A huge THANK YOU from Mont Blanc Treks and Cicerone!
To all those who entered our competition in May, we found our winner among many entries sent from all over the world. We're really excited to introduce our competition winner for 2025, Rosie Tanner, from the Netherlands! She has won an 8-day guided trek in the Jungfrau Region and is due to join us for the epic adventure later this month.
Without further ado, here's Rosie...
"I am really excited to be able to join the Jungfrau trek in Switzerland in August. I have only just joined Instagram – where I won the competition – and was bowled over when Mont Blanc Treks phoned me to tell me I had won.
I have always loved the mountains and my parents instilled a loved of walking in me. I went youth hostelling with friends when I was about fourteen and that was when I started to love trekking. In the 1980s, I lived for four years in Concepción, in Chile, working as an English teacher. We had really long holidays during which I travelled and trekked in Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia, as well as all over Chile. My first true trekking love is the Torres del Paine national park in Patagonia in Chile.
During my working life, I was initially a teacher trainer and project adviser for the British Council in China and in Poland. And then I met a Dutch mountaineer on a long bus journey in Ladakh in north-west India, where I was also trekking. And that is why I live in this flat country. I have two adult children: Hugo is 30 and India is 25. During my career here in the Netherlands I worked as a university teacher trainer and writer in bilingual education. In 2012, I followed a personal development course, as a result of which I decided to become a freelancer and never looked back, working both here and abroad. I loved working in education and found most teachers to be dedicated and motivated.
My partner and I often go to the mountains in the summer: the Dolomites, the Alps, the Pyrenees. Last year with a friend, I trekked the first stage of the Grand Randonnée 5 from Evian to Chamonix for a week, which I found pretty challenging. This year we hiked the Tour des Glaciers in the Vanoise Alps for six days. Both times we navigated ourselves, stayed in huts and hotels and carried our own rucksacks.
I have just retired, aged 67, and in May and June I walked from Florence to Rome as a pilgrim on the Way of Saint Francis( Via di Francesco), 550 kilometres, which was amazing. I stayed in monasteries and hermitages and met pilgrims from all over the world; it’s a less busy pilgrimage, which suited me well. I think the Jungfrau trek will be a bit more of a challenge!"
Rosie will be sharing her diary with us after her trek in the Jungfrau. If you want to read about what our previous winners
