Skip to Content

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.

  • Arctic Dreams

    By Ned Vasquez For many years, dating back even to my childhood, I have dreamed of spending time in the Alaskan wilderness. In August, 2019 this dream became a reality when my middle daughter and I spent 9 days rafting the Kongakut River in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Our trip was organized through a…

  • Arctic Time

    By Frank Keim Old days drift slowly into new daysand the white eye of the Arctic sun rollsbright across the night,as we treksouthup the Hulahula River,named more than a century agoby Hawaiian whalers strandedon an ocean cold and frozenbefore its time. We stop at vestigesof ancient Eskimo campswhere the only traces areoil lamps made of…

  • NOT Alone in the Wilderness…

    By Cathy Brandt Due to life-long arthritis and now a bit of the “A” word (age), I can’t hike very deep into wilderness areas. However, when I do I’m looking to experience solitude—to get away from masses of people and their litter, cell phones, dogs barking, and aircraft noise. It’s very sad that some people…

  • Toads in the sand: How the Juniper Dunes Wilderness protects wildlife from motorized wreckreation

    By Scott Crain The Juniper Dunes Wilderness area is a 7000-acre part of the National Wilderness Preservation System, located in southeastern Washington State. It lies just a few miles north of what used to be a quiet part of the state, now exploding with population and development. The Hanford Nuclear Reservation lies a few miles…

  • The Boundary Waters and an Over-Reliance on Technology

    By Kevin Proescholdt In August, my family and I enjoyed our second canoe trip of the summer in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) of northeastern Minnesota.  The 1.1 million-acre BWCAW is a lakeland wilderness with over 1,000 lakes connected by rivers, streams and portage trails. It is part of Superior National Forest and is…

  • Cumberland Island

    By Jessica Howell-Edwards Cumberland Island Wilderness is part of the Cumberland Island National Seashore in southern Georgia, administered by the National Park Service (NPS). It was previously sanctioned as a UN Biosphere Reserve, and is located just miles from Kings Bay Naval Base and also nuclear warhead storage. I firmly believe that all Wilderness experiences…

  • Rene

    The Wild Emigrant: Cows, Dams, and Damn Mosquitoes

    By René Voss So now I know why people came up with the idea of aerial spraying DDT to kill pesky bugs … like the thousands of mosquitoes that attacked me over the summer solstice in the Emigrant Wilderness.  Relentless beasts! As I was walking out of the Wilderness I struck an interesting conversation with a…

  • Brett

    Wolf Sightings, Bear-Baiting, and Landing Strips: A Week in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness

    By Brett Haverstick I just returned from a recent backpacking trip into one of our nation’s first Wilderness areas, the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness of north central Idaho and western Montana. It was a typical June trip in the Northern Rockies with thunder, lightning, rain, hail, clouds, and sun. The forests were greening up, the rivers and…

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