Sublime

Before long they reached a roadblock, a conspicuous sign in the middle of the road that warned, DANGER: AVALANCHE SEASON. ROAD AHEAD CLOSED. So they got out of the car and walked to the snow at the roadside.

But no weather interfered fatally with my walks, or rather my going abroad, for I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines;

Whether on foot, on showshoes or by sled, into the summer hills and their late freezing shadows—a high blaze, a runner track in the snow would show where I had gone. Let the rest of mankind find me if it could. JOHN HAINES, THE STARS, THE SNOW, THE FIRE: TWENTY-FIVE YEARS IN THE NORTHERN WILDERNESS

The wide stretch of white snow with the inky tree shadows spilled on it, the elusive scents on the cold wind, the ridiculous fun of bounding and digging after shrews that ventured out of their winter burrows.

The sun had started its descent, casting shadows around them on the snowy slope. The pure snow was pale blue in color, almost weakly fluorescent.

• Walking , Henry David Thoreau


• Reveries of the Solitary Walker , Jean-Jacques Rousseau


• Ki (Trees), Kōda Aya


• Méditations poétiques , Alphonse de Lamartine


• A Field Guide to Getting Lost , Oristelle Bonis et Rebecca Solnit


• Pilgrim at Tinker Creek , Annie Dillard


• The Gardener and His Master , Jean de La Fontaine


• A Philosophy of Walking , Frédéri