“I’ve now decided I’m not going to do any more big stuff.”
It’s not the sentence you expect to hear from Alex Staniforth. This is, after all, the adventurer who survived both the 2014 Everest avalanche and the devastating 2015 Nepal earthquake, who has spent more than a decade chasing ambitious endurance challenges, from running the National Three Peaks to setting records across Britain’s mountains.
Yet when we spoke a few months after his appearance at the Fort William Mountain Festival, it quickly became clear that Alex is entering a different, albeit no less fulfilling, chapter. After a year disrupted by post-viral fatigue, the record-breaking athlete who once measured success by summits and finish lines is instead talking about coaching, connection and the importance of simply being well. “Self-development and achievement are really important values for me. It’s just what that becomes that is changing.”
Unlike many experienced mountaineers, Alex didn’t grow up climbing. Instead, he discovered the outdoors as a teenager while struggling with his mental health. A walk in the Lake District sparked a pursuit that quickly evolved into an audacious ambition: climbing Mount Everest. “It wasn’t about a passion for mountaineering,” he admits. “It was a personal goal. Setting something enormous gave me something to work towards when I was struggling.”
With little climbing experience but plenty of determination, he immersed himself in learning the skills, joining walking groups, seeking mentors and spending countless days in the Lake District and Snowdonia before progressing to the Alps and Nepal. Just a few years later, he found himself on Everest. Twice.
Neither expedition reached the summit. Instead, Alex survived two of the most significant disasters in Everest’s recent history: the Khumbu Icefall avalanche in 2014 and the Nepal earthquake a year later.
While those experiences inevitably left emotional scars, which Alex recognises he may still be processing to this day, they also reshaped his attitude towards success. “It removed my fear of failure,” he reflects. “I realised failure is just an opportunity.” That mindset would define the next decade.
Rather than returning to the Himalayas, Alex redirected his energy towards adventures closer to home.
There was the challenge of reaching the highest point of every UK county, the National Three Peaks run, coast-to-coast attempts, mountain rounds and, more recently, becoming the fastest person to visit all 446 mountains in England and Wales entirely under human power. Each challenge raised significant funds for charity, but they also represented something more personal. “I’ve always needed challenge,” he says. “Almost every few years I get this itch or this sense that something’s missing.”
Yet today’s Alex speaks very differently about challenge than he once did. Rather than asking “What’s next?”, he’s increasingly asking “Why?”
A few weeks back, Alex shared a deeply personal social media post explaining that post-viral fatigue had forced him to cancel races and step away from structured training. For someone whose career has been built around physical performance, it was a strikingly honest reflection. “I just want to run for myself,” he tells me. He’s stopped using Strava. Social media, once an important platform for sharing adventures, now feels increasingly exhausting. “I think we need more authenticity,” he says. His concern isn’t simply about online comparison. It’s about a wider culture within endurance sport that increasingly celebrates suffering above all else.
“We almost celebrate people hurting themselves,” he says. We reflect on the fact that endurance culture has normalised pushing beyond healthy limits. Social media is championing longer, harder efforts. Well known and mass-followed social media personalities preach the importance of pushing through pain, no matter what the cost.
“A marathon is still hard whether you run it in two-and-a-half hours or six hours,” he says. “But people now say, ‘It’s only a marathon.’ Nothing ever seems enough.” It’s a perspective shaped not only by watching others but by his own experiences. He openly acknowledges that, for many people, endurance sport can become another form of addiction. “The outdoors became my way of coping with life’s challenges,” he says. “Running can become another addiction too. The difference is that society celebrates it because it looks healthy.”
If Alex’s relationship with challenge has evolved, nowhere is that more evident than in Mind Over Mountains, the charity he co-founded in 2020. Born from an idea that had been taking shape for years, the charity combines guided walks with professional coaching, counselling and mindfulness, creating supportive spaces where conversations often happen more naturally than they do in traditional therapy rooms. “When you’re walking side by side, without that direct eye contact, people often find it easier to talk,” Alex explains. The concept has grown far beyond those early conversations. Today, Mind Over Mountains (for whom Alex is now a Trustee) delivers wellbeing walks, residential retreats and challenge events across England and Wales, supported by more than 100 staff and volunteers. Walks are free to attend, bursaries ensure finances aren’t a barrier, and the charity increasingly works with groups across a multitude of backgrounds who may be suffering from trauma and its lasting effect on their health, including young adults, emergency service workers, refugees and asylum seekers. The stories Alex shares demonstrate the impact.
He recalls one woman who had fled a war-torn country standing silently on a hillside, eyes closed and arms outstretched, simply enjoying the feeling of freedom. Another participant, a police officer struggling with post-traumatic stress, described a retreat as “the best weekend of his life” before later returning as both a fundraiser and volunteer. Others have arrived as strangers and left with lifelong friendships, organising their own walking groups and supporting one another long after the official events ended.
“For me,” Alex says, “it’s about empowering people.”
Perhaps the biggest shift isn’t that Alex is currently not able to chase records, it’s that he no longer feels he has to. He still hopes to return to racing once his health improves. Marathon personal bests remain on the horizon. Coaching, both life coaching and endurance coaching, is becoming an increasing focus.
But the relentless pursuit of ever-bigger challenges has softened. “I’m hoping to use my platform differently now,” he says. “Not to encourage people to chase bigger and bigger goals, but to help them find what matters to them.” In many ways, it’s the message that resonates most strongly. For years Alex inspired people by showing what was physically possible. Today, he may inspire even more by reminding us that resilience isn’t always about pushing harder and healing emotionally doesn’t need to come at the cost of physical health.
Sometimes it’s about knowing when to stop, when to adapt and when to redefine success and your relationships with the hills. The greatest joy can sometimes be found in letting go of achievement of personal ambitions, going faster and further, and appreciating the full breadth of what the mountain environment can offer.
With special thanks to Alex Staniforth (Home – Alex Staniforth)
More information on Mind Over Mountains can be found at Mind Over Mountains mental health support & nature therapy charity
Photos courtesy of Alex Staniforth