Wilderness Wisdom: 25 Life Lessons from the Landscape

By Craig Palmer

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Dec 6, 2017
• ISBN: 9781456629649

Book preview

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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