Stories

22nd October 2023

13 stories, films, and podcasts about transition and adventure

Researching Editions and Adventure Ramblings newsletters surfaces more thought-provoking adventure stories than we can share. Thankfully, many involve transitions – including the articles, recordings, and films below, which all speak to ongoing issues in the adventure world. Enjoy!

22nd October 2023

Miles Howard on the rise of urban hiking

On 31st May 2023, Outside Magazine published a piece titled The 36 Best Places to Visit in the U.S. for Adventure. The winner of the hiking category was Arrigetch Peaks, Alaska: a Mordor-esque string of 7,000ft granite giants punctuated with aquamarine lakes. The runner up, naturally, was the city of Boston.

17th October 2022

The ticking clock of climate change

In 2019 the climate movement experienced a wave of energy and success, centred around school strikes and Extinction Rebellion. But three years later, as crises loom larger still, that impetus has waned. Sam Knights reflects on the journey and state of the movement.

7th October 2022

The Bahnar Jo Long: animism in the mountains of Vietnam

The Bahnar Jo Long are one of 40 hill-tribe groups indigenous to Vietnam’s Central Highlands. As animists they live in intimate harmony with the forest, but illegal logging and infrastructure development threaten their way of life. Photographer Jim Johnston was honoured to be their guest for a while.

Authors

Miranda Whall

Miranda Whall studied at the Royal Academy Schools, London and Goldsmiths, University of London. She has been a full-time lecturer and the director of the Creative Arts Degree course at Aberystwyth University since 2006. She has exhibited her work internationally for many years and has been the recipient of many Arts Council England and Wales Grants and Residencies, she was awarded the Major Creative Wales Award in 2012 and in the same year was artist in residence in Spain, Turkey, Mexico, Thailand and Wales. Recent solo shows include Passage, at The Institute of Contemporary Interdisciplinary Art (ICIA) 2015 and Crossed Paths at Oriel Davies Gallery, Newtown Wales, 2018. Whall’s multiplicitous crawling, staring, walking, growing and travelling practice is a practice of getting close, of becoming a creature of the mud, the matter and the flesh of the world, an exploration of our need to develop a non - hierarchical, more ethical and more complex relationship to our environment and to our relationship to non – human others: plants, animals and technology simultaneously. Through performance and film Whall develops an economical, conscious, cultural, meditative, radical, transformative and socially engaged practice.

Sam Firman

Sam is the Adventure Uncovered Editor. He's a freelance writer interested in outdoor culture, geography and social issues. He recently moved from the UK to Vancouver, for more mountain time, and spends much of his spare time sliding on snow and climbing on rocks.

Miles Howard

Miles Howard is an author, journalist, and trail builder based in Boston but prone to poking around other urban and backcountry spaces. He has written multiple guidebooks on New England hiking and road tripping, and his work has appeared in National Geographic, The New Republic, The Boston Globe, Yankee Magazine, and The Nation. He is the founder of the Walking City Trail, a 27-mile hiking route through Boston parks and urban forests, and he also publishes Mind The Moss: a weekly newsletter about unusual hiking in New England.

Environment