In collaboration with Vivobarefoot & Trash Free Trails.

Because spring is a time of emergence, our first 2022 Edition explores the excitements, uncertainties and complexities that come with moving into the light - as ever, at the intersection of adventure and social and environmental change. Fittingly, this is our first collaborative Edition, presented in partnership with two organisations rethinking our relationship with the outdoors.

The emergence of barefoot footwear isn’t just a running thing. Going barefoot is also a metaphor for living, adventuring and doing business in harmony with nature, not in conquest of it. We explore how Vivobarefoot, our presenting partner for Emergence, is championing a regenerative outdoor culture (including two exclusive deals for Adventure Uncovered readers). 

We’re also presenting Emergence alongside Trash Free Trails. Their mission is to reduce litter on our trails, and the wild places they take us, by 75% by 2025. Just as importantly though, they’re building a stronger outdoor community in the process. We reflect on their model and encourage you to join their One Bag Challenge in April.

Something can exist long before it emerges. This is a theme throughout this Edition, and nowhere as strikingly as in our conversation with Caroline Treadway, director of LIGHT, which breaks the silence around eating disorders in climbing culture. How is the conversation evolving?

Another bodily taboo in outdoor culture is menstruation. This is why Emma Linford, Vedangi Kulkarni and Rosie Watson have collected period experiences and advice from a collection of badass adventurers. Part one focuses on experiences, part two on advice.

In Palestine, suppression takes a different shape, against which skateboarding has emerged as a form of subcultural resistance. Skater and photographer Maen Hammad, in collaboration with other local skaters, has been documenting life and resistance as a Palestinian skater with disposable cameras. Samia Qaiyum reports.

© Image courtesy of Maen Hammad, in Samia Qaiyum's piece

An alternative story is also emerging in Iraqi Kurdistan. Weaving through ancient civilisations and communities overshadowed by war, the new Zagros Mountain Trail aims to bring opportunities to, and change cultural perceptions of, the region. We spoke with trail developer Leon McCarron.

Telling stories about emerging outdoor cultures is not always simple. Sam Bleakley is a professional longboarder, geographer and storyteller passionate about championing overlooked surf cultures, many of them scarred and shaped by colonialism. We spoke about his role and the state of surf storytelling. 

Rooted in Bristol also tells a new story, about the contribution of the Afro-Caribbean community to allotment culture in Bristol. We spoke with co-directors Manu Maunganidze and Annie Menter about this history amidst the shifting politics of land access.

© Image courtesy of Sam Bleakley

Najite Phoenix also writes against a colonial backdrop. Reflecting on her recent time in The Gambia as a Black British woman, she thinks about how travelling causes new parts of ourselves to emerge, and our political identities to shift. What is the potential of the liminal spaces travel provides?

Eileen McDougall also explores her heritage, in a different way. Having heard stories about a ‘Scotland of the East’ in northeastern India, she grew curious. Guided on foot from village to village in the forested valleys of Meghalaya, she searches for parallels. This piece is for Patreon supporters only. You can read it, and enjoy a range of other rewards, for as little as £2 per month.

© Image courtesy of Eileen McDougall

The place or landscape that emerges as we travel through it isn’t always as we expect, or desire. When Daniel Shailer paddled around the Arne Peninsula in south Dorset, he expected wildness. But he found a bomb-battered, human-scarred landscape. He writes about how a new understanding of our relationship with nature took shape.

We also spoke with Ellen Miles about our relationship with nature. Angered by the way closures of London’s green spaces exacerbated inequalities, Ellen launched a campaign to have nature access recognised as a human right. What are the arguments, and will it succeed?

We hope so. And, like always, we hope these pieces bring new curiosities into your own orbits.

The Adventure Uncovered Team.