In Lewis Carroll’s classic tale, an unsolvable riddle emerges from the realms of the absurd, where oddities and curiosities throw logic out the window. Like in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, we often find ourselves confronting enigmas that are nonsensical, scary, and weird — but for many of us, they also happen to be real.

In the spring 2025 issue of Hidden Compass, “A Raven Like a Writing Desk,” five storytellers pursue insight within the paradoxes of the unexplainable. Join them as they meet mischievous swimming monkeys, chronicle community in a refuge that perhaps shouldn’t exist, marvel at the heartbreaking art of decay, visit the ruins of a socialist Disneyland, and seek catharsis for a tragedy they never experienced.

For travel writer Gary Singh, a nagging sense of loss permeated decades of his reporting in San José, California. With the help of a discovery in his mom’s closet, that unexplainable feeling catapulted him on a Quest to Jalandhar, India. There, Gary faces the impact of the sudden haphazard borders imposed by Partition. The bloodshed of that era, which created the largest single mass migration event in human history, ripples forward in coincidences, revealing how “Truth is the Timeless One.”

Meanwhile, kayaking in the crystalline waters of Silver Springs State Park, Florida, writer Melissa Hart encounters the bewildering history of a place “Where Greed Grows Wild.” In her Human and Nature feature, Melissa bears witness to centuries of prosperity, exploitation, and foolishness, from mammoth hunters to alligator wrestlers to James Bond in scuba gear. But in the spectacle lies a riddle about the darker side of love. 

Then, within the walls of the Kreenholm textile factory — a vast, abandoned complex in Narva, Estonia — writer and photographer Tim Bird admires the beauty of decay. For visit after visit, Tim meets former factory workers whose memories of bustling activity contrast with the frost-sparkled emptiness captured in Tim’s photo feature and Portrait story. But the joyful recollections of “The Lost Cathedrals of Industry” harken back to an imperial era that may best be left behind — yet still looms across the border.

And on a multi-year bicycle ride down the length of South America, journalists Anastasia Austin and Douwe den Held seek respite in the mountain town of Contratación, Colombia. In their Chasing Demons feature, “Sanctum Sanatorium,” a story of old cruelties and misunderstood disease is more modern than expected — and the camaraderie of patients with leprosy begs a bigger question.

Finally, “The Disneyland of Socialism’s Demise” brings its own riddles from the Hidden Compass archives. First published seven years ago in our summer 2018 issue, this Time Travel feature chronicles the history of Spreepark — a crumbling theme park haunted by the nostalgia of communist East Germany. Beside its gently screaming ferris wheel, writer Krishan Coupland considers its bizarre past and uncertain future.

For our readers and storytellers who appreciate all manners of the absurd,

Sabine K. Bergmann and Sivani Babu, Hidden Compass Co-founders 

In the last few years, as we’ve expanded into global expeditions and documentary films, we’ve welcomed hundreds of thousands of new readers to Hidden Compass. Many of our newest readers are unfamiliar with our earlier stories, so we’re bringing some of them back. This year, every issue of Hidden Compass will feature an article from the archives — one that complements the brand-new stories in the issue.

When we experience the jarring dissonance of conflicting forces, we may be tempted to turn away. But the clash of the inharmonious is not only global and unavoidable — it’s often illuminating.

In the winter 2025 issue of Hidden Compass, five storytellers take us straight into the “Dissonance” — whether of industry and ecology, war and healing, nostalgia and progression. And from vast deserts to dark caverns to buzzing wetlands, hints of resolution arise.

In 2007, in the largest hot desert on Earth, explorer James Michael Dorsey pursues his childhood dream of visiting Timbuktu. But as he follows one of Mali’s Imazighen people into a sea of sand, James enters an unexpected world of historical wonders and escalating tension. In our Time Travel feature, amid the discord, he is swept into an underground effort mysteriously tied to “Libraries Beneath the Sand.”

Then, for our Human & Nature feature, alongside commissioned illustrations from artist Casi Gail Fordham, journalist Tristan Bove brings us to biodiverse Sri Lanka, rich with rain forests, coral reefs, and waterways that wind through urban centers. But something hopeful buzzes within this “Cacophony in the Indian Ocean” — a possible alliance of seemingly irreconcilable forces. Alongside researchers and entrepreneurs, through wetlands and parks, Tristan searches for the harmony of economic growth and ecological vibrancy.

