Deep in the Backcountry

While camping solo deep in the Yellowstone backcountry, up around Bighorn Peak, my relationship with books changed. Before I set out, a ranger told me that where I was camping, I probably would not encounter another human for another month. I only camped there a couple of days, but I did encounter another human. And that was F. Scott Fitzgerald.

In my backpack I was carrying The Great Gatsby, which I was reading for the second time, and there in the wilderness, many miles from the closest road, I felt as if I had a friend with me. In those years, I was reading Thoreau, Lao Tzu, Thomas Merton, and Plato, and though I felt a strong affinity to these writers, Fitzgerald somehow seemed like a lifelong friend.

Perhaps it was due to the sheer isolation, but my relationship with books deepened that day. On that bright day in the wilderness, a young writer learned the true, intimate power of the printed page. 

This is my old copy of The Great Gatsby, which is in pretty good condition considering how many miles it traveled in a pack in the mid-nineties, back in my Yellowstone years. Today it rests on a shelf here in Texas enjoying its retirement.