Wilderness Wisdom

Craig Palmer

Description

Wilderness Wisdom is a collection of twenty-five lessons that wild places can teach us about our lives, regardless of our age or situation. It's a guide to self-improvement written by a wilderness photographer who has spent years learning from the landscape and wildlife. Each lesson is illustrated with experiences and photographs from the natural world, and is sure to be a memorable and accessible read.

Sujets

• Santé et bien-être
• Bien-être émotionnel
• Développement personnel
• Bien-être
• Bien-être
• Bien-être
• Bien-être
• Personal Growth
• Self-help
• Happiness
• développement personnel

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 06 décembre 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781456629649
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Wilderness Wisdom
25 Life Lessons from the Landscape
 
by
Craig Palmer

Copyright © 2017 by Craig Palmer
 
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
 
 
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
http://www.eBookIt.com
 
 
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-2964-9
 
 
Images from this publication are available as prints at the following website:
www.FromTheHighCountry.com
 
 
Book design, layout and photographs by Craig Palmer.
 
First Edition
 
 
All forms of exercise pose some inherent risks. The author and publisher advise readers to take full responsibility for their safety and know their limits. Before practicing the activities described in this book, be sure that your equipment is well maintained and do not take risks beyond your level of experience, aptitude, training, and fitness. As with all exercises and dietary programs, you should first get your doctor’s approval before beginning. Reliance on any information provided by the author is solely at your own risk.

 
 
 
This book is dedicated to everyone who gave me the tools or encouragement to explore wild places.
Contents
Introduction
Hard Knocks
Rewards
Game of Chance
Harmony
Back Roads
Be…
Details
Big Picture
Changes
Adaptation
Tipping Point
Green Shoots
Endurance
Fear
Plans
Journeys
Family
Impressions
Early Days
Storms
Necessities
The Greatest Gift
If…
Instincts
Belonging
Final Thoughts
Introduction
I’ve always been comfortable outdoors. Some of my earliest memories are of woodland, quiet country lanes and even the back yard of my childhood home. One memory that particularly stands out is when I experienced an overwhelming feeling of peace on a small forest trail, flanked by gently swaying trees. I would have been six or seven years old. A year or two earlier, in what was probably the same forest (the details escape me), I vividly recall seeing a deer cross the trail ahead on a snowy winter morning. This was in a semi-rural area where my wildlife sightings were usually limited to garden birds, so that lone deer might as well have been Santa Claus. The point I’m trying to make here is that experiences in the natural world have made an indelible impression on me, and I’m sure that some of you can tell similar stories. Although I may not have always been aware of it, my life choices have been influenced by my relationship with wild places.
 
Through my adult life so far, I’ve spent time in many different natural and unspoiled environments, in both my native Britain and in the USA. For many years, those experiences were times to relax and reconnect with the world around me when most of my days were spent in towns and cities, in air conditioned offices and living spaces, and on busy highways. Like most people, the majority of my life was spent in man-made environments. Sacrifice and old-fashioned hard work eventually brought me and my wife to the mountains of Colorado. Working as a freelance wilderness photographer, I’ve since solo hiked through more forests and mountains than many people experience in a lifetime. I’ve also have a lot of time to think during those hours of solitude.
 
In the pages of this book, I hope to pass along a number of lessons that I’ve learned from my time outdoors. I didn’t want to follow directly in the footsteps of Thoreau, Emerson or Muir, but I did want to commit some of my experiences to print in a modern and easily accessible form.
I am no expert, but I trust that some of my life lessons will prove useful (or at least thought provoking) in your lives, and I will do my best to share some of my wilderness experiences (and photographs) to make this an entertaining read.


Hard Knocks
Every element of life carries a risk. On a mountain, it’s important to consider both the likelihood of an accident and the potential consequences (exposure), should that accident occur. For example, loose rock can make the ascent of a slope more difficult, because there’s a good chance that a hiker could slip. If we change that situation to include a vertical cliff at the bottom of the loose rock, the exposure suddenly becomes quite severe, and it may be best to look for another route or consider using climbing equipment.
 
I can recall a few (but still too many) times that I have made (or almost made) mistakes in wilderness. There’s the short cut over snow that transitioned into a bobsled run, the ‘alternative’ route home that involved an unroped vertical descent, and the winter storm that reduced visibility to near-zero and froze the water in my pack, but I’m going to use another example….
 
There’s one mountain that has so far beaten me. I’ve only attempted it once. It isn’t a particularly photogenic climb, and the route I chose covered some of the hardest terrain I’ve encountered. I like to think that I usually make good time on my hikes, and I had completed the local 50 mile mountain ultra-marathon earlier that year, but dense vegetation, steep slopes and a lack of any trail slowed my pace to a crawl. I had a map and I could see the summit from time to time, but navigation was an additional challenge. My route took me across a flat ridge, which was the first good news I’d seen all morning, but soon the forest closed in again and the way ahead slowly became more difficult to cross (as mountains often do).
 
After taking four hours to cover a little over two miles as the crow flies, I reached a boulder field. A long but simple scramble led to a vertical section of rock. Snow and ice was lodged in some of the steps and handholds. To the left and right were cliffs.