Guest Column

Alone in the Wilds: Is Solo Trekking Okay for Women?

By Betsey Weltner, Guest Writer, 8-24-09

	The author and her dog. Photo by Betsey Weltner.

No man should go through life without once experiencing healthy, even bored solitude in the wilderness, finding himself depending solely on himself and thereby learning his true and hidden strength.
-- Jack Kerouac

“You did what?” my friend Virgil said, dumbfounded, when I told him I had just backpacked overnight in the backcountry by myself, as if he could not process such a notion.

Other friends were equally baffled, and they all live in the Big Sky/Bozeman area of Montana, where civilized country as opposed to backcountry is represented by mere pinpricks on a map.

Are we so gregarious as a species that the thought of one night of complete aloneness is foreign? Or can we only enjoy “the wilderness” in the company of other humans who will fill the silence and grandeur of mountain nights with familiar conversational reference points? Could the wilderness be too wild a thing to be in by ourselves?

The archetypal “lonesome traveler” is Jack Kerouac (author of the collection of travel tales by that name) or Clint Eastwood’s gunslinging anti-hero who roams from one western town to another in spaghetti westerns from the ‘60s. Those who hit the open road or roam the prairies solo are never women, as stereotype has it. They’re usually rugged, independent men—featured players in the mythologies of the West who never offer commentary or analysis.

Why can’t women experience the quiet solitude of a night under the shifting constellations of a western sky? I decided to put my rudimentary backcountry skills and my capacity for real aloneness to the test. I hiked into the Lee Metcalf Wilderness in the Spanish Peaks, following a friend’s directions to a place where there would be almost no chance of running into other hikers. Such encounters would have defeated the purpose of a solo experiment. I made sure to let people know where I’d be, however: A neighbor who had recently hiked the same route met me at the trailhead for a send-off, with plans to come back the next day at a pre-arranged time, to make sure I’d successfully walked out. 

This land is rough and steep. The hike took me from an elevation of around 7,000 feet to 9,500 feet, just under the timberline. There was no permanent, well-traveled trail like those found on the other side of the Peaks. Elk hunters had recently blazed a path, leading over two ridges to a small alpine meadow with travel-poster-quality streams and wildflowers. In other words, I had to pay attention—there would be no reassuring signs with mileage indicators pointing this lonesome traveler to her destination.

A jewel box meadow was the reward. Carved into a bowl of sedimentary rocks, it was a miniature version of some of Montana’s spectacular valleys like Lamar and Hayden. It offered thistle, bear grass and other plants that hyperphagic bears in late summer seek out. There was plenty of bear scat in this meadow, but no bears decided to make an appearance that night, at least none that I saw. 

Here is the main difference between camping by yourself and with other people: not a whole lot other than the hallucinations. Okay, they’re not really hallucinations. But when I first arrived in my private meadow during my Friday night date with the wilderness, my mind raced to fill in the spaces created by the complete quiet and remoteness of the place. I saw rocks that became bears then moose then rocks again. The little stream began to speak to me, just as the river spoke to Siddhartha in Hermann Hesse’s famous novel about enlightenment. 

This went on during the dusk that binds daytime to nighttime. Did I find it alarming? Not at all. As soon as darkness prevailed with its scheme of solar systems hundreds of years away in the past, my mind quieted. I thought about simple things, like love for my family, reverence for a place such as this, and joy that I could be here and hear the meadow talking, just to me.

But the reality is that the risk factor is greater for women than for men, whether they’re hiking alone in the wilderness or visiting New York City. Because women are viewed as more vulnerable to human predators, they are in fact more likely to be targets. My friend Susan, an outdoorswoman who is not afraid of anything and has been on many African safaris, admonished me for exposing myself to the host of dangers by backpacking alone. 

Another friend, Patty, a backpacking instructor, said that while she has never spent a night out in the woods by herself, “there should be no boundaries for anyone backpacking, other than to follow Leave No Trace principles and safety rules, and to walk gently through the wilderness.

Juan Villagro is a guide with Bozeman-based Andes Mountain Guides who frequently climbs and camps alone in backcountry. His company advises clients to climb in groups, but he enjoys scaling heights by himself. “Climbing and hiking alone require a personal commitment because there is a higher risk, but the reward of the experience is unique,” he said.

Juan knows several women in the Bozeman area who backpack alone, including one hiker who outfits her three dogs with their own packs. 

Is the “unique experience,” as Juan describes it, worth the risks? It is a personal choice that should be considered carefully, balancing the potential for harm with the experience, as Victor Hugo described meditating in the outdoors, of “the mysterious transaction between the infinity of the soul and the infinity of the universe.”

I would be interested in hearing readers’ views about solo trekking. Have you spent a night alone in the woods? Would you? Do the potential dangers of backpacking alone in the Rocky Mountains wilderness make this a really bad idea?

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