I did not know what the trail conditions ahead of me were like, what the weather would be, or how many logs I would clamber over in frustration. I couldn’t know how many heart-stopping wildlife encounters lay between me and the end of this trip. It was this promise of something new and unknown—this tantalizing mystery—that fueled my addiction. I was desperate for discovery. Perhaps curiosity was why, feeling dead in a well-ordered life, I had left it behind to roam all those years ago—and kept returning.
