Steep Passages: A World-wide Eco-Adventurer Unlocks Nature's Spiritual Truths

by David Lee Drotar

Release Date: 20 February, 2002

Edition: Paperback

Price:

More Info

Provocative

This book left me spellbound. Drotar has a true talent for telling tales that move on several levels. A river journey in Southeast Asia becomes a backward journey in time... Riding a horse through the Adirondacks leads to deeper insights about the precarious nature of our daily lives... A ski expedition reveals truths about the frightening transitions we all face. The eighteen essays, categorized by season, span the globe, yet they all affirm our connection with nature and with each other. And, somehow, Drotar manages to accomplish this with without ponderous prose or heavy-handing philosophizing. Tuck this book in your backpack for thoughtful reading during your own travels, or keep it on your bedside table to inspire your dreams.

Enticing Collection of Short Stories

I enjoyed this book immensely. Drotar whisks us around the world in these captivating essays, riding an icebreaker in Finland at one moment, a mountain bike in Wales the next. Every person, every place, every event reveals so much more to Drotar than it does to most of us. Ski runs become metaphors for life's challenges. A night sky helps Drotar discover the planet beneath his feet. The author dances thru time and space in a way that bewitches the reader and enriches his travel experience. Struggles for democracy in Myanmar--and America--are reflected in a prism where time, Zen and Buddhist like, flows backwards. Landowners in the pacific northwest embrace redwoods and a new ethic. His characters come to life on the page: Cowboys at a roundup in Wyoming, rangers with eagle eyes in the Catskills, children in Quito carrying bundles of dignity amidst urban squalor.

Few writers can weave their thoughts and meaning into a travel experience without destroying the tempo or becoming preachy, but Drotar accomplishes both.