July Adventure Bulletin 🚲 ⛰️👟

A subscriber update!

First of all, thank you very much to the two people who instantly became paid subscribers after my last post. You are complete legends.

What I also discovered is that by turning ‘paid’ back on in the substack dashboard, it reset all the previous paid subs from when I paused paid subscriptions back in 2023. I’ve emailed everyone about it, but only about 60% opened it - so I may have to individually email everyone to check they still want to subscribe.

I also discovered (read: remembered) that there are 15 life members, who have free subscriptions in perpetuity of the mag.

All this to say, June’s total subscribers was 2 = less than 1 hour to spend on this email in July. But if former subscribers want to keep their memberships, then July’s count will be 13 = 4.3 hours to spend on August’s posts :)

BTU Mountain Ultra - dot watching 👀

Screenshot of the BTU web page - a taste of what Kyrgyzstan looks like!

Everyone always seems to say that women’s ultra running doesn’t get enough participation or interest. I don’t know how true that is, but I do know that this week I was supposed to be taking part in the BTU Mountain Ultra in Kyrgyzstan this week - as a journalist. It’s a 5 day stage race (which is kind of like a trekking holiday with medals). Due to a series of unfortunate events - or perhaps one simple mistake - I’m not there living the dream. And I’m feeling pretty torn about the idea of dot watching the other participants. But I might, and you might like to too: here’s the live tracking link.

(And somewhat related, here’s How to Climb an Unclimbed Mountain in Kyrgyzstan from the archives, by women who did.)

📚 Things to Read

• The wild silence of the Anglesey Coast Path by Nicole Navigates -
  A lovely first person account of walking the Anglesey Coast Path (UK) and bivvying along the way.

• Ultra Friends & the Ultra Paradox by Sarah Lavender Smith -
  I recently read and enjoyed this interview with Ann Ongena, a 61 year old ultra runner who was the final finisher of the Hardrock 100 (a pretty famous trail race in the USA).

• The porridge pot, and the privilege of getting to know your dad via bike by Immy Sykes -
  Immy describes this as ‘a meander through what it means to cycle with your parents’. I thoroughly enjoyed it and really related to how rediscovering your parents as an adult - and finding them to be complex, human people - is an adventure in itself.

Please shamelessly tag Intrepid Magazine in all and anything that you publish or read that relates to adventure. I always love to broaden my reading and I’ll share my favourites.

📌 Bulletin Board

Do you have something you want to share here? Perhaps you’re starting something, looking for team mates on an expedition, found a great adventure event or grant… Email me at emily@intrepid-magazine.com

Anyway, that’s already more than an hour so I’m going to have to leave you.

Thanks for reading and stay intrepid! :)

Emily

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