New Book about Exploring life to the fullest

I have just published a new book called “Let’s Go. To the ends of the Earth and a bit beyond that.”

Here is what one reviewer wrote: “

Sure, Let’s Go by Martyn Williams is one of those rare books that makes you laugh out loud while also making you stare wide-eyed at the sheer scope of human adventure. The stories are remarkable but it’s the way they’re told that makes this book unforgettable. Williams writes with such wit and subtle comedy that I am still laughing, days after finishing it.

The book takes us from the frozen edges of the planet to the peaks of the Himalayas and into the depths of spiritual exploration. We go dog-mushing to the North Pole and even fall through the ice at –50°C, ski across Antarctica hauling sleds day after day, climb on Mount Everest, and finally end up in the Himalayas with an enlightened master — all told with a mix of humor, humility, and wonder.

This isn’t just an adventure book; it’s a journey through courage, absurdity, and awakening. If you love stories that make you laugh, gasp, and think all at once, Sure, Let’s Go is absolutely worth the read.

You can find the book here on Amazon

Here are some more reviews:

Pat Morrow, First Person in the world to climb the SEVEN SUMMITS, the highest peak on each continent

Of the handful of influencers (we’re talking pre-Internet schlock era) who’ve left their mark on my long and winding life, Martyn Williams — code name Dheera (“Courage” in Sanskrit) — has handily made the biggest impression…especially when it came to nose-tweaking.

(For the uninitiated, a well-timed nose-tweak is Martyn’s flippant little gesture to defuse stuffiness in a group situation — a small act of levity that prefigures the endearing concept of “Yahoo!” that runs through his book.)

In 1978, on my 3½-month journey to the far corners of Yukon Territory in an ancient green van to shoot my first photo book, I met this fiery-red-haired Welshman from Liverpool — whose dad, as inside lore goes, once sold insurance to one of the Beatles’ parents — on the cusp of his marriage unraveling.

Martyn’s preternatural drive to explore both inner and outer worlds was, and remains, infectious. As he prepared to temporarily escape south, we pledged to join adventure “farces” (read: nose-tweaks in extremis) the following year. That promise materialized in a 12-day circumski of our country’s highest peak, Mount Logan (5,959 m), whose sprawling bulk rises from the heart of the St Elias icefields, boasting the largest circumference of any mountain on Earth.

Our team — Martyn, Brian Finnie, Jeremy Schmidt, and me — alighted on the gravel airstrip at Kluane Lake, which now, due to climate change, is disappearing. The Kaskawulsh Glacier we skied in its upper reaches has since receded so far that its meltwater no longer feeds the Slims River and Kluane Lake, instead draining south into the Alsek River system.

Here are some of my many vivid Martyn memories in the ensuing decades, some covered in detail in the book, in his own understated words:

• flashing into perfect telemark position for my camera on a month-long filming tour of off piste skiing in the European Alps despite a kneecap shattered from having hit a submerged stump at speed on his skis just weeks prior.

• calmly teaching George Henry (one of the hippest Tlingits in Yukon) and me how to back-paddle through shelf rapids during a remote canoe trip with Canadian troubadour Bruce Cockburn on the Ogilvie/Peel watershed.

• nonchalantly carrying roughly $70,000 USD in cash(~$227,000 today, US Inflation Calculator) in a dime-store leather satchel through bomb-scarred Santiago, Chile — then in the throes of civil unrest and anti-Pinochet demonstrations — trading on the gray market in the city’s financial district to fund an air-drop of fuel for our 1984 flight to — and, more importantly, back from — Mount Vinson in Antarctica.

Having partnered with Martyn and several other like-minded friends in setting up the logistics company Adventure Network International in order to reach my Seven Summits goal of climbing the highest peak on that continent, I watched in awe as he went on to guide guests on overland journeys to the North and South Poles and the top of Everest. ANI was the first and only company to offer adventurers and explorers airborne access to the interior and far corners of Antarctica and, with a name and ownership change, exists to this day.

Easily his most audacious give-back to humanity was the Pole to Pole expedition in 1999  — an international band of eight “ordinary young people” who spent nine months skiing, cycling, and trekking across hemispheres while engaging in environmental and humanitarian projects. Hundreds of schools followed their journey online as they documented grassroots change under the mantra: “Small Steps Make a Difference.” My wife Baiba and I were honoured to host the team at our home at the time in Canmore, AB for a much-needed rest and dose of normality midway through the marathon.

A couple of hundred pages of classic bust-a-gut expedition narratives such as this is as instructive as it is revelatory. Martyn’s freeze-ass adventures gradually steered him from seeking often short-lived bliss in the mountains and on rivers toward achieving an enduring satisfaction and balance in life through stillness — from summits to ashrams.

For those of us who cherish the mystical travel writings of Buddhist pilgrim Alexandra David-Néel, Paramahansa Yogananda, the Belgian-Bolivian mystic Lama Govinda, or Nicholas Roerich — the St. Petersburg artist-philosopher of Himalayan fame — the latter sections of Sure, Let’s Go! delve into equally rarefied air. Martyn (or Dheera) doesn’t just recount adventure; he wrestles with the metaphysical challenges, setbacks and rewards of a life lived wide open.

To this extent, Sure, Let’s Go! becomes less a memoir and more a field guide to summoning human courage — a reminder that whether you are a seeker of self on skis, on foot, or on your splayed meditation cheeks, small steps still make the difference.

You can find out more about Martyn Williams here:

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