During my trip to Alaska, I realized that Proenneke enjoyed solitude but not loneliness. The former feels intentional and rewarding, as opposed to the latter, which causes anxiety and depression. He wasn’t a misanthrope. He welcomed visitors and was thoughtful enough to whittle a variety of walking sticks to match their height.

Monroe Robinson, author of The Handcrafted Life of Dick Proenneke, spent nearly 20 years living at the cabin and maintaining it for the National Park Service. Robinson knew Proenneke, who died in 2003, at the age of 86. “He liked when people came to visit,” Robinson told me later in a call, “and he also liked when they left.”

I can relate.

My aversions to crowds and clubs have been a source of personal confusion over the years. I’m not a misanthrope, either. As a reporter, I crave deeply personal interactions with others and get invested in the people I write about to a fault. Part of me always thought loneliness was a good way to avoid heartbreak. I’ve loved deeply anyhow, and lost people in my life to suicide and divorce.

In June of 2024, I learned my then-wife was deeply unhappy in our marriage. I had a real breakdown. The ensuing algorithms of online divorce content can be toxic for men, a slippery slope greased by manosphere grifters. Well-intentioned friends and family will often just take your side during a breakup, too, and there’s not much growth in that. So I tried to avoid that noise, choosing to walk inside myself, to find a “vast inner solitude” as the poet Rainer Marie Rilke advised.

I wanted to confront my own bullshit.

I spent a few dozen nights sleeping in tents for the rest of that year, mostly in the Northeast. Sometimes I slept in single-digit temperatures. I’d reserved a tent site for my wedding anniversary, a campground where I’d wanted to renew my vows. But after my marriage began to crumble, I took my young daughter, instead of canceling. I put her in a hiking backpack to slog my way up a few summits. I kept on punishing myself too, on trail runs and difficult hikes, hoping exhaustion would tamp down the urge to beg my ex and anyone who knew her for answers. Bad cell service helped with that.

(I also found a great therapist, thankfully.)

On a long-planned family vacation to Southwest Colorado in August of 2024 that I couldn’t afford and couldn’t cancel, the San Juan Mountains loomed everywhere I went. I saw them from the window of my cabin, the dirt roads I drove along with my kids, and the hammock where I finished The Snow Leopard, in which author Peter Matthiessen joins an expedition to find the mythic beast in Nepal after the death of his wife.

The mountains felt timeless and unavoidable there, and they spoke to me, a perfect epilogue to the book’s zen message.

“Accept what’s happening” they said.

And so I accepted that my marriage was over.

In May of 2025, the divorce was finalized. A few weeks later, I was in Alaska as a freelancer, pinching myself as my plane touched down on the icy, blue lake.

Robinson, when I asked, said “feeling lonely was not a thing” for Proenneke. He was too active, too busy trying to survive. Proenneke left society, yes, but he didn’t withdraw from life. In the long winters, when no sun hit Proenneke’s sod roof, when no planes landed on the frozen lake, he would spend months penning thoughtful letters to close friends, family, and his growing legion of fans.

Proenneke cared about his cabin’s appearance too, about beauty, and that matters. He built a stone fireplace, an extra bunk for guests, and hand-carved a much-beloved Dutch door. Windows would be an inconvenient luxury in a trapper’s cabin in Alaska, but Prokenneke fashioned one that offered a grand view of the lake anyway.

While I was contemplating Proenneke’s contentment in Alaska, I was also watching contentment in action with the two young guides in charge of us there. For a moment or two, I envied both of them, the same way I envied Proenneke. Guide Dom Gawel, who is in his mid-20s,  was the quieter of the two, and he led a few of us on some longer hikes while others stayed behind at camp. Later, I asked Dom about loneliness. He thought young men feel lost today “because they are comparing themselves to others in a negative way through social media” and “disconnected from nature.”

Luckily, there’s nothing close to a signal at Lake Clark National Park, no texts you feel compelled to answer, no influencers to interact with. That’s not easy to do in the United States.

I also found kinship with Dr. Adam Bolour, my kayak partner at Twin Lakes and roommate at Port Alsworth, a tiny Alaskan village on Lake Clark where we slept on our final night. We talked about fatherhood, relationships, and nature. He was traveling solo too, from California, and while he was upbeat and talkative with everyone, I watched him steal away to read some Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self-Reliance by the lakeshore. I did the same with Proenekke’s book there.

I emailed to ask about male loneliness, when I got back to New Jersey.

“I cherish solo trips, whether I’m married, feeling alone, feeling super connected with someone or a big group,” he wrote. “It’s just great to get away and convene with silence and space.”

My revelations in Colorado and, later, at Proenneke’s cabin, helped me realize I must connect deeply with myself in the outdoors from time to time. Nature can’t just be an emergency room for me, either. It’s long-term maintenance for my physical and mental health, whether it’s trail running, floating in a swimming hole, or staring at mountains. It’s more than a hobby. The version of me who returns from those trips is a better father and, hopefully, a better partner someday.

Unlike Matthiessen, who spent months away from his young, grieving son in search of a snow leopard, or Proenneke, who spent 30 years away from almost everyone, I couldn’t and wouldn’t want to pull myself away from my children and responsibilities to that extreme. I have been guilty of that in the past. I’ll make do with a vow to see mountains like the San Juans as much as possible, even if it’s just a few days to convene with solitude, as Adam does. And if I can’t get to the Sawtooths or Switzerland, I’ll cut myself a break and keep exploring Pennsylvania or the Catskills.

A few months after I got back from Alaska, I tackled Pennsylvania’s Black Forest Trail. It’s the state’s most difficult hike, a 43-mile loop with a mind-boggling 8,500 feet of elevation gain. I was craving solitude, again, and found the trail emptier than the Alaskan backcountry. I saw as many rattlesnakes as people on that trip.

On my final night of the hike, after pushing hard for about 18 miles, I took off my boots and socks and stretched out on a shady vista as the sun began to sink.  Two hikers came in, a father and son, after their own long day. They hoped to camp there too and asked if I minded. I said it was fine and then, a few minutes later, reached for my socks and boots.

I shouldered my heavy pack, wished them a deep sleep, and pushed on to find solitude, that little bit of loneliness all the world says is a problem.

Jason Nark is a reporter who covers the outdoors for the Philadelphia Inquirer and and a freelance writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Outside, The Alpinist, Adventure Journal, National Geographic, Dwell, and other outlets.