Editors Letter. Issue 4. Spring 2014.

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I’m in the cab heading back from Gulmarg, through forests of deodars and beech. The vehicle skids through two deep runnels of hard snow. I’m listening to Pink Floyd’s Sorrow. The sweet smell of a great sorrow lies over the land… plumes of smoke rise and merge into a leaden sky. A man lies and dreams of green fields and rivers.. I think of the beauty around me. I think of all the wild places in the world I’ve seen, the high peaks of Europe, the meadows of the Himalaya, the beaches and rainforests of the Philippines, the deserts of Utah… the vast and epic beauty of planet Earth.

I’m wincing, my shoulder feels weak, I’ve re-injured my torn rotator cuff (a previous climbing injury); because I’ve been throwing myself off a cliff on Apherwat successive times to perfectly land a snowboarding jump. Being 33 isn’t dissuading me from becoming a better snowboarder.

My goal with The Outdoor Journal is to lead a movement for a better lifestyle, that won’t destroy our planet, where pleasure isn’t found in concrete towers that spread like a cancer over green fields and rivers; that won’t create plumes of smoke that choke the children of Earth.

Every day, I’m haunted by the memory of a lost paradise. When I land in Delhi, my blood curdles with fright. Millions of cars and trucks jammed on black roads, plastic and metal garbage piled up high alongside… this is a grim intimation of what is to be. I try to look into the future of this country, but there’s dust in my eyes, it blinds my sight.