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A behind-the-scenes look at how Highland Outdoors is made

Every quarter, 10,000 or so magazines arrive at our home in Canaan Valley. We load them up in the HO Mobile and drive them all around the state. Sure, we could mail them all, but that would be prohibitively expensive and, frankly, distributing is one of our favorite parts of the job. We get to hop off our computers, traverse the Mountain State's scenic country roads, and catch up with tons of friends in our favorite towns. But the full printing and distribution process is a bit more complex than a joy ride.

Now that our summer distribution route is mostly wrapped up (don't worry, New River Gorge folks, we'll be down next week!), we thought it would be apropos to give you an inside look at the long and winding road each issue takes from the printing press to reach our various distribution locations, and ultimately, your hands.

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Phase 1: printing

After Nikki completes the design, our copy editor Amanda Larch reads through the entire magazine to check for mistakes. We incorporate her edits and make our final changes, then we anxiously upload the massive magazine file to a proofing program, hoping that our internet doesn't go out in the middle of the upload (which it has more times than I'd care to share). Once Nikki and I approve all 48 pages of the mag, we anticlimactically click the "submit" button and look at each other, expecting fireworks and fanfare. But alas, nothing exciting happens. The fine folks at Freeport Press then go about creating 13,000 copies of our beloved magazine on the wild machinery of their web offset printing press.

Big thanks to Anita at Freeport for snapping this shot of the mag on the press!

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Phase 2: shipping

Once the mag is printed, trimmed, and bound, Freeport's shipping department boxes up nearly 3,000 copies to mail to select locations like West Virginia Welcome Centers, REIs, and other places that aren't feasible for us to visit in-person on our delivery route. The remaining 10,000 mags are boxed up, loaded on pallets, and delivered to our corporate office (aka our house) in Canaan Valley on a freight truck. Our good friend and Pitt-Ohio delivery driver Turtle shows up each quarter and drops the pallets in our garage before snagging the first copy to take home to his family.

Delivery day! Fortunately, the weather was lovely once again.

Our man Turtle grabbing the 3,000-pound pallet off the mechanical liftgate.

If you ever wondered what 10,000 magazines looks like in a garage, well, here you go!

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Phase 3: subscriptions

Next comes the tedium of processing subscriptions. While our 270 subscribers (thank you!) represent only 0.8% of our readership, the physical work of processing them is quite time consuming. We have to print stamps, stick on the stamps and return address labels, address each envelope by hand (which Nikki graciously does because my handwriting is atrocious), and stuff each envelope with a magazine (and a sticker for new subscribers). I'd say it's about time for us to invest in an address label printer!

Nikki processing subscriptions like a champ.

The HO mailroom, where the shipping magic happens!

Then we pay a visit to the fine postmen and postwomen at the Davis Post Office. One of the charms of small-town living is the relationships you form with your window clerks. I always enjoy going in and paying a visit to Lucinda, Trudy, and the other great Davis Post Office peeps. My father Randy was a USPS mailman and window clerk for over 30 years, so I've got an affinity and appreciation for the folks who work so hard to keep the mail moving around the country. Next time you go into your local Post Office, make sure to thank your mailperson!

Davis Postmaster Lucinda in the historic Davis Post Office with 200 subscriptions ready to roll.

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Phase 4: self-distribution

Now the fun part begins! We plan our four distribution trips (the Tucker County region, greater Morgantown area, New River Gorge region, and Seneca Rocks / Snowshoe / Elkins) based on when various businesses are open, the weather forecast, and what fun activities we want to cram in along the way. But before we load up the HO Mobile, we have to weigh a box of magazines to calculate how many boxes we can safely carry in regards to the payload capacity of a 2012 Toyota Rav4, which, if you're curious, is precisely 1,071 pounds. This equates to a maximum of 30 boxes, or 3,000 copies of the mag. While it's safe to max it out, it does prematurely wear down the suspension and brakes, both of which have been replaced twice at this point. And yet the HO Mobile remains a loyal workhorse to which we owe a debt of gratitude.

The HO Mobile fully loaded, bound for Morgantown.

Then we hit the road and start slangin' mags! Now that we've been doing this for over four years, folks know the magazine and know us when we walk into their businesses. There's nothing better than seeing faces light up with smiles when we come in with a stack of magazines. There are even a fair amount of hugs along the way. Oftentimes, someone will grab a fresh copy as soon as we put them down.

Our good friend Sue Haywood, stoked as always to receive mags at Blackwater Bikes in Davis.

The best moments are when folks come up to us and tell us how much they love the magazine. This happens surprisingly often, like yesterday when a kind man saw the HO Mobile in Elkins and walked up to ask for a copy and told me how much he enjoys each issue. Moments like that keep us feeling grateful for our readers and motivated to keep making each issue better. One time, a cyclist in Fayetteville came into the Ace Adventure Gear shop while we were distributing and told us he saw the car and followed us from the stoplight downtown to come snag the new edition.

But my personal favorite story happened at a rest stop on I79. While Nikki was loading one of our racks, a rather tough looking, leather-clad biker with a huge, gray bear and a Hell's Angels vibe came up and kindly asked Nikki if that was, in fact, the newest copy of Highland Outdoors magazine, and if he could please have a copy. Of course, we were thrilled to oblige!

Just last week, we were backpacking in Dolly Sods and ran into a kind fellow named Jason from Indianapolis on the hike out. When the conversation inevitably turned toward what each of us does for a living, we mentioned that we publish Highland Outdoors. As it turned out, he had a copy of the spring mag in his backpack and was reading it as he made his way through the Sods - what a small world!

Backpacker Jason from Indianapolis with the spring issue of HO as his trailside reading material.

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Now that you know, subscribe!

Does this deep dive into how Highland Outdoors is made have you hungry for the latest issue? Easy—subscribe right now!

Subscribing is the best way to support Highland Outdoors. If you love the mag and want it to continue, please consider joining our 270 subscribers (thank you!) to get each issue delivered right to your door—and to continue reading it in the future.

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Stay tuned for our next installment on July 5, in which we'll show how we celebrate our independence here in the Mountain State.

Enjoy, and thanks for reading #westvirginiasoutdoormagazine!

Dylan Jones

Editor-in-Chief

Highland-Outdoors.com