James Oakley —
left brain meets
right brain

From automotive design to the analog field journal

I didn’t come to the mountains through traditional travel writing. I came through automotive design—and analog art.

For several years I worked as a designer and engineer at Jaguar Land Rover, developing vehicles built for the exact terrain I now navigate on foot—Defenders and Range Rovers, designed around the question of what happens when the road ends. That background gave me a systematic way of evaluating mountains: terrain, gear mechanics, elevation profiles, margin for error. It’s why the route guides on this site read differently to most.

But I also look at the mountains through a sketchbook. Backpacker’s Mentality is where the analytical meets the analog. Alongside the mountain-tested logistics and the TrekMind route database—an interactive planning tool covering 150+ global treks—you’ll find oil paintings, mixed-media collages, and photography captured on location across four continents. The art isn’t incidental. It’s what happens when you spend enough time in a place to actually see it.

Based in North Vancouver with my partner, Roisin, I’m currently balancing marathon and triathlon training with building out TrekMind’s Tier 5 alpine routes. The Canadian Rockies and the Coast Mountains are on our doorstep, and they’re rarely left idle.

Everything here has been walked, mapped, sketched, and slept under. Not field-tested—mountain-tested. The difference matters.