This classic adventure memoir of a 65-day backpacking trek across Oregon's wilderness includes encounters with blizzards, poisonous mushrooms,and bears, but Sullivan spices his journal with the observations of a talented naturalist, including notes on history and geology, demonstrations of suvival skills, and stories of the unforgettable people he met. These last include a political scientist who leaves his classrooms to protect Bald Mountain from the Forest Service, a camouflaged elk hunter who hopes to be reincarnated as a stag elk, and an ancient widow who lives alone in a remote gold-mining cabin.
What these people share, and what this book illustrates, is a deep connection to the wilderness, that place we must preserve where humans still do not control things. Written in a soft-spoken but powerful style, Sullivan's book demonstrates with living examples just why we are right to work to save such places.