Going Alone

The principle of The Pirate Ride suggests that free will is an illusion created by our seeming sense of the options which life presents during our every waking moment. Shall I arise at 6:00 or 6:30 AM? And what for breakfast? Eggs or cereal? Did I indeed marry this woman of my own volition? Of course I did. I clearly recall bending to one knee to propose at that restaurant by the sea and before all those people. My life is certainly my own. How ridiculous to say or suggest ot

En route to Siberia ghost town, I’ve stopped for shelter within the skeletal remains of a Route 66 gas station. The wind today is hard and hot and desiccating; and blowing into the desert as all true desert winds should. Deserts are best when we are driven into them not through leisure, or work, or - heaven forbid - society, but through the raw necessity of following the mute, inanimate call of what is real. As usual, the ghost town is deserted even of ghosts. It’s the h

This is my May, 2020 book reading of Going Alone. For this month, I chose to read select portions of the chapter titled The Anxiety Hike, which is the centerpiece of adventure within the book upon which the rest of the story builds. This chapter is my attempt to take the reader through the landscape of the Deep-Water Wilderness, in search of a sighting of The Great Indifference. My name is Kurt Bell. You can learn more about The Good Life in my book Going Alone. Be safe... Bu

An impressive thing about deserts is the honesty they demand of our age, our health, and our constitution. The desert will not countenance a lie, no matter how well we believe it, or how dearly we wish it were true. Go alone to the desert only for truth, or stay home with your settled sense and certitude and live to the end of your days with the story you dream is real. My name is Kurt Bell. You can learn more about The Good Life in my book Going Alone. Be safe... But not too

Venturing too far and too long into the desert during midday after the Desert Killer has returned is something I know better than to do, and yet I did it...again. I offer strict guidelines in my books, blog and videos about staying safe while hiking alone in the desert, especially as temperatures begin to rise with the approach of summer. Nevertheless, I still fall prey to my own folly when curiosity or mild delirium lead me to wander from shelter farther than I should, all t

I'd made the foolish mistake of venturing into the desert further than I should on a day when I should not and past the point I should never have gone. The result was delirium and that touch of clarity which is always the consequence of realized error and a bit of rest and reflection upon the near miss of a well-lived life. #GoingAlone My name is Kurt Bell. You can learn more about The Good Life in my book Going Alone. Be safe... But not too safe. #Death #GoingAlone #TheGoodL

In addition to writing chapters for the new book, I also use my time at Siberia ghost town to record audio chapters for my last book. Sometimes this is hard; as the wind blows and disrupts the studio silence of the deep desert, and the delirium of heat and exposure may cause me to misread entire sentences; and, as in this particular video, deep fatigue may cause me to fall asleep midway through the reading. Though these challenges may reduce the overall quality of such record

I'm not sure if it's reassuring or not to discover sightings by others of The Great Indifference in the landscapes of their exploration. Part of me would like my own sightings of this absent phenomenon to remain my own, and something I could attribute to my own heightened imagination or broken psychology. But, when I read the writings of others who have apprehended the same seeming nothing, the same distant, cold and indifferent nothing, the same vacuum absence of caring warm

Every time I go to Siberia I can sense my diminishing capacity to withstand the world as it is and always will be; harsh, raw, deadly and indifferent. Each year my advancing age offers less feign resistance to these facts, less vain protest to the truth of degradation and entropy, and death and dissolution and an end to all this energetic and animated activity, promise and hope which is life. The desert will not support this fiction I was raised to believe, and which I teach

While at Siberia this past weekend I discovered I'd had a visitor. Someone had actually come, and had made their way from the ghost town to the Writing Bridge, where they left some no uncertain message of their visit, and perhaps a gentle homage to my own endeavors there. My name is Kurt Bell. You can learn more about The Good Life in my book Going Alone. Be safe... But not too safe. #Philosophy #Social #Path #GoingAlone #TheGoodLife #softypapa #KurtBell

Open desert mid-adventure review of my Outdoor Research Helium Bivy. I've had this Bivy for a few years now and it's become my go-to shelter for solitary desert exploration. The OR Helium Bivy is lightweight, small and easy to stow. It's also quite easy to assemble...even in a fierce desert windstorm. But best of all, the Helium Bivy is very comfortable, especially when paired with a nice quality air mattress. I have not yet had an opportunity to try the Bivy out in the rain

My perennial desert nighttime destination is the lost and deserted desert mining camp called "Campo #1". Like Siberia ghost town, I lay some claim upon this forgotten place; I describe it as my place to sleep in peace after a long solitary sojourn through trackless lands illuminated by starlight and moonlight and perceived by my own faint and failing vision and capacity to see and know. But still, I always find that place...no matter how dark the night, or lost or turned arou

My anxiety rises as I walk alone though the dark desert more than a mile from Siberia and on my way into the Deep Water Wilderness. There's something about this journey which sets the mind off-even during the day, and more so at night. "Slow the footsteps, Kurt." Hiking alone in the desert at night draws many thoughts and emotions to the surface, especially when you switch off the flashlight and feel your way through and across a landscape where seemingly familiar landm

My name is Kurt Bell. You can learn more about The Good Life in my book Going Alone. Be safe... But not too safe. #Adventure #desert #Mojave #GoingAlone #TheGoodLife #KurtBell

Work on the new book is progressing slower now, since the arrival of COVID-19 and the shutdown of so much of our society's day-to-day routine. The primary impact on the book has been the fact that I have not been to Siberia ghost town since mid-November, 2019, which is the main source of so much of the inspiration which goes into my writing. But, I can do some editing from home, which is the subject of this video. My name is Kurt Bell. You can learn more about The Good Life i

A long walk alone into the dark desert with no companion, no guide, no certainty and no companions. My name is Kurt Bell. You can learn more about The Good Life in my book Going Alone. Be safe... But not too safe. #Adventure #Risk #Path #Desert #GoingAlone #TheGoodLife #softypapa #KurtBell

Several miles into the desert at night I've found the remnants and memory of a long past desert mining adventure. What ever did this man hav

I saw this young man alone in the desert some miles outside Palm Springs, California. He'd made a life for himself on his own terms - terms which are both equitable and costly - both in the very best way. My name is Kurt Bell. You can learn more about The Good Life in my book Going Alone. Be safe... But not too safe. #Adventure #Risk #GoingAlone #TheGoodLife #softypapa #KurtBell