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Wilderness Experienced

“Wilderness Experienced” is our shared stories and musings about recent experiences in our nation’s Wildernesses. Stories can focus on the virtues of Wilderness, including the opportunity for solitude, discovery, spiritual renewal, physical challenge, wildlife viewing, and more, or things you found troubling, that just didn’t seem right in Wilderness and represent the challenges facing the National Wilderness Preservation System.

We suggest a length up to 750 words. Include one or two images from your trip, an author photo, and a very short bio (a couple of sentences works for this purpose). Wilderness Watch will review all submissions and reserves the right to decide which submissions get posted. Please send your story to [email protected]. Please do not submit travelogues or writing aimed at directing people to specific places in Wildernesses or trailheads.

Also, we encourage readers to engage the authors and other commenters through the comment feature. Please be respectful and thoughtful in your response, and focus your comments on the issues/experiences presented. Please refrain from personal attacks and harassment, using rude or disruptive language, providing misinformation, or promoting violence or illegal activities. We reserve the right to reject comments. Thank you for your cooperation and support.

  • The desert is a lot like beer

    By Jack Smith “The desert is a lot like beer; it’s an acquired taste.” That’s what a friend of mine told me some years ago. I think he may have been onto something. However, these northern cold desert areas of Wyoming are neither a smooth lager nor an easy-drinking American pilsner. Rather, I seem to…

  • Postcard to the Superstition Wilderness

    By Jeri Lewis Edwards How could you have known we wouldbecome utterly, inexplicably lostwithout that misplaced map? And that razor cut trail cloaked in dust,talus, edged felsite, gneissic-banded rubble.We witnessed those tumbled stones—they weren’t cairns from your past,no markers to guide us. We couldn’t help but notice your narrow gameswaths, up boulder jutted cliffs—too exposed.We…

  • The valley they call fire

    By Frank Keim Thinking back…deepinto the heart of these arctic mountainsknown today as the Brooks Range,I rememberthe long windy solitude of the valley,where gray river cobbles collidewith a braided maze of ancient caribou trails,and pink fireweed blossoms brushthe wide antlers of a bull moosebrowsing nonchalantlybelowme,as I clamber up to the tip of the tailof the…

  • Rain Shadow Light: Drying out in the Oregon Badlands Wilderness

    By Michael Edwards “The fine gravel made this hike feel a lot like walking through sand – not super fun for 7 miles. And not a whole lot to see, pretty mundane until you get to flat rock, which is kinda cool to explore, but not for that long of a hike.” Online reviewer bringing…

  • Big Tom and other Wilderness cougars over the years

    By Jim Peek I’ve seen quite a few cougars over the years, but the biggest one was in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness in Idaho.  My way to cool off from the spring semester at the University of Idaho was to borrow Maurice Hornocker’s two pack mules, saddle my horse, and have the agriculture school’s stock truckers…

  • Kevin

    Highlighting the Theodore Roosevelt Wilderness (even if the National Park Service won’t)

    By Kevin Proescholdt This fall, my wife Jean and I visited Theodore Roosevelt National Park in western North Dakota. Though we had driven through the area on I-94 in the past, we had never explored the park, nor visited its designated Wildernesses. We had a wonderful time visiting and hiking in the park, and exploring…

  • Franz

    Rx Wilderness: One visit at least annually

    By Shane Vlcek I spent most of my adulthood in the western states of Idaho, Montana, and Oregon. Experiencing the backcountry was always something I looked forward to. But finding the opportunity and time to explore those sacred Wilderness places where true freedom is no longer in front of the next step or beyond the…

  • Franz

    A Walk in the Winds

    by Harriet Greene My daughter and I drove south towards the turnoff, then seventeen miles on gravel to the trailhead. A pack trip was leaving and the wrangler, spitting a wad of tobacco, told us about “one of the best campsites” where we were headed. The trail climbed through a grove of aspens, stayed high…

  • Brett

    Bear Grass, Ursa Major, and Going Home

    By Brett Haverstick I was off work and at the trailhead by 6:00 p.m. I estimated that I had about three-and-a-half hours of daylight to hike the eight miles to Bass Lake on the Montana side of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. I wasn’t in the best backpacking shape, but I figured I could still knock out…

  • Protecting wilderness shows humility, respect

    By Phil Knight What good is designated wilderness? Are the Lee Metcalf or the Absaroka Beartooth “wasted lands” because people can’t just go do whatever they want there? I am currently (temporarily) disabled from a fall and cannot walk unassisted. There will be no wilderness trips for me this summer. I’ve already enjoyed a lifetime’s…

  • The Elysian Fields

    By Michael Lipsky For many years I had wanted to return to the Elysian Fields, an off-trail backcountry area of trackless meadows in the Mount Rainier Wilderness within Mount Rainier National Park. The opportunity arose when I joined my son, Josh, and three of his friends on a backpacking trip a few years after they…

  • Hulahula River Pingo

    By Frank Keim We’re camped on the Hulahula River,and after dinneron a balmy nightfive of us marched like caribousingle fileupriveralong a narrow animal trail to a tall pingosculpted long ago from ancient ice melt,and there we saton its blunt rim,peering into a black clearwater pondbelow. The mirror of the little lake shimmered in the slanting raysof the…

Photo: Paria Canyon-Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness, Arizona by Bob Wick/BLM