Carolyn Highland’s outdoor writing will drive readers and outdoor enthusiasts to get outside and experience all that the natural world has to offer. This is a collection of essays that explores what the wilderness has to teach us about the human experience, using outdoor endeavours as extended metaphors for greater truths. Each carefully chosen piece embarks on a different physical and metaphorical journey: managing expectations and reality during a medical emergency in a 40-mile ski mountaineering race; staring down fear and consequences on exposed ski lines in Alaska; re-examining self-reliance and decision-making through heartbreak and snow science; and leaving room for unexpected magic as a female travelling through Patagonia. Highland’s first book inspires a deeper connection to the wilderness, a deeper connection to ourselves, and will leave readers wanting more from this fresh new voice in mountain writing.