The Great Outdoors

TGO Magazine is your essential guide to hillwalking and backpacking in the UK and overseas. Get out more! We provide all the inspiration you need to plan your next trip, plus expert reviews and tips. The Great Outdoors is for anyone who loves walking in the hills, mountains and wild places. With information on the latest gear, in-depth features and stunning photography, The Great Outdoors will help you access the high peaks and long trails of Britain and beyond. Our enhanced digital addition includes even more great photos and interactive content.

Rain won’t stop play

IN THIS ISSUE • Meet some of the folk who made this mag…

The Great Outdoors

TOP GEAR • Our gear verdicts are made by the UK’s most experienced testing team. Never make a bad buy again. Subscribe to The Great Outdoors today.

Crinkle Crags, Lake District National Park

PHOEBE SLEATH PhD student, artist & Mountain Leader • Where geology and creativity collide, Phoebe can be found studying the language of landscape through field paintings

Readers’ page

MALHAM • Set in the heart of the Craven Dales, tourist-friendly Malham is the perfect launch pad for adventures in lime and space. John Manning is your guide and drinking companion

ON THE LOOKOUT • Natural highlights in the hills this month

Emma completes her coastline of mainland Britain walk • Emma Schroeder started her coastline walk five days before Covid lockdowns were announced in 2020. False start aside, she finished on 7 October 2023, having walked over 6000 miles. Along the way, the 30-year-old “aspiring vagabond” from Surrey has been entertaining TGO readers with her column detailing many of her more memorable moments. The magnitude of Emma’s adventure is difficult to quantify, but we asked her to do it anyway. Here is Emma's epic circumnavigation summarised in stats…

The right to roam can benefit everyone – including rural communities • After Labour’s row-back on access reform, campaigner Jon Moses argues for a bolder vision that recognises the potential of right to roam to bring people together

The Mountain Leader • A Practical Manual

YR EIFL • Jim Perrin tells the tale of a folkloric tragedy set on the slopes of Yr Eifl, a fine Welsh summit surrounded by sea

SHELTER FROM THE STORM • With Storm Babet wreaking havoc across the UK, James Forrest heads to Buttermere to spend a night in the Lakes’ best bothy

THE BOTHY CODE • The Mountain Bothies Association (mountainbothies.org.uk) asks all bothy visitors to abide by the five rules of its code of conduct:

TOP 5 BOTHIES IN CUMBRIA

THE STORIES OF US • When Juls Stodel set out to spend a night in each of the 104 shelters cared for by the Mountain Bothies Association, she sought kinship and adventure. She did not expect to discover the ghosts of who she could have been in another lifetime…

COLD COMFORT • Cairngorms resident David Lintern gets the chills when winter comes around. Here he shares a selection of a decade of images from Britain’s largest (and coldest) National Park

JUNGLE ISLAND • Ian Battersby and his two sons traverse the length of the subtropical forest paradise of Madeira

EXPLORE MADEIRA • Ian and his sons followed the Madeira Island Ultra-Trail miutmadeira.com/en

GIFT A WHOLE YEAR OF THE GREAT OUTDOORS AND SAVE UP TO £56*

HOW TO COOK BETTER BACKPACKING MEALS • Fuelling backpacking trips with a hot meal doesn’t have to mean waiting for a dusty bolognese to rehydrate. Here the Fell Foodie, Harrison Ward, shares his trade secrets to eating well outdoors and reconnecting with the landscapes from which our food comes

GEAR • News from the world of outdoor kit, and product reviews from the UK’s most experienced gear-testing team

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