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Big Wild: A Wilderness Guide's Odyssey
Hardcover
Adventurers & ExplorersBiographies General
Publisher Price: $34.99
Publisher: Palmetto Publishing
Published: Nov 10 2026
Pages: 312
Weight: 1.29
Height: 0.75 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Five decades of wild country. One guide's unforgettable journey.
You feel it every time you step onto a trail and glimpse something vast and untamed beyond the tree line. That pull toward landscapes where grizzly cubs slide down snowfields, wolves howl across unbroken wilderness, and the horizon betrays no sign of civilization. You know these places are disappearing, and you wonder who is fighting to keep them wild.
Big Wild: A Wilderness Guide's Odyssey is the story of Howie Wolke, one of America's most experienced wilderness guides, who spent over four decades leading backpack trips through the remotest country on the continent, from the vast Arctic Refuge of northern Alaska to the searing canyons of the Sonoran Desert. Part adventure narrative, part natural history, and part chronicle of a life devoted to wildland conservation, this memoir takes you deep into the Bob Marshall Wilderness, the Greater Yellowstone backcountry, Idaho's rugged wilds, the Missouri Breaks, and beyond. Along the way, Wolke shares gripping bear encounters, close calls with violent thunderstorms, and hard-won lessons from decades of conservation activism, including his founding role in Earth First! and his sometimes turbulent path through environmental politics.
Inside these pages, you will discover:
- Vivid, firsthand accounts of encounters with grizzlies, wolves, elk, and wolverines in some of the last truly wild places in America
- An insider's perspective on the politics of wilderness designation and the fight against habitat loss
- The humor, drama, and hard-earned wisdom of a guide who carried everything on his back and never stopped advocating for the land he loved
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