Natalie Berry

Freelance Journalist, Editor UKClimbing.com

United Kingdom

Editor of UKClimbing.com, the world's busiest climbing and mountaineering website. Freelance journalist and translator with work published in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Financial Times (How to Spend It), The Independent, The Times, Geographical, WIRED UK and Alpinist Magazine. Three published book translations. Work listed among notable essays and literary non-fiction of 2019 in the Best American Essays 2020 anthology; shortlisted AIPS Sport Media Awards 2021. Sport Climbing reporter at Tokyo 2020.
Full list of UKC features (excl. news pieces): https://www.ukclimbing.com/user/profile.php?id=192335
Selected clippings below.

Portfolio
The Independent
10/03/2023
Mountain man: the miraculous life of Reinhold Messner

He was the brash, brilliant and ego-fuelled climber who first scaled Everest without oxygen, survived earthquakes and whose brother was swept to his death as the two men attempted a treacherous descent. As a new controversy sees him stripped of two Guinness world records, Natalie Berry relives the extraordinary highs and shattering lows of a mountaineering colossus.

HeraldScotland
11/27/2022
Melika Balali wrestling with responsibility amid backdrop of Iran protests

AS a child, Melika Balali watched from the sidelines as her male relatives grappled in home wrestling matches. She was forbidden from taking part in Iran's national sport - simply because she was a girl. Prevented from most activities including singing, dancing, or riding a bicycle, Balali immersed herself in art.

The New York Times
06/09/2022
Nicole McLaughlin's Designs Are No Joke

Her tongue-in-cheek approach to sustainable fashion sends a serious message: The only way to combat overconsumption is to produce less and repurpose more. Nicole McLaughlin, a conceptual artist focused on sustainability, loves coming up with names for her creations. A beanie made from jeans is a "jeanie." Shoes constructed from sushi are "shoeshi."

Financial Times - How to Spend It
05/17/2021
The 10 Best Climbing Destinations in Europe

As a young girl of nine, I stumbled upon a mobile climbing tower in a car park one drizzly Saturday morning. At the time, I couldn't have imagined the beautiful places that the sport would eventually take me. That early period saw me devoted to indoor competition climbing, a discipline that is set to make its Olympic debut this summer.

WIRED UK
08/03/2021
Olympic climbers are learning from monkeys

UDO NEUMANN'S ROUTE to primary school weaved through Cologne Zoo. He'd watch the orangutans swinging in their cages, and in 2011, a longing to see these great apes in their natural habitat took the German - by then a rock-climbing adult, sports scientist and coach - to the Sumatran rainforests, where orangutans and black and white gibbons moved effortlessly overhead.