Call of the wild

[Dirk]

I'm the type of person that, now and again, likes to escape to Snowdonia, The Lakes or The Peak District to go hill/mountain walking. I do it primarily for the peace and quiet, I find there's something spiritual to it. There's me, my thoughts and no man made interferences, the pungent fumes of petrol left behind and it allows me to acquire a sense of psychological refreshment.

The pace of life often leads me bewildered due to the constant bombardment of my sensory apparatus. We don't have one phone anymore, we have two, both a mobile and a home one which gives me less chance to escape the demands of modern life. I've recently taken to turning my phone off at night due to drunken antisocial friends texting me at 2.30am to ask "how are you"?

At night, the sound of cars bursting along the motorway in the distance means that there's a perpetual noise, peace and quiet a thing of the past. Not only this but the A41 also runs close to the motorway and my home, ensuring there's a waft of exhaust fumes more often than not. Frequently, I find myself questioning the way I live, wishing for something with less intensity, hoping for a different lifestyle. I know I am not alone in my views. It was the following piece that got me thinking; whilst I enjoy the outdoors some people take their need to escape too far. Do you wish for something different? If so, what is the different thing and what lengths would you be prepared to go to to achieve it?

Call of the wild

A POINT OF VIEW

By Tim Egan

When tired of lattes and rush-hour gridlock, urbanites like to get back to nature. But it's not the sanitised recreational backyard too many take it for.
This time of year, the sands of daylight slip through the hourglass rather quickly for those of us who live in the northern latitudes. Every day, you feel the approaching cover of darkness creeping up, and with it the urge to get out into the wild one last time.

Salmon are racing up shallow rivers, in a frenzy to spawn and die. Among my friends, the seasonal impulse is only slightly less manic. They want one more climb up the glaciers of Mount Rainier. Or an overnight in a high alpine meadow, the heather flaming gold, a campfire in front of us, a starry ceiling overhead. Everyone wants to Get Out at least once before they start to hibernate.

I live in Seattle, the most northern city in the continental United States. It is one of those new metropolises with a sheen of techno-urban sophistication. Inside a metro area home to three million, people talk of sports teams, restaurant openings and fears that our still-rising real estate market must collapse, and soon - with a thud.


I need wilderness as a yin to the urban yang. In the quicksand of rush-hour gridlock, I look away at the glow on the distant glaciers - it's freedom

But just beyond us is the wild. As the British expat writer Jonathan Raban, a Seattle resident for more than a decade, put it: "Seattle is the only the city in the world that people move to in order to get closer to nature."

An hour away by car are places in the Cascade Mountains that have yet to feel a human footprint. Or at least that's what it feels like. Just over two hours away, by plane, is Alaska - which we like to think of as a recreational backyard.

For the urbanite, these wilderness areas help define us. Atop a peak of eternal snow, or on a river of icy froth, there is that opportunity to lose yourself, on your own terms. Or to feel alone with the world, if only for a few fleeting moments.

Wilderness, to these city dwellers, is not a lethal area. We don't fear it. We rarely even think of our place in the food chain while in the wild, except during the occasional encounter with a bear. For the most part, wilderness is a restorative, for body and soul. It is the Geography of Hope, as Wallace Stegner wrote.

But I wonder if our relationship is somewhat skewed. I need wilderness as a yin to the urban yang. In the quicksand of rush-hour gridlock, I look away at the glow on the distant glaciers - it's freedom.



Every now and then, something comes along to remind me that the wild is not simply a playground - that, in truth, you live with it on its own terms, not yours.

Last week, Into the Wild opened in New York and Los Angeles. This is the film by Sean Penn, adapting a bestseller by Jon Krakauer. It tells the true story of Christopher McCandless, a soulful young product of a good college and a solid middle class family. He was very bright, athletic, with a promising life ahead of him.

After graduating with honours, he set out on a journey across the US - a somewhat aimless journey at that, in search of wilderness and self. He wandered and hitchhiked from prairie to desert to forest to roadless area. In one sense, McCandless was no different than Thoreau at Walden Pond, or Huck Finn in his raft on the Mississippi, or Jack Kerouac on the road. It was Kerouac who famously said: "The only people for me are the mad ones."

But McCandless went deeper and darker than any of those American icons, and perhaps he was mad, in the Kerouac sense. He shed all vestiges of his comfortable life, giving up possessions and money, and lived as an ascetic who called himself Alexander Supertramp.

