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.
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Turning back is never easy, but sometimes the best decision
By Brett Haverstick Marty met us at the Bear Creek Trailhead at 9 a.m. We left my car in the lot, and she shuttled us over to Blodgett. Tim and I unloaded our packs, and went over our itinerary one last time. We expected to be back at Bear Creek in 5-6 days and then…
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Solitude in the River of No Return Wilderness…until all the motorboats
By Brett Haverstick I arrived at the Corn Creek trailhead about 4 p.m. in the afternoon. The sun was still hot, and the river canyon felt like an oven, particularly for May. After a few hours of hiking along the trail, I reached Horse Creek, a small tributary of the Salmon River. The creek was…
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Lost in the Winds
by Harriet Greene Wind River Range, Bridger Wilderness, Pinedale, Wyoming: The West was drier than it had been in years. Two nearby fires were almost under control. Elkhart Park was closed as well as the south entrance to Yellowstone, nowhere near our direction. After thirteen hours on the road we arrived at our friend’s home…
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The Boundary Waters
by Suez Jacobson A long wait – almost 50 years – to learnHow deeply and completelyThe wild magic of the Boundary WatersCould burrow. A self-identified mountain girlLost to still, flat black waterContained by granite outcroppingsLayered in midnight green pinesTopped with iridescent spring birches. In a place of pure stillness. A quiet a city dweller doesn’t…
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Floating the Grand Canyon
by Howie Wolke In late October, Marilyn and I headed south for a 226 mile 21-day float trip down the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River. There were four of us, in two rafts. For most of the 20,000 or so folks who annually float the Colorado, the scenery and numerous challenging rapids are big…
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An Art of Conducting Oneself
By Paul Willis There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up. —René Daumal, Mount Analogue Sitting here, high on the shoulder of a peak in the Ansel Adams Wilderness, I am looking down at a grassy swale where I startled a herd of eleven…
Photo: Paria Canyon-Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness, Arizona by Bob Wick/BLM