Wild #176 is an issue we’re really proud of. It’s not merely that our contributors have—yet again—provided us with fantastic content. (It’s almost hard to pick the standouts, but if you had to, start with Alex Hotchin’s phenomenal illustrated map of her walk on the Larapinta. Not only is she an incredible artist, her accompanying text is poetic and beautiful. Wild’s editor James McCormack says, “Honestly, it’s one of the nicest stories I’ve had the pleasure of collaborating on.”) But actually, the thing we’re really proud of in this issue is that the majority of our contributors are women. We’re not even sure this has ever happened before in an Australian non-gender-specific adventure magazine. As far as we know, it hasn’t. But without women’s voices being sufficiently heard, our entire outdoors community will forever be worse off.
Alex’s map isn’t the only terrific piece in the issue. And there’s definitely a seasonal theme. There’s a photo essay, ‘Glimpses of Winter’, by famed Australian adventure photographer Krystle Wright. There are multiple stories on Aussie backcountry skiing, along with a feature on packrafting/skipacking in British Columbia. It’s not all winter, though. There’s the next in our series on Australia’s Gear Environmental Battles (this time it’s the campaign to save Ningaloo Reef), a profile on expedition cyclist Kate Leeming, track notes from Far North Queensland, MTB-ing in Tathra, a once-in-a-lifetime paddle on the Gwydir River. There’s also a salutary tale of how not to get your partner into the outdoors. And, as ever, there are the thoughtful contributions of our regular columnists Bob Brown, Tim Macartney-Snape, Megan Holbek and Dan Slater.
There’s a COVID-19 twist to getting your hands on this issue, however. Wild #176 is not going to any newsagents; print copies are only available to subscribers or available at our preferred stockists (although you’d better be quick). We’ll also soon try and make a few copies available via our back issues shop. There are, however, unlimited copies of the digital version, which you can buy at Wild.com.au/subscribe.
Hope you all enjoy the issue,
Wild