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There are moments in conversation that feel like a homecoming - and this opening episode of Season 2, with outdoor guide and ethical adventurer Stevie Boyle, is one of them.

Recorded on the East Lothian coast, a place deeply woven into Lorna’s own story of growing up outdoors, this conversation felt like the right way to begin a new season — not by resetting the conversation, but by deepening it.

Stevie is the founder of Ocean Vertical, a values-led adventure company rooted in paddleboarding, coaststeering and mountain travel. But as this conversation unfolds, it becomes clear that adventure itself is not the point.

What Stevie returns to, again and again, is responsibility.

• Responsibility to the people he works with.
•  Responsibility to the environments he moves through.
•  Responsibility to speak openly about risk, fear and decision-making - not to diminish adventure, but to make it sustainable.

From rewilding and marine protection to the ethics of guiding, ego, and performance culture in adventure, this episode explores what it means to move through wild places with humility and care.

If Season 2 has a keyword, this one is Responsibility.

Together they explore:

• Why ethics aren’t an add-on in adventure - they’re foundational
• The outdoors as the product, not the backdrop
• How independence, not dependency, should be the goal of guiding
• The role of education, transparency and decision-making in safety
• Why sharing adventure should be a by-product, not the purpose

Key moments in the episode:

• Finding Ocean Vertical and the philosophy behind it
• The pressure, ego and performative culture surrounding modern adventure
• A solo winter journey on the Cairngorm plateau — a snow hole, a broken compass and a whiteout
• The moment Stevie realised no one was coming to help — and what that taught him
• The difference between confidence and entitlement
• What “In the wild we remember who we are” means to him

About Stevie Boyle

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