For photographer and storyteller Olivier Guiberteau, the turbulence of personal grief and the onset of war meet along the 400-mile Jordan Trail. In his Chasing Demons photo feature, Olivier experiences the heartwrenching paradoxes of “The Gone-But-Also-Everlasting Theory” of grief, expecting the impossible and fearing the inescapable.

Meanwhile, in one of Belize’s largest caves, anthropologist and writer Shoshi Parks is on a Quest to save precious Maya relics from the illegal antiquities trade. But as she delves beyond the reach of the sun, she discovers much more has been “Forgotten in the Maddening Darkness.” There, in the captivating caverns of stalactites and stalagmites, delicate questions of history and ownership emerge.

And finally, the “Old Clocks” of Pyramiden keep an odd count of time. In this once-thriving Soviet town turned nearly abandoned outpost in Arctic Norway, the past is both preserved and lost, memories become monuments, and even a ghost town has a mayor. It’s a fitting Portrait to appear once again, five years after writer Kelsey Camacho and photographer Dagmara Wojtanowicz brought it to life for our summer 2020 issue, because its story is — in so many ways — timeless.

For our readers and storytellers who brave the dissonance and crave resolution,

Sabine K. Bergmann and Sivani Babu, Hidden Compass Co-founders

In the last few years, as we’ve expanded into global expeditions and documentary films, we’ve welcomed hundreds of thousands of new readers to Hidden Compass. Many of our newest readers are unfamiliar with our earlier stories, so we’re bringing some of them back. This year, every issue of Hidden Compass will feature an article from the archives — one that complements the brand-new stories in our issue.

Among the treacherous, glistening glaciers of the European Alps, a team of climbers reaches for a new pinnacle of understanding. They climb a century after the famous mountaineers who inspired them — men who broke ground in the formative years of modern alpinism, but whose histories and identities remain out of full view.

In mountaineering, a false summit is a peak that appears to be the mountain’s apex, while the true summit awaits farther on. In “Beyond the False Summit: The 2024 Pathfinder Issue” of Hidden Compass, our expeditioners seek a true summit. Not only are they pursuing the peak of the Aiguille du Grépon, they also aim to shed a light on a hidden part of history, sharing more truthful narratives about diversity in alpinism in times and places of nonacceptance.

As we step into this year’s Pathfinder Issue, we cross continents and ice fields and embrace a range of voices — some appearing through veils of historical interpretation, others through varied storytelling styles, but all of which expand our understanding of the identities behind modern alpinism.

Through visual storytelling, mountain guide and photographer Ben Tibbetts brings the expedition to life, showcasing the relationship between the team, the mountain, and each other. In 20 striking photos in our Human & Nature department, “The Perspective of Ascent” takes us to the summit of the Aiguille du Grépon, and into the team’s key moments of preparation, ascension, and reflection.

In our Time Travel feature, Jordan Cannon weaves moments from the expedition with memories of growing up in a Christian community without queer role models to breaking new ground as one of the world’s first openly gay professional climbers — all while he considers the complicated landscape of climbing “So the World Can See You.”

And, in a Hidden Compass first, we’re running a three-part series of articles by a single author: writer and expedition leader Lance Garland. He begins with a Portrait of The Matterhorn, an iconic and elusive mountain, and Richard Halliburton, a daring adventurer and author who lived as a gay man behind his public persona in the 1920s and 30s. As Lance faces the realities of “Climbing the Unforeseen,” we find ourselves in a world of drama, tragedy, and a major change of course.

Then, in part two, Lance brings us to a ridge above the Mer de Glace valley, where the Pathfinders set out to climb for the first time as a team. But in this Chasing Demons piece, the terrain proves difficult as Lance battles physical maladies and brings us into the mysterious life of famous mountaineer George Mallory, who died in 1924 on the slopes of Everest. In life, both men find themselves “Escaping the Trap.”

In part three, in the pre-dawn hours of July 23, 2024, the Pathfinders set out on their Quest for the summit. As they scale glaciers that glow beneath a full moon, Lance contemplates Geoffrey Winthrop Young, a mountaineer who completed the route’s first ascent in 1911, and whose connection with George Mallory leads Lance to a realization about “Connecting Beyond the False Summit.”

The historical figures that inspired our 2024 Pathfinders broke ground in alpinism, but their stories were never fully told. In shedding light on these hidden histories, a new generation of climbers reaches ever higher.

Yours beyond the false summit of exclusion,

Sivani Babu and Sabine K. Bergmann, Hidden Compass Co-founders