Gallery

This gallery follows the Solo expeditions chapter by chapter. Enjoy!

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: Chapter 1: Suddenly I can see those hills, and then bigger hills, with snow-clad peaks, and forests and rivers. Then I’m climbing those same mountains. Canoeing the rivers. Roaring through rapids. “Wouldn’t that be great?”

: Chapter 2: The vast silence fills my senses—a silence no urban dweller can truly know or perhaps even imagine. A silence made for being alone with your thoughts—or perhaps, even better, for no thinking.

: Chapter 3: When a stalwart bald eagle abandons its perch atop one especially tall spruce and sweeps across the sky above me, I choose to view this as a good omen.

: Chapter 4: As the rainbow appears, my entire nervous system seems to recline, and I have to resist feeling giddy with hope. It’s easy to understand how my ancestors might view the rainbow—and the serenity it imparts—as a blessing from the gods.

: Chapter 5: Each morning I rise, put in place the ladder supplied by the park service, and climb to the overhead platform that has been constructed for the purpose of storing my pack and food supply away from inquisitive bears.

: Chapter 6: I am both filled with awe and bowed with humility. It’s as if I’ve stumbled upon a sacred space, and I am the recipient of greetings from a long-vanished era.

: Chapter 7: A fog is looming over the lagoon—spreading a gauzy blanket that muffles the lapping of the icy water. I stand on a rocky outcrop jutting out from the shoreline, my hands cupped around a steamy mug of coffee.

: Chapter 8: Suddenly among the lily pads, alligator eyes will appear just above the waterline only yards in front of my glide path, quietly appraising me as the prow of my craft bears down upon them.

: Chapter 9: Here the Chisana is but a stream, calm and peaceful, and I dip my paddle reverentially, quietly proceeding downstream through this outdoor cathedral.

: Chapter 10: I crawl out of my tent-home bedraggled, both in body and spirit. However, looking up, I am immensely buoyed by what I see—one of the most gorgeous post-storm skies I have ever witnessed.

: Chapter 11: Suddenly, much to my amazement, the entire herd dashes back into the river, and, plunging and splashing headlong through the waters, returns to the side from which they have just come, rejoining the doe and her calf.

: Chapter 12: I find myself traveling by an endless expanse of lake, shimmering metallic silver in the cloud-hazed sunlight, soft ripples dappling the surface. The ever-present mountains provide a silhouetted backdrop.

: Chapter 13: If you’re really quiet as you lie on the rain forest floor underneath this clinging drop, you can feel your own pulse, as if in vicarious response.

: Chapter 14: I settle in to survey my surroundings through the frame of my tent door. A golden-leaved scrub willow crouches just outside my door.