Getting Lost on Purpose: Cal Flyn’s Search for the Wild

In a Scottish whiteout, Cal Flyn lost all sense of up and down, then fell through the snow into a rushing river. It was one of the most frightening moments of her life, but it hasn’t stopped her from seeking out wild places. For her book The Savage Landscape, Cal tracked bears in Transylvania, hiked closer than she should have to an erupting volcano in Iceland, and climbed Mount Sinai alongside pilgrims from across the world. Listen in as she shares with Marcus Smith some of the things she’s learned about the places we call wilderness. Guest: Cal Flyn, author of The Savage Landscape: How We Made the Wilderness and Islands of Abandonment Chapters (0:00) Lost in a Whiteout (8:42) The Highlands and the Pull of the Wild (14:09) The Bears of Transylvania (28:40) Too Close to a Volcano (36:36) What Counts as Wilderness? (41:39) Mount Sinai and a Shooting Star (47:26) The Deep Sea and the Ineffable