Adventure Activist
What is an Adventure Activist? Honestly, I don’t know. But this is what it means to me…
Having a family is one of life’s best adventures and when it doesn’t work out the way you dreamed it would, it can feel like happiness might never be possible. So, after my eleventh round of unsuccessful IVF, I decided it was time to go on another type of adventure… It has led me to taking on some of the world’s most iconic endurance challenges to raise awareness of what it feels like to struggle to create the family you long for (another of the world’s toughest mental and physical challenges) but also how to live as big and bravely as possible when your life doesn’t go to plan.
…That’s what an Adventure Activist means to me.”
In 2022 Jessica joined the small and select group of people who have swum the English Channel and climbed Mount Everest – known as the Pond to Peak Challenge.
She is one of only two women and the fourteenth person in history to do it.
English Channel
On 2nd September 2015, Jessica swam the English Channel in 17 hours, 44 minutes and 30 seconds, raising over £25,000 for adults and children without the families they long for. She said it was like her version of ‘giving birth.’ Read about it in her second book: 21 Miles: Swimming in search of the meaning of motherhood.
Film by Katie Barlow
Everest | Chomolungma
On 14th May 2022, Jessica summited Mount Everest at 7.30am in the morning. Her journey to the top of the world didn’t go to plan…but then that’s the story of her life! Her 2020 expedition was cancelled due to the Covid pandemic. Her 2021 expedition resulted in a ‘non summit’. And in 2022, third time lucky, she finally made it but she broke her leg on the way down…
Jessica has written about her mountaineering madness in a new compilation of stories called ‘More Than It Hurts’
read more about Jessica’s Pond to Peak achievements
Other adventures…
London Marathon
On 23rd April 2017, Jessica ran the London Marathon for Fertility Network UK, raising over £5,000 for the charity. But please don’t get any sub-four ideas, it took her 5 hours and 27 minutes, proving that this adventure activist may be a Channel swimmer and a Marathon runner but she’s still no athlete!
More MOUNTAINS…
Elbrus
Peak Lenin
