Field Notes
A Fortnight in a Shepherd's Hut on Skye
Two weeks above Glen Brittle in late May, with the Cuillin Ridge across the glen and a cast-iron stove burning birch from the croft below.
Editor in chief
Margaret Holcomb
Margaret Holcomb founded Field Lantern in 2025 after fifteen years guiding in the Smokies and ten more editing for outdoor quarterlies. She edits the magazine's longest pieces.
Beats
Published in Field Lantern
Trails
The Northumberland Coast Path in April
A short national trail from Cresswell to Berwick. A walker covers it in five days at the cool end of spring and finds the castles emptier than the beaches.
Weather
Fog Navigation in the Smokies: A Year of Observations
Twelve months of fog reports from one ridge, and what they suggest about reading the cloud you are inside.
Maps & Routes
The Cartography of the Fire Perimeter
Wildfire perimeter maps look definitive on the page. The cartographers who make them know they are provisional documents, drawn in conditions that change faster than the ink can dry.
Conservation
The Watershed Keepers of the Upper Clinch
On a slow river in southwest Virginia, a four-person watershed group is monitoring water quality, sediment, and the freshwater mussels that depend on both.
Wildlife
The Foxes of Suburban Richmond
A long-running study of red fox behavior in the residential neighborhoods of Richmond, Virginia, where the species has become more visible without becoming better understood.
Trails
Mud Season on the Long Trail
Vermont's Green Mountain Club closes the higher trails each April and May. A volunteer steward walks her assigned section on the day it opens.
Field Notes
Dawn at Image Lake, North Cascades
A single morning at 6,050 feet in the Glacier Peak Wilderness, with Glacier Peak reflected in nine acres of still water at 5:42 a.m.
Maps & Routes
The Last Commercial Cartographer in Maine
In a converted barn outside Brunswick, Maine, a sixty-one-year-old man draws topographic maps by hand for clients who still pay for them. He is, by his own reckoning, the last full-time commercial cartographer working in the state.
Weather
When to Bail Off a Peak
The decision to turn around is almost always made too late. A field guide to making it on time.
Wildlife
The Owl at Quinault
A field season with the northern spotted owl recovery crew on the western slope of Olympic National Park, where the species' decline has continued in spite of two decades of careful intervention.
Skills
Packing a 30L for Shoulder-Season Backpacking
For three nights on the Long Trail in early May, Margaret Holcomb carried thirteen pounds in a thirty-litre pack and slept warm every night. The list is shorter than most.
Conservation
The Bloom After the Mine: Wildflower Restoration in McDowell County
In southern West Virginia, a former surface-mine bench is being seeded back to native meadow by a six-person crew that learned the work from a county extension agent who refused to retire.
Gear Tested
Merino vs synthetic baselayers at 30F, a winter's notes
Margaret Holcomb spent the winter wearing both — one against the skin and the other on the line to dry. The verdict is less tidy than the marketing on either side.
Field Notes
One Week in the Desolation Fire Lookout
Seven days at 6,050 feet above the North Cascades, with a Forest Service radio, a pair of binoculars, and a small ledger of clouds.
Trails
A Rest Day in Damascus, Virginia
The town the Appalachian Trail walks straight through becomes, for one Tuesday in May, a quiet study of how thru-hikers actually rest.