Sian Pritchard-Jones

Born in Llandovery, Siân Pritchard-Jones climbed her first peak in North Wales at the age of 3½, igniting her passion for mountains and wild places. Following an earlier incarnation as a computer programmer/analyst, she met her husband, Bob Gibbons, in 1983, on a trek from Kashmir to Ladakh. Since 1983 they have been leading and organising treks in the Alps, Nepal and the Sahara, as well as driving overland to Nepal. Journeys in a 1983 Land Rover from England to South Africa provided the basis for several editions of the Bradt guide Africa Overland. During 2011 they revisited Tibet, this time driving the same old Land Rover back from Kathmandu to the UK, via Lhasa through China, Kazakhstan and Russia. The Himalaya have never ceased to attract, resulting in several trekking guidebooks for Cicerone and Map House, and previously with Pilgrims Book House. What started with a Cicerone guide to Annapurna in 2011, led to a whole series of trekking guides to Nepal, from far east to far west and almost everywhere in-between. In 2015 they flew into Nepal just after the first 7.8 earthquake to see how they could help, and experienced the second earthquake of 7.4, resulting in a lot of fund-raising efforts and invitations to visit, write guidebooks about, and help to develop new trekking areas in the Nepalese countryside to aid the recovery. During lockdown in the UK they used the time to collate all their photos (many of them old slides scanned into digital format) into picture books of destinations around the world. More recently in 2023 they were able to visit the Middle East, in particular Iraq and Yemen. Siân has also translated three exciting books from French into English: one the story of an amazing weather-forecaster living in Chamonix while forecasting for mountaineering expeditions around the globe; the second a mountaineering novel based on fictitious eccentric characters living in the Chamonix Valley; the third a pictorial trekking guide to the spectacular, remote region of Mustang in Nepal.