I want to tell you about the moment that changed everything. Not because it happened in a boardroom or on a motivational podcast. It happened on a trail deep in the Himalayas — and it took me years to act on it.
I'd been a trail runner for a long time. It was the one part of my life that felt completely mine — no meetings, no inbox, no performance reviews. Just movement through landscape. The further from the ordinary world I could get, the better I felt. Mountains did something to me that nothing else could replicate.
The moment on the trail
Nepal, 2017 — a glacial river and a life planAfter a particularly tough day in the Himalayas I sat down by a glacial river and did something I'd never done before. I wrote a Life Plan. Not goals. Not a five-year target. A proper reckoning with where I was and where I actually wanted to be.
Right at the top: have my own adventure business doing something I'm truly passionate about. Something that leaves a mark on people. Something that matters.
I was sitting beside the river watching locals wash their clothes in water that had come straight off the mountain. Burning juniper drifting from a monastery somewhere above me. Ice-cold wind coming up the valleys below. And then it hit me — with a clarity I've rarely felt before or since.
Nobody was running these trails. The trails were so runnable. A little lighter, a little faster, without arriving puffed out at the end of each day. The mountains were empty and extraordinary and almost completely unknown to the runners I knew back home. Why wasn't anyone doing this?
"Six weeks later I was sitting by a glacial river deep in the Himalayas, watching locals wash their clothes in the mountain water. Burning juniper drifting from a nearby monastery. Ice-cold wind coming up from the valleys below. And then it hit me. Nobody was running these trails."— Charlie Knights · Founder, Pure Trails Adventure
The one-way flight to Kathmandu
Nepal, 2017 — the moment everything clickedThat trip to Nepal in 2017 is where it all came together. I came home from the mountains with a clarity I hadn't expected — not just the life plan scribbled by that glacial river, but a genuine conviction that this was something worth building. I'd seen the trails. I'd felt what they could do. And I knew that nobody was doing this properly.
I had a mortgage. I had responsibilities. I was terrified. I did it anyway.
What followed over the next two years was building something from nothing — identifying routes across multiple destinations, finding and training local guides, running the trails myself, figuring out what a trail running holiday could be if you got every detail right. Not just the running, but the food, the accommodation, the group dynamic, the pace, the whole experience. I became obsessed with the details because I'd been on enough trips to know that the details are everything.
Pure Trails Adventure launched its first commercial trip in 2019. Eight guests, one destination, one guide. Everyone arrived not knowing a soul. By the final evening they were making plans to travel together again.
What I learned about people
The thing I didn't expect when I startedI built Pure Trails because I loved trail running and I could see a gap in the market for doing it properly in extraordinary places. What I didn't fully anticipate was the human element — and how central that would become to everything we do.
Trip after trip, the same thing happens. Strangers arrive at an airport or a trailhead — nervous, a little unsure, wondering what they've let themselves in for. And then something shifts. The mountain does it, or the trail does it, or the shared discomfort of a long day does it. By the time they reach the final evening, a group of strangers has become something that genuinely resembles a family.
I've watched it happen over 500 times now. People who came alone and leave with friendships they didn't know they needed. People who came thinking they were just going on a running holiday and left having had one of the most significant experiences of their lives. That's not marketing copy. That's what actually happens, consistently, on these trips.
It's the thing I'm most proud of — and it has nothing to do with the routes I planned or the guides I hired. It happens because trail running in extraordinary places with small groups of like-minded people is one of the most reliably good things a person can do with a week of their life. I just built the vehicle to do it.
"People arrive not knowing a soul. By the final evening they're making plans to travel together again. I've watched it happen over 500 times. That's why I do this."— Charlie Knights · Founder, Pure Trails Adventure
Seven years on
Where Pure Trails is now — and where it's goingSeven years since that river in Nepal, Pure Trails Adventure has taken over 500 guests to 13 destinations worldwide. We've been featured in the Financial Times, Runner's World and National Geographic. We have a team of 10 extraordinary guides. We have over 100 five-star reviews from people who came on a running holiday and left with something they didn't expect.
We run to the Albanian Alps, the Dolomites, the Amalfi Coast, the Himalayas, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Scandinavia, and more. Every trip is guided by people who know the terrain intimately. Every group is capped at 10 so it never becomes a coach tour. Every detail is there because I or one of my team has been on the trail and knows exactly what makes it better.
The 2026 season is already well underway — several departures are close to full, and the ones that fill fastest are always the ones people said they'd definitely do next year. If you've been thinking about it, the time to stop thinking is now.
Because I suspect some of you reading this are in the same place I was. You love running. You've been thinking about doing something bigger with it — a proper adventure, somewhere extraordinary, with people who get it. But it keeps getting filed under someday. The 2026 season is here. Don't let it be another someday.
Download the Pure Trails Adventure Guide 2026
13 destinations · Trip overviews · What to expect · How to prepare