There there is nothing like a wilderness journey for rekindling the fires of life. Simplicity is part of it. Cutting the cackle. Transportation reduced to leg - or arm - power, eating irons to one spoon. Such simplicity, together with sweat and silence, amplify the rhythms of any long journey, especially through unknown, untattered territory. And in the end such a journey can restore an understanding of how insignificant you are -- and thereby set you free.

The best dress for walking is nakedness. But our sad though fascinating world rarely offers the right and necessary combinations of weather and privacy, and even when it does the Utopia never seems to last very long.

There there is nothing like a wilderness journey for rekindling the fires of life. Simplicity is part of it. Cutting the cackle. Transportation reduced to leg - or arm - power, eating irons to one spoon. Such simplicity, together with sweat and silence, amplify the rhythms of any long journey, especially through unknown, untattered territory. And in the end such a journey can restore an understanding of how insignificant you are -- and thereby set you free.

Although the vast majority of walkers never even think of using a walking staff, I unhesitatingly include it among the foundations of the house that travels on my back.

I do what I do instinctively, and that’s me. If you like me, that’s fine; if you don’t like me then don’t watch me.

Mostly, two miles an hour is good going.

Freed from the pressure of haste, the tyranny of film, and now the restraint of clothes, I found myself looking more closely at what went on around me.