“When I venture into wilderness, I’m surprised by how much I enjoy my own company,” Belden Lane writes. “The person I travel with there isn’t worried about his performance. He sheds the polished persona he tries so often to project to others. Scribbling in my journal under the shade of a pin oak atop Bell Mountain, I’m happy as a lark. I want to be the person that I am when I’m alone in wilderness.” This is the beginning of an important revelation.
