Out Here: Wisdom from the Wilderness

by Carolyn Highland

Overview

Carolyn Highland’s outdoor writing will drive readers and outdoor enthusiasts to “get outside” and experience all that the natural world has to offer.

Out Here 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781771604499
Publisher:	Heritage Group Distribution
Publication date:	09/04/2020
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	937,051
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Carolyn Highland is a writer and teacher with over 50 published essays in print and online, in publications such as Backcountry Magazine, The Ski Journal, A Worthy Expedition: The History of NOLS, Misadventures Magazine, The Leader, and the websites of Teton Gravity Research and the Outdoor Women’s Alliance, among others. She is a regular contributing writer to the Deuter blog and the NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School) blog. Her writing has also been used in course readers on expeditions through NOLS, the Prescott College Outdoor Program, the Second Nature Wilderness Program, and NatureBridge. Carolyn received a BA in creative non-fiction writing from Northwestern University in 2012. Her essay “Parentage” won the Helen G. Scott Prize for Best Personal Essay from Northwestern’s English department that same year. She lives in Truckee, California, USA.

Table of Contents

Out Here 9

Waking Up in the Wilderness 13

Strength 19

What Would You Do with Your Days? 33

Know Before You Go 37

Warmth 47

Flowing through the Footholds 55

Leaving Room for Magic 63

When a Hard Left Is Right 71

Legends of the Fall 81

Reach 85

The Things We Carry 89

Or 95

Triangulation 107

In the Thick of It 113

A Love Letter to Winter 121

How Can I Support You? 133

Becoming 137

Tolerance for Uncertainty and Adversity 145

Everything Counts 151

For the Love of the Tour 159

Going Alone 163

Lean In 169

Will You Do It Later, or Will You Do It Now? 175

I Am Number One 181

You're Right 189

The Tiny Miraculous 201

Acknowledgements 209

About the Author 213