Writer, naturalist, and wilderness explorer Craig Childs is known for his love of the American Southwest and its severe, arid landscapes. An obsessive walker, he logs many thousands of miles annually, almost entirely away from official trails. He’ll carry gear and water into a so-called wasteland and immerse himself in his surroundings: the geology, the wildlife, the traces of ancient humans. He possesses a seemingly inexhaustible store of anecdotes about rattlesnakes, ravens, flash floods, blistering sun, desperate thirst, and skeletal remains. One reviewer for The New York Times described him as “a modern-day desert father, seeking transcendence in self-deprivation, solitude, and steadfast meditation on his mortality.”