Confession: I haven’t read a full article in American Vogue in a very, very long time.

This weekend, I stopped in the street - seriously - to read Hamish Bowles’ story about three days spent in Utah’s desert. It feels like almost every issue of Vogue has a green bent at this point, and for November, a handful of writers scattered around the country, or the five boroughs in Sally Singer’s case, to explore nature.

Hamish enrolled in an adventure course at the Boulder Outdoor Survivor School in Southern Utah, headed to Paragon Sports to pick through “synthetic balaclavas” and “a brace of cotton bandanas in lilac and purple” which “promised a style continuum with [his] urban world,” before Anna subtly demanded, “You can do it.”

Then off he went to scale baby mountains, wade through rivers, sleep in tents and eat bear poop (sort of) without even the comfort of his Barbour jacket. The piece is so brilliantly written that even if you’ve given up on Anna’s Vogue, you must read it. (Which, I’ve just learned, you can do here; but for Condé’s sake, it’d be nice to buy it!)