Bad news can make for good stories. Part of my job as communications director for the Sierra Club has been to protect the Club's image. When I learned in late July 2013 that a polar bear had attacked someone on one of our organization's outings in Canada, I knew that few PR manuals would suggest that this was good for the brand. In my other role, as editor in chief of Sierra magazine, I also knew a ripping yarn when I heard one, and the news trickling in from remote Labrador riveted. 

As details of what had happened in the rugged Torngat Mountains coalesced over the coming weeks, my perspectives as a journalist and as a public relations person began to merge. When Matt Dyer, the man who'd been mauled, signed up to backpack in the Sierra Nevada with the same leaders who'd guided on the earlier trip, the tale became even more interesting. I knew Sierra's readers deserved to hear it. 

The story Jake Abrahamson tells in this issue ("To the Sea and Back") is the kind of raw adventure that John Muir might have encountered back when grizzlies still roamed the Sierra. It stalks the mystery of why immersion in wilderness can transform. My favorite line is beautiful and unsettling: "And then it dragged him into the animal world."

I'm grateful that this story appeared in my final issue as editor of Sierra and proud to have been a part of an organization that knows that the greatest risk in life is to always play it safe.