Open Mountains: Because the outdoors should feel open to everyone There is a moment we see again and again in the mountains, someone reaches a viewpoint, stands on a summit, scrambles over a rock for the first time or simply stops, looks around and realises that they love the outdoors and they can do it. For those of us who spend a lot of time outdoors, it is easy to forget what a privilege that feeling can be. Because while the mountains themselves might be open, access to t

There is something quite extraordinary about stepping outside a mountain refuge in the middle of the night. At 2 a.m. in the Pyrenees, far away from the glow of towns and streetlights, the sky looked completely different. Thousands of stars were visible above the mountains — far more than we normally see at home. Beautiful? Absolutely. But for generations of travellers, sailors, shepherds and explorers, that sky was also something else. It was a map. Before GPS, there was the