WELCOME
THE WORLD feels a little bit divided at the moment, don’t you think? We often look to the great outdoors for release and escape from these everyday stressors. And yet, tensions appear to be building within the outdoor community too, with debates over gatekeeping, access, wild camping, dog ownership, rewilding and the climate crisis being (unhelpfully) amplified online. Reductively, we might be tempted to divide outdoorgoing folks into two distinct camps: those who seek the adrenaline of summits and those who seek the solace of nature.
In this issue, we embrace the best of both and all in between. We explore the finest big mountain challenges in Britain – from the 3000s of Lakeland and Eryri to the Lyke Wake Walk in Yorkshire by way of the Cuillin Traverse – on which to accept adrenaline and reach your peak (p22). Want to boost your confidence before committing to one? Mountain Leader and sky runner Keri Wallace shares her tips to move faster and stronger in the mountains (p58). Elsewhere Alex Roddie goes against the grain on Aonach Eagach by scrambling the ridge backwards (p32) and Rich Hartfield walks a new, spectacularly steep alpine hut-to-hut route (p48).
If adrenaline isn’t on your mountain wish list, Roger Butler writes a love letter to Shropshire’s Stiperstones (p40) whilst Jim Perrin paints a portrait of a modest hill on which he learned to climb – somewhat spoilt by the landscape of industry (p18). We get up to date with the Right to Roam movement’s newly proposed Wild Service (p15) and one of the book’s authors, Bryony Ella, who uses drawing
