THE COMPANY · EST. 2014 · KESWICK
The guides
Six guides, one office phone, no seasonal staff. You will know your guide’s name before you book, and they will phone you before you fly. This page is who answers.
HOW IT STARTED
Fourteen years of callouts, then this
Rhona MacAllister spent fourteen years with Keswick Mountain Rescue, most of them as a team leader. The pattern in the callout log was always the same: not reckless people, but under-prepared ones — sold a trip by a brochure, led by a headcount.
Wildtrace started in 2014 as the opposite bet: groups of eight, guides with the highest UK qualifications, itineraries with turning-back built in. The first season was two Knoydart weekends and a borrowed minibus. The 96% return rate arrived by itself.
The ethos
We take small groups to wild places and bring them back wanting more, not needing rescue. That means honest grading, real acclimatisation, guides who are paid to say no, and trips sized for the landscape rather than the spreadsheet. We would rather run fewer expeditions well than more expeditions loudly. Fifty-five routes in twelve years; every one walked by a guide on this page before it is ever sold. If a trip stops feeling wild, we retire it — quiet places only stay quiet if the visits stay small, so the group size is not a marketing line. It is the product.
THE TEAM
The guides
Rhona MacAllister
MIC · WINTER LEAD · FOUNDERMountaineering and Climbing Instructor. Runs the Cairngorms winters and everything in Scotland. Has slept in every bothy north of the Great Glen and ranks them, seriously, by draught.
Ben Okonkwo
IML · ALPINE LEAD · NORWAY & SPAINInternational Mountain Leader, twelve Alpine seasons. Leads the Hardangervidda and the Picos. Has carried a cafetière over every col in the Vanoise and regrets none of it.
Elin Vaughan
IML · HIMALAYA LOGISTICS · LADAKH LEADInternational Mountain Leader and the brain behind our Ladakh operation — permits, mule teams, oxygen, all of it. Nine Himalayan seasons. Makes a lemon-ginger tea you will think about for years.
Tashi Dorje
IML · LADAKH PARTNER · WINTER ZANSKARBorn in Skiu, based in Leh. International Mountain Leader, wilderness first responder, and the reason there is always a kitchen with our name on it in the Markha valley. Leads the frozen-river winters in Zanskar. His mule team has never lost a bag in twelve years — he mentions this roughly hourly.
Marta Serrano
IML · PICOS & PYRENEES · EX-PARK RANGERAragonese, Pyrenees-raised, seven years a ranger in Ordesa before she swapped enforcement for guiding. Runs our Spanish traverses and the Andean logistics. Carries a tin of saffron on every expedition and has used it at 4,600m.
Jonas Iversen
TINDEVEGLEDER (NORTIND) · SAREK & LOFOTENTromsø-born, Nortind-certified, owns the Sarek and Lofoten crossings. Measures distances in coffee stops — the Long Crossing is “eleven”. Has crossed the Hardangervidda in every month of the year and still calls August the easy one.
THE MARGIN
How we keep you safe
01 · RATIOS
Numbers that hold
Trekking trips run at one qualified guide to eight walkers, plus local partner guides where we work abroad. Winter skills runs at one MIC to four students — the ratio the terrain demands, not the one the margin prefers.
02 · COMMS
inReach on every trip
Every expedition carries a Garmin inReach satellite communicator — every trip, every guide, no exceptions. Daily check-ins go to Keswick on schedule; a missed check-in triggers a call cascade we test twice a year. Your family can follow the track if you want them to.
03 · WEATHER
We turn back. That's the deal.
Every itinerary has escape routes and a spare day, and every guide has the authority — and the pay structure — to use them. Nobody at Wildtrace has ever been criticised for turning around. Summits are optional. Coming home isn't.
The full working — ratios by terrain, the check-in cascade, the altitude protocol and one real morning's decision reconstructed minute by minute — is on the safety page.
INSURANCE, PLAINLY
You need travel insurance that covers trekking to the altitude of your trip — we check policies before departure, because "activity cover" small print has ruined better holidays than ours. For UK trips, BMC membership is worth having anyway: it supports the access and mountain rescue infrastructure every one of our routes depends on. We are members; our guides are individually insured and first-aid certified (minimum 16-hour outdoor-specific, revalidated every three years).
NEXT STEP
Walk with us.
Fifty-five expeditions with 2026–27 dates. One conversation before any money moves.