The Great Outdoors February issue

The latest issue of The Great Outdoors is in the shops now. In it I review a dozen synthetic insulated jackets, the Primus Omnilite Ti stove, and the excellent Scotland A Rewilding Journey by Susan Wright and Peter Cairns.

There's eighteen pages of useful winter mountains skills advice from Glenmore Lodge instructors. We just need some snow to go with it!

In features David Lintern has an interesting snowy adventure on Ben Lui, illustrated with his usual superb photographs; Alex Roddie makes a poignant and moving trip over Fairfield and Helvellyn; Laura Jeacocke visits the island of Lundy; and Mark Waring describes 'hot tenting' in the Scandinavian winter.

Elsewhere former TGO editor and TGO Challenge coordinator Roger Smith looks back over four decades of the Challenge as we approach the 40th event. Roger also reviews a new edition of Erling Kragge's book Silence In The Age Of Noise and writes in his comment column about how every single environmental cause is worth fighting for. And in his Mountain Portrait column Jim Perrin praises Goat Fell and the rocky peaks of the Isle of Arran.

Finally I should mention the stunning opening shot by James Roddie, which shows a group of walkers on the snowy Cairgorm Plateau dwarfed by the towering ridges of Braeriach.