While Dan packed to head back to Wyoming last month, we discussed a few of the adventures that he had planned for his time there this fall. Among those excursions were several solo backcountry backpacking trips and, as he detailed his plans, I watched the concern grow on G’s face, especially when he mentioned bears.

As a parent, I want him to be prepared, to always leave detailed instructions about where he will be and when he will return. While in the Mountain West, unlike here at home, I also want him to make sure that he is always packing bear spray and taking every precaution.

However, I also want him to be out there because I know that, like me, he needs it. For me, there has always been something both magical and necessary about being alone in nature and, as it turns out, I’m not alone in this belief.

Furthermore, it seems that as we have become more “connected” through the wonders (and detriments) of modern technology, being “out there” has become increasingly more important. According to a 2022 article by Virginia Thomas entitled “Why Being (Alone) in Nature is Good for You,” all our connectivity these days leaves us with a yearning to disconnect. The article, which was published in Psychology Today, points out that, “In a recent study, researchers identified four primary reasons people seek solitude in the wilderness and the first is – perhaps not surprisingly – to disconnect from their devices.”

The researchers labeled this desire “de-tethering,” which they defined as “the desire to ‘experience life without everyday technologies,’ primarily email, text, and social media.” As a user of all the above, I can certainly relate to the longing for “tech escape.” However, I also grew up in a time before any of this technology existed and, even then, I felt the need to abscond into the natural world.

As a youngster growing up in rural Mississippi, that escape most often came through hunting and fishing, and as I thought about Dan’s Wyoming adventures this week, the memory of a boy with a truck, a two-man bass boat, and a Minn Kota trolling motor came to mind. It was a magical summer. I was a teenage driver with his first truck—it was the very essence of freedom or at least my first real taste of it. The feel of those four wheels on the open road was an escape in itself, but it was the fishing that was most liberating. In that time alone on the water, I was free to sort through the madness of life and ponder its greater meaning, or at least forget the plagues of geometry and trigonometry for a time.

Being alone on the water was restorative. It still is. To be clear, I thoroughly enjoy hunting and fishing with friends. However, there are times when I like to be by myself.

As a side note, this realization leads me to believe that I could be a good hermit. I also see this as one of the many reasons that G and I are so compatible. We would be amazing hermits together (as long as we could see our kids regularly and a select group of family and friends occasionally). Is there such a thing as a hermit couple?

The Thomas article goes on to point out that, “de-tethering from technology paves the way for three other primary components of wilderness solitude… physical separation, societal release, and introspection.” The latter, which is defined as “the process of going inward to reflect and contemplate,” is the “most deeply restorative stage of all, made possible because of the cognitive quiet that emerges when we are alone in nature.”

It is this quiet reflection in the aloneness that continues to draw me to the woods and the water. I find that it truly is medicinal.

If you have read my writing for any amount of time, you know that I love Norman Maclean’s book “A River Runs Through It.” The ending particularly moves me, especially when Maclean describes the limitations his advancing age has placed upon his fly fishing.

“Of course, now I am too old to be much of a fisherman, and now of course I usually fish the big waters alone, although some friends think I shouldn’t.”

I often think about Maclean’s quote when I’m alone in a tree stand on a cold winter evening or standing solitary in the darkness before dawn awaiting the gobble of a wild turkey. G worries about me hunting alone now that I’m in my 50s. I hope when I’m in my 80s I can still go, and I pray that she’ll still be there to worry, for ultimately, I know that I will still need to be out there.

I have come to understand that experiencing the outdoors is a both/and proposition in that it is best experienced both together with family and friends and alone. The choice depends upon your needs at the time. Until next time, here’s to the restorative powers of the wild, to the medicinal properties of nature, and here’s to seeing you “out there” in our great outdoors.

Email outdoors columnist Brad Dye at braddye@comcast.net.