ice Mermaid", Hernández Huerta specialises in ice swimming and ultra-distance crossings without a wetsuit. Growing up in Santiago, far from the sea, she discovered open water swimming as a teenager and later gravitated towards colder, more challenging environments for a deeper connection with nature.
She is the only South American to complete the Ocean's Seven challenge and the first Chilean to achieve the Triple Crown of Open Water Swimming, which is swimming the English Channel, the Catalina Channel and the 20 Bridges Swim (around the entirety of Manhattan Island). Hernández Huerta has been inducted into both the prestigious Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame and the Ice Swimming Hall of Fame, and holds four Guinness World Records for crossings around Cape Horn, Antarctica and Puerto Natales, including the longest ice swim by a woman.
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She frequently swims in Antarctica and at-risk regions to demonstrate the need for stronger environmental protections, highlighting the loss of polar ice and the degradation of delicate marine ecosystems.
Photo courtesy of Ioana BarbuIoana Barbu: Extreme ultrarunner and snowboarder
Barbu became the first person to complete all six Beyond the Ultimate races within a calendar year, a series in which runners tackle some of the world's most extreme environments. Her races span 230km stretches across the Arctic Circle, the Amazon rainforest, the Namib Desert and the Tian Shan mountains of Kyrgyzstan.
She is an advocate for women in endurance sport, noting that performance gaps narrow significantly over ultra-distance races, with women increasingly appearing on overall podiums. Barbu wants to show that you don't have to look like the traditional image of an explorer to be one.
But for Barbu, modern adventure isn't about surviving extreme environments. It's about what those environments reveal. When you're exhausted, freezing or overheating, there's no ego left. You learn that you are far more capable than you think. And once you realise that, Barbu says the world feels bigger and more accessible. Passionate about making a difference, she races in aid of Global's Make Some Noise, which supports small charities around the UK helping families and young people.
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