About the Book
Carolyn Highland’s outdoor writing will drive readers and outdoor enthusiasts to “get outside” and experience all that the natural world has to offer.
Out Here is a collection of essays that explores what the wilderness has to teach us about the human experience, using outdoor endeavours as extended metaphors for greater truths. Each carefully chosen piece embarks on a different physical and metaphorical journey: managing expectations and reality during a medical emergency in a 40-mile ski mountaineering race; staring down fear and consequences on exposed ski lines in Alaska; re-examining self-reliance and decision-making through heartbreak and snow science; and leaving room for unexpected magic as a female travelling through Patagonia.
Highland’s first book inspires a deeper connection to the wilderness, a deeper connection to ourselves, and will leave readers wanting more from this fresh new voice in mountain writing.
Reviews
“Every once in a while there’s a morning so crisp, so clear, that the beauty can’t help but cut through. You see everything around you, everything that was always there, with fresh eyes. Those are the mornings we live for – startling revelations with the simplest of ingredients. This book is a morning like that.” —Steph Jagger, author of Unbound: A Story of Snow and Self-Discovery
“Although Carolyn Highland takes us on a variety of challenging adventures in her refreshingly compelling debut book, her focus is not on the how-to of logistics and technicalities. Rather, this self-effacing, brutally honest author skillfully describes how she faces her self-doubt and fears to help her take that next step to climb a mountain, finish an ultra-marathon or perhaps even convince herself that the best option is to not finish. In Out Here, Highland offers important, non-preachy lessons to outdoors enthusiasts of all interests.” —Bruce Masterman, journalist, editor and columnist; author of One Last Cast: Reflections of an Outdoor Life