In September of 1992, equipped with little more than a .22 calibre rifle and a 10lb bag of rice, he headed into the Big Empty of the Alaska wilderness, north of Fairbanks, not far from Mount McKinley. "I now walk into the wild," he wrote.

I know this area fairly well. Every day in September, another eight minutes or more of daylight slips away. Winter is at the doorstep. Nights are well below freezing. Brown bears, some weighing nearly 1,000lb, are in no mood for anything but gorging themselves on food before retiring for the winter.

More than 20 miles from the nearest maintained road, young Alex found a broken-down and abandoned city bus. And this is where he died. His diary showed he lived 112 days, alone, in the wilderness. And when his body was finally found by a moose hunter, he weighed just 67lb. He was 24. It's likely that he starved to death.

This story continues to fascinate us, and it goes to the heart of why urbanites long for wilderness. But the reactions of city dwellers and those who live close to the wild are very different.

Taking snaps of each other at the pipeline's visitor centre
Tourists at the Trans-Alaska pipeline
In Alaska, where fewer than a million people live in a state that is more than three times the size of France, people scoffed at the McCandless story. He was a tenderfoot - an idiot, in less charitable terms - who should have known better.

"He made some mistakes. He paid with his life. It happens pretty often around here." That was one comment - and typical - on the Anchorage Daily News website last week.

In the way of so many modern tragedies, the rusted hulk of the old Fairbanks city bus has become a tourist destination. People who feel a kinship with McCandless trek up the abandoned road, walking by spindly alder and dwarfed black spruce to the place of his death.

These McCandless tourists are a curiosity to Alaskans. The outdoor columnist for the Anchorage paper, Craig Medred, made a point shared by many who live in the Last Frontier state. "The Alaska wilderness is a good place to test yourself. It's a bad place to find yourself."

But the search for self is what McCandless was after, and that is still what drives so many people into the wilderness. I can see why people are drawn to the McCandless story. Here, after all, was a young man trying to free himself of our electronic cocoon. Here was someone trying to find something primal in his place in the universe.


Where man himself is but a visitor who does not remain
Wilderness Act of 1964
You can fault him, certainly, for his lack of preparation - perhaps it was even a form of slow suicide. But it's hard not to see something very human in his desire to walk up to the edge.

In the US, more than 100 million acres of public land are formally designated as wilderness. These lands, protected by the Wilderness Act of 1964, are considered areas "where man himself is but a visitor who does not remain", as the law puts it.

I use these wilderness areas quite a bit. It's part of the joy of living in a Western city close to huge swaths of wild public land. The biggest retreat outside of Alaska is called the River of No Return wilderness. It's in Idaho. You can only get in there by raft, or have a bush pilot take you to one of the small landing strips.

Once, on a long float down the River of No Return, I had arranged to have a pilot come pick me up on day five. On day four, a windstorm packing gusts of 40mph came charging through the mountains. This was followed by a ferocious lightening storm. Trees crashed to the ground, blocking the river behind us and flooding the place where the float plane was going to meet me. The next day, the woods above the river were on fire.

Search and rescue crew with injured climber in Scotland
Helping out an injured climber
What had been a serene stream through a valley of lush evergreens the day before now looked a bit menacing. We weren't lost. I knew we would eventually leave the canyon in a few days by floating downstream. But - for an instant - there was just a bit of panic.

I realised, then, that the River of No Return had lived up to its name. We were on our own. There would be no plane ride out. It gave the rest of the trip an edge.

I'm planning one last mountain getaway this month. But as I compact my world - tent, stove, sleeping bag, extra clothes, a flask of whiskey and two-days of dried food - into a backpack, there's news about the place where I will go. A search is underway for a missing hiker. She is two days overdue.

Oh well, I tell myself, they'll find the woman. I'm sure it's only a lapse. And then, a day later, they do find the woman - cold, hungry, dehydrated. She said she was lost.

I'll be with friends, so I tell myself nothing like that can happen to me. But this search and rescue is reminder that when you lose yourself in the wild, it's never on your own terms.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7018484.stm

[Paul]

I feel pretty torn between my love of urban environments and my desire for complete privacy. I've never had a mobile phone and don't feel any need to buy one - we hardly use our house phone as it is. Part of me would love to move to the middle of nowhere. However, a stronger part recognises that I'm not a risk taker and like being close to family, friends and amenities. Also, I don't think it would be fair on my kids to move them to an area where their potential friendships were severely restricted.

