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This could be because Condé Nast is determined to prepare its most overindulged employees for the exceedingly tough times ahead—or it could just have something to do with the fact Vogue's November issue has an environmental theme—but Hamish Bowles, the fashion mag's European editor-at-large, was asked to head to survival school "in deepest southern Utah" as part of an article in the new issue.

Needless to say, the assignment forced Bowles to stray "far, far from any recognizable comfort zone," especially since his previous travels for the magazine include going to "the bewitching Roman city of Jerash with H.M. Queen Rania of Jordan," and visiting a "tiny Nepalese clinic in the foothills of the Himalayas" with Princess Di. To make matters worse, he had to make the trip to the wilderness armed only with his "Nantucket patchwork madras button-down shirt" and "khaki Juicy Couture cashmere sweater."

Not that he didn't try to get out of the assignment—he did—although Vogue editrix Anna Wintour wasn't about to let him off the hook: "You can do it," said Anna blithely (one eye, I suspected, on the tennis) when I expressed misgivings."

And he did do it, and he survived, too, although he came back from the trip with sand fleas and blisters on his feet, which leads us to believe his next vacation is more likely to take place at "a sixteenth-century fortress in Jaipur" or "in a private mah-jongg salon in a villa in the jungled hills of Hong Kong" than back in Utah. Oh, well.

Hamish on the Boulder Outdoor Survival School Course [Vogue]