This jam-packed issue of The Great Outdoors is designed to broaden horizons and encourage you to go out and find your new perspective in 2025.
As we approach the new year, we’re thinking about how our high places – where physical geography and the people we meet can offer new vistas around each corner – can provide altered perspectives. Each adventure story told in our February issue offered the authors an opportunity to broaden horizons of their bodies and minds. From single walks that changed lives in small but profound ways, to colourful revolution in the high Andes, and facing uncomfortable colonial past in beloved British landscapes, hopefully, you’ll find inspiration upon reading them to go out and find you own personal new horizon in 2025.
Main image: The Bolivian Cholitas | Credit: Anna Fleming
Highlights of this issue:
- Four outdoor authors share moving recollections of walks that changed their lives
- In the High Andes, climber Anna Fleming meets her revolutionary mountain heroines
- Corinne Fowler uncovers hidden histories in Wordsworth territory and Eryri
- Ross Brannigan and wife Bo honeymoon by fastpacking the Lycian Way
- TEST YOURSELF: Do you know how to avoid hypothermia?
- Our experts map 10 big half-day hill routes to enjoy on short winter days
PLUS: Jim Perrin paints a portrait of the Ridge of the Red Cairns; honest and trusted reviews of the best hiking trousers and winter walking boots; the latest news, outdoor events and initiatives from the mountains; and our reviews of new outdoor books to inspire.
Read on:
Broaden horizons: From escaping anxiety to forging a deeper connection with family, these authors all found a new sense of direction on a hike. Here, they share key moments from those pivotal journeys
“The good that regular rambling can do for your body and your brain is so well documented that it’s now even prescribed as a treatment on the NHS. But can a walk – one walk – really change your life? Maybe it can. The authors here have all experienced a form of epiphany on a hike. Often that’s born from a sense of connection fostered by the outdoors; connection to family, an animal, nature – even themselves. It’s not always length or duration that’s important. Their life-defining journeys range from an overnight bivvy trip in the Cairngorms to a 19,000-mile, Britain-girdling epic. But all experienced perspective shifts so powerful they’ve been moved to write books about them. These are their stories…”
Colour Revolution: In the last decade, the indigenous cholita climbers of Bolivia have made a worldwide impression with colourful clothing and a renewed sense of power and identity. Climber and writer Anna Fleming visits the high Andes to meet her heroes
“From Bolivia to Peru and Argentina, over the last decade the Cholita Climbers have summitted the highest mountains in the Andes. Now they have their sights set on another goal. They want to be the first women to stand on top of the world wearing skirts. The Cholitas Escaladoras are training to climb Everest. “We are going to carry a white flag to the highest mountain in the world,” Elena reveals, “We want to carry a white flag to the violence, to the femicides, to stop discrimination and so there will be peace and freedom.” Their vision is sky-high. And why not? When we part ways, we swap details and vow to stay in touch. They would love to visit Scotland one day. “Soñar no cuestra nada,” adds Elena. It costs nothing to dream…”
Hidden In Plain Sight: Scratch the surface of Britain’s pastoral landscape and you’ll often find uncomfortable tensions, secrets obscured by the scenic. In two story-walks drawn from her new book, Our Island Stories, Corinne Fowler showcases how our imperial past is written into the rural modern-day
“We begin our journey in the most tranquil of lanes, at the modest dwelling of Dove Cottage. Winter robins visit its mossy garden, and in summer, pink roses loll against the whitewashed cottage walls. William Wordsworth lived there with his sister Dorothy, and it’s now a museum, set amid the landscapes where William penned the most famous poem in the English language, ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud’ (known as ‘Daffodils’ for short). Though William often composed his poems outdoors, he sometimes wrote at home, with his children clambering all over him. What is perhaps less well known is that Wordsworth’s pastoral idyll was sponsored through a familial investment in drug trafficking…”
Adventure on the Likya Yolu: What better way to spend your honeymoon than fastpacking Türkiye’s 450km Lycian Way? Ross Brannigan is bowled over by the richness of history, honey and overflowing hospitality on this craggy coastal journey
“Carrying 20L rucksacks, we could move a little faster and further than many walkers – instead of the standard month on the trail, we were planning to cram it into 18 days. There is no pace to qualify for fastpacking, simply moving ‘fast and light’. These two elements are reciprocal: going light makes you faster; moving faster forces you to go lightweight. Naturally, it being our honeymoon, we were planning on sleeping indoors and finding food en-route rather than cooking. You need some level of luxury when you only have two pairs of underpants, right?”
Wild Walks: Embrace the shorter day on big hills with these half-day hikes designed to broaden horizons in limited daylight hours
“Winter walking can be as exhilarating as it is exhausting. When each step saps energy reserves perhaps better saved for keeping you warm, we can often find ourselves cutting routes short or resorting to our Plan Bs halfway through ambitious days. But no one could accuse these summits of being second-best. For those days on which you know only a short ramble will do, our experts have mapped out their favourite ‘half-day hills’, from intros to ridgewalking in Scotland to encounters with Dartmoorian ponies clad in Winter coats…”
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