One of the great things about living on the Wirral is that you are no more than a ten minute drive from the beach, countryside and city, not to mention within very easy reach of two/three National Parks. A compromise for me would be to have a house with a bit more privacy and then I'd feel I was sorted.

[Captain]

Going up north for the moose hunt on Friday, can't fucking wait. Best week of the year for me.

[kop]

Originally Posted by Captain

Going up north for the moose hunt on Friday, can't fucking wait. Best week of the year for me.

Where north is that Captain? I've just spent a week hunting in Sennalandet outside Alta. The nature up there is unbelievable.

[G Richards]

I love to get away from it all from time to time, even if it's just taking a walk or riding my bike in the countryside. I resonate with Dirk's comments about phones, traffic and general hustle and bustle.

[madstock]

I fully intend to start a many-tented harem in Llandudno, based on some sort of cult with me as it's great and worshipped leader. (This will have to be before Cuba).

As a carrot-crunching softy southerner yokel, I yearn for a farm that isn't too far away from here; you can keep your cows, pigs and sheep (I can buy all of those off the shelf, already cut up), but I could happily live with ducks, goats and a donkey named Beryl. (That possibly wears a straw hat).

The benefits of said farm also include a modern 7 bedroom farmhouse with pool, full access to amenities including shops, doctors and people, a blueyonder broadband connection area.

In short; I will never, ever, ever move back to London or Bristol, nor will I want to live life as a crofter somewhere, but give me either a farm, a harem, or a place by the sea and I will be happy.

[bri]

I was down in cornwall for a few days last week. Me and a mate had about a mile of beach to kitesurf all to ourselves. At the end of the session I had it all to myself as he came in knackered. It made the 1/2 mile hike up almost vetical sandunes well worth it.

The wind picked right up and the waves were ample for my level. In a nutshell your forced to focus so much on what your doing or you'll get wasted. Literally you could of been dumped and got the sack in the same day but you wouldn't give a toss.

Only other time i ever get the feelng is in the mountains, stood at the top of a mountain with some mates, clear blue sky, about to drop in on waist deep powder.

Beers well earnt those days

[Captain]

Originally Posted by kop

Where north is that Captain? I've just spent a week hunting in Sennalandet outside Alta. The nature up there is unbelievable.

Målselv, Troms. I might even post some pics when I return.

[AK78]

Originally Posted by Captain

Going up north for the moose hunt on Friday, can't fucking wait. Best week of the year for me.

Originally Posted by Captain

Målselv, Troms. I might even post some pics when I return.

And here's me thinking you meant Newcastle for freshers or something

[Spy Bee]

I live in the highest village in Wales. If I ever have to go to work really early I generally see foxes, badgers, voles and all kinds of wildlife. I also get to drive around Snowdon, the Lleyn peninsula and other beautiful parts of North Wales as part of my job. I'm less than an hour from Liverpool about and hour from Manchester and Chester is only 20 or 30 minutes away.

[Stouffer]

I love the Lakes, they're only 30-60 minutes from me depending on where I go.

Hallin Fell is my favourite place mainly due to family reasons.



I also love Buttermere.



I'm so lucky.

[Big Ig]

That Buttermere pic is ace, Stouff...

[Stouffer]

Those pictures are good for tired eyes this morning.

[wiiksie]

Originally Posted by bri

I was down in cornwall for a few days last week. Me and a mate had about a mile of beach to kitesurf all to ourselves. At the end of the session I had it all to myself as he came in knackered. It made the 1/2 mile hike up almost vetical sandunes well worth it.

I was in Watergate Bay a couple of weeks ago Bri, possibly my most favourite beach in England. Took these pics from my hotel room balcony:

[Big Ig]

I fucking love beaches, not for lying on them, I get transfixed by waves and a distant horizon, proper aceness. Think I may have got hooked smoking week on Southsea beach approximately 3000 times while in Portsmouth Uni

[Nunavut Patrick]

I live in the middle of nowhere. The only inland Inuit community in Nunavut. 1750 souls, nearest place is 2100 pop. Rankin Inlet, 45 min by Saab plane. I could interchange easily to the city I think as I still want to drive a bus, but would definately return.

In five minutes I can snowmobile out and be in complete quiet. Caribou last year (reindeer to the Norgies) were plentiful and the herd was close by.

Only drawback is 48 cans of ale is 50 quid plus air freight which is another 12-15 quid and then the constant adjustments of the sat dish due to blizzards and winds of 100+km/h.

[Rashid]

I tried to do this by going to Centre Parcs, blood hell I hated it!