Melissa Walker set out on a journey that many women of hergeneration have mapped only in their dreams. Like many American chroniclers beforeher who have surrendered to the aimless pleasures of the road, Walker had nogeographical destination in mind, but she did have two definite goals -- onepersonal, one political -- for her journey. She was looking for the peace andsolitude of the backcountry, certainly, but she also wanted to learn the dynamics ofpreserving wild places and to devote herself to that cause. In the Sky Islands ofsouthern Arizona, on the banks of the Popo Agie River and the Wind River Mountainsin Wyoming, in Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Rocky Mountain, and Olympic National Park, in Gila and Glacier Peak Wilderness, she encountered the hazards of wild animals andextreme weather, and she began to reassess what parts of her life she couldcontrol.

Living on Wilderness Time is a book for those whohave visited wild places and want to return, and for others whose overcommittedurban lives make them long for land where time is measured differently and humanbeings are scarce. Above all it is a call to join those who, like Aldo Leopold, seewilderness as vital to the humancommunity.

Melissa Walker is vice president ofNational Wilderness Watch, chair of the Georgia chapter of Wilderness Watch, serveson the Southern Appalachian Council of the Wilderness Society, and is the author ofReading the Environment and Down from the Mountaintop. She has been Professor ofEnglish at the University of New Orleans and Mercer University and a fellow ofWomen's Studies at Emory University. Walker lives with her husband in Atlanta, Georgia.