Contour is a field-tested hiking and outdoor travel journal — trail guides with real elevation data, gear that's survived actual weather, and stories written from the ridge, not the desk.
Chosen for the quality of the trail, not the strength of the hashtag. Each destination links to a full field guide.
A gear failure on day four rewrote the rest of the checklist — and most of what I thought I knew about "waterproof."
Continue reading93 miles, 22,000 meters of elevation change, and a permit lottery harder than most job applications.
Continue readingSomewhere around my fortieth peak, the number stopped being the point. Here's what replaced it.
Continue readingEvery destination below has been walked, mapped, and re-verified by our editorial team within the last two seasons. Difficulty ratings assume good weather and a reasonable base fitness.
Elevation figures and durations reflect an average unsupported hiker at a moderate pace, not a trail-running record attempt.
The original high route through the Dolomites: ten stages of rifugio-to-rifugio hiking beneath limestone spires, with an optional via ferrata detour above Lago di Sorapis.
Request full itinerary →Three valleys, one shape, and the single best three-day sequence of glacier, forest, and granite towers in South America. Refugio-based, no camping gear required.
Request full itinerary →A near-flat traverse of arctic tundra above the treeline, with STF huts spaced a comfortable day apart and reindeer for company more often than people.
Request full itinerary →Half a day, most of it vertical — iron rungs and ladders bolted straight into granite, ending on an open summit above Frenchman Bay. Closed seasonally for peregrine nesting.
Request full itinerary →Widely called the best one-day hike in New Zealand for a reason: emerald crater lakes, active volcanic vents, and a descent through native beech forest.
Request full itinerary →No sponsored placements. Every recommendation below is field-tested by the editorial team across at least one full season.
A gear failure on day four rewrote the rest of the checklist — and most of what I thought I knew about "waterproof."
Continue reading93 miles, 22,000 meters of elevation change, and a permit lottery harder than most job applications.
Continue readingSomewhere around my fortieth peak, the number stopped being the point. Here's what replaced it.
Continue readingTen stages, ten different bowls of polenta, and one via ferrata I'd talked myself out of twice before.
Continue readingWhen the sun doesn't set, your body clock stops being useful advice. Here's what replaced it.
Continue readingPatagonian wind doesn't care about your waterproof rating. It cares about your seams.
Continue readingMara founded Contour in 2017 after a decade guiding trekking groups across the Alps and the Carpathians, tired of trip reports that read like advertising copy. She still writes every trail guide from notes taken on the trail itself — GPS tracks, weather logs, and the occasional argument with a map that turned out to be wrong.
Before Contour, she worked as a mountain guide in Austria and a cartographer's assistant in Kraków, a combination that shows up in every elevation profile on this site. She's currently based between Innsbruck and wherever the next guide takes her.
Innsbruck, Austria — reachable most reliably by email.
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