‘You’re made to feel you don’t belong’: the black hikers challenging UK rural stereotypes

Emily Zobel Marshall says: ‘Black women can face rural racism when they go walking in the countryside.’ Photograph: Handout

In early December, Emily Zobel Marshall completed her mountain leader training for the walking group Black Girls Hike: a two-night expedition in Snowdonia that involved wild camping at -6C and night-time navigation.

Speaking just before she left, Zobel Marshall, an academic from Leeds Beckett University, insisted she was thrilled by the challenge ahead.