Wandering in the White Mountains

By: Erik Rittenberry

Artist Bluff: Erik Rittenberry

"No man should go through life without once experiencing healthy, even bored solitude in the wilderness, finding himself depending solely on himself and thereby learning his true and hidden strength."

- Jack Kerouac

If you read my post earlier this month, you know that I usually take off to the mountains in October to soak in the autumn scenery.

This month was no different. I just returned from a glorious trip to the White Mountains in New Hampshire.

I stayed in a tiny cabin with no electricity, no running water, no thrills. The inside was furnished with a cot, a small table and chair, and a propane grill. That’s it. I couldn’t help but be reminded of the words of Carl Jung, who once said:

“I have done without electricity, and tend the fireplace and stove myself. Evenings, I light the old lamps. There is no running water, and I pump the water from the well. I chop the wood and cook the food. These simple acts make man simple; and how difficult it is to be simple!”

The cabin stood more than a simple place for shelter — it was a tiny dwelling somewhere far off in the cut where I could shed the weight of time and rediscover something elemental. At least for the moment.

I’m a man who occasionally seeks complete solitude throughout the year. It’s good for the soul and the mind to break away from the stupidity of the modern world every now and then. To reset and set fire to the creative juices. To become empty of all distractions and obligations and to simply BE.

I’ve always been drawn to the quiet power of nature as a remedy to the mechanical life of society.

Here, devoid of the vulgar commotion of modern life, the silence is profound, broken only by the distant call of an owl or the wind whispering through the forest.

Each morning, I rose before dawn, boiled coffee over a flame, and made my way up to a vast scenic spot to greet the sunrise— Table Rock, Artist Bluff, and Mt. Willard, to name a few. To say it was magical would be an understatement.

With my boots worn yet reliable, I’d take off on the trails with nothing more than a rucksack and a camera to breathe in the autumn air. To see. To feel. To explore — a solitary nomad in search of the sublime.

Mt. Willard

The White Mountains are a thing of unimaginable beauty. It’s no wonder they’ve held a special allure for travelers, adventurers, and nature enthusiasts throughout our short history.

Their appeal dates back to the early 19th century when the region was first “discovered” by artists, writers, and city dwellers seeking refuge from New England's burgeoning industrial landscape.

The White Mountains started to gain attention in the 1820s, when artists from the Hudson River School, like Thomas Cole, painted the region’s dramatic peaks and lush valleys. These works romanticized the untamed wilderness and helped to establish the area as a symbol of sublime beauty and natural grandeur.

Then came the writers like Hawthorne and Thoreau.

With their poetic words, these writers helped bind the human spirit to nature and beauty with a sense of reverence. To them, the mountains were not simply landscapes but mirrors that reflected the yearnings and restlessness of the human heart. They saw in those peaks a purity, a wildness, a place where one could strip away the layers of civility and stand face-to-face with something both beautiful and terrifying—something that called to the deepest part of ourselves.

The trails I set out on weaved like rivers through the wilderness, fringed with gold and scarlet leaves that fell like embers and crunched under my boots.

There was a purpose to my wandering, but it was less about reaching a destination and more about being present—immersing myself in the raw beauty of these mountains — entirely alone.

I came to the mountains not merely as an escape but as a pilgrimage of sorts—a communion with nature that helps rid the distractions of daily life. I wanted to be left alone with my thoughts, my breath, and the slow turning of the seasons.

In solitude, you find clarity. In the words of Rollo May: “In order to be open to creativity, one must have the capacity for constructive use of solitude. One must overcome the fear of being alone.”

Each step through the forest, each night spent under a roof of timber and stars, roots us deeper in a place that is at once wild and welcoming, harsh and healing. Here, you can feel the pulse of the earth beneath your feet, reminding you that, for all the complexity of the world beyond, the simplest of journeys can be the most profound.

Below, I’d like to share some of the vast beauty I witnessed along my wanderings. I hope you enjoy it.

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Dixville Notch

“The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.

If you want to get more out of life, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty.”

— Jon Krakauer quoting Chris McCandless, Into the Wild

"I am done with civilization and its spawn of cultured souls. I gave myself up when I entered the tomb. From now on I am a nomad, a spiritual nobody."

— Henry Miller

“What is it we are questing for? It is the fulfillment of that which is potential in each of us. Questing for it is not an ego trip; it is an adventure to bring into fulfillment your gift to the world, which is yourself. There is nothing you can do that’s more important than being fulfilled. You become a sign, you become a signal, transparent to transcendence; in this way you will find, live, become a realization of your own personal myth.”

~ Joseph Campbell

Frankenstein Trestle

“I felt like lying down by the side of the trail and remembering it all. The woods do that to you, they always look familiar, long lost, like the face of a long-dead relative, like an old dream, like a piece of forgotten song drifting across the water, most of all like golden eternities of past childhood or past manhood and all the living and the dying and the heartbreak that went on a million years ago and the clouds as they pass overhead seem to testify (by their own lonesome familiarity) to this feeling.”

― Jack Kerouac

“The everyday world drags us along, like a slave behind a conquer’s chariot. One must learn to sever the rope, to allow the mind to stand still, to become aware of its affinity with mountains and stones.”

- Colin Wilson

“Faeries, come take me out of this dull world,
For I would ride with you upon the wind,
Run on the top of the disheveled tide,
And dance upon the mountains like a flame.” 

― William Butler Yeats

“I see a vision of a great rucksack revolution, thousands or even millions of young Americans wandering around with rucksacks, going up to mountains to pray, making children laugh and old men glad, making young girls happy and old girls happier, all of 'em Zen Lunatics who go about writing poems that happen to appear in their heads for no reason and also by being kind and giving visions of eternal freedom to everybody and to all living creatures.”

― Gary Snyder (paraphrased by Kerouac in Dharma Bums)

"Whoever wants music instead of noise, joy instead of pleasure, soul instead of gold, creative work instead of business, passion instead of foolery, finds no home in this trivial world of ours."

~ Hermann Hesse

“I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”

—Henry David Thoreau

"Solitude is not chosen, any more than destiny is chosen. Solitude comes to us if we have within us the magic stone that attracts destiny."

~ Hermann Hesse

“What is necessary after all is only this: Solitude, vast inner solitude. To walk inside yourself and meet no one for hours ... That is what you must be able to attain.”

― Rainer Maria Rilke

“Keep close to Nature's heart... and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.”

—John Muir

Artists Bluff

“Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.”

—Khalil Gibran

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