On a solo backpacking trek, the only extra baggage is you.

Northwest Colorado's most important export can't be ordered via the Internet. You can’t mine it, pump it, or sell the rights to it. It’s not natural gas or crude oil, the environmentally controversial resources in the region. Instead, it's peace-and-quiet, vast expanses where you can walk for miles without seeing another human – a more rare commodity these days than gas or oil. I got my dose of peace and quiet in the Flat Tops Wilderness Area last summer, on a solo backpack trip.

I used marked trails to do a 20-mile loop over the course of three days and two nights, seeing at least eight lakes and a waterfall along the way. The route was noteworthy, but there's no need for anyone to do my exact trip. Instead, I want to comment on the salutary effect of solo adventuring.

How do I know that my solitude was salutary? Because the very day I came out of the wilderness I was mistaken for the kind of person I emphatically am not. All the days of my life I've been labeled energetic, fast-talking, outgoing, even nervous. So imagine my surprise when a waitress at the venerable Johnny B. Good’s Diner in Steamboat Springs asked me, “What do you do for a living? Because, whatever it is, I want to do it, too. You are so calm.” Well! I'd never had anyone suggest that before!

I didn't go into the woods searching for a personality adjustment or personal enlightenment; I went to celebrate being 50. I wanted something that was a bit out there, both literally and figuratively, something that my kind of person doesn't generally do. I wanted a challenge that would be just this side of scary. For me, that meant backpacking alone.

I started the trip as I do all trips: on the internet. I learned that the Flat Tops were the inspiration for the entire concept of federal wilderness preservation. In 1919, Arthur H. Carhart recommended that no construction of roads or homes be permitted in the area. That concept, that it was a federal prerogative to protect certain areas from development, eventually led to the 1964 Wilderness Act, which designates certain parts of public lands as forever free of development.

I then looked up the Backpacking Light website (backpackinglight.com) for tips on how to pare down my gear. Based on its advice, I left my pots, scrubbers, and dish soap at home and took only a cooking stove for boiling water. That meant that breakfasts and lunches were eaten hand-to-mouth: Kashi bars, banana chips, soy jerky, gorp, dried fruit, pretzels. And for dinner I ate dehydrated meals designed for the backcountry. The potato and broccoli casserole was surprisingly good; the tofu pesto was not.

Most of the advice on the website was solid, but nerdy. Who is interested in the weight of different brands of cord? Please! The one take-home message for me: bring one thing that is a luxury. For some folks, that might be an espresso maker; for others, a small musical instrument. I brought a book: Going Alone (Seal Press, 2004), edited by Susan Fox Rogers. It’s a compilation of women’s solo adventures. I meant it to be inspirational, and it worked. I was inspired toward humility by comparing my stroll to the exploits laid out in the book.

As for the trip itself, I parked the car at Stillwater Reservoir, not far from the town of Yampa. That traditional ranch town is a great final stop, by the way, with a general store and some lodging if needed. I began hiking toward my first destination, Solitary Lake (the name helped me decide where to go). Just ten minutes up the trail I saw a family with three little girls, and then it was a full 48 hours before I saw any more humans, unless you count the sheep herders on horseback that appeared to be part of the distant scenery. The next “human sighting” was an hour before my return to the car, and all the time in between was spent entirely with me, myself, and I. If I’d chosen to travel on the Trapper’s Lake side of the wilderness area, I might have had more company, but that wasn’t the point.

What was the point? For me, it was about overcoming fears: the fear that hikers shouldn’t go out alone. The fear that I’d mess it up somehow, without a second person to share decision-making. The fear that I’d have some catharsis that might screw up my comfortable life. Or, possibly worse, that I might have no new insights at all and find instead that my “solo” was singularly boring.

None of these fears proved fearsome. Instead, I got a little jolt of adrenalin just twice: the first time when I came across bear prints in still-wet mud, and a more sustained cold sweat when the trail grew faint. Toward the end of the first day, I found myself bushwhacking up a steep hill, climbing over downed trees, and wobbling on shifty boulders. I finally admitted it: this was no trail, and I was lost. I followed expert advice for such circumstances: I stopped, sat down and ate something. After hors d’oeuvres (a Luna bar), my rational self suggested that I retrace my steps. Lo and behold, there was the real trail. I had gotten off track, and was able to successfully get myself back on it—a coup for me.

I chose the Flat Tops because it’s a whole lot further from population centers than, say, the Indian Peaks (west of Boulder) or the Maroon Bells (outside Aspen). I was pleased, too, to have lots of above-timberline terrain without any truly killer elevations. And, I’d not spent much time in this area, and wanted to take a look-see. I can now recommend it for others seeking solitude.

But as I said, no one needs to feel compelled to make my exact trip. Someone else might choose a different location, or a different emphasis. I can imagine a self-designed yoga retreat in the wilderness, or a do-it-yourself workshop on photography, geocaching, journaling, meditation, or route-finding, or even a solo expedition to kick off a new, healthier lifestyle.

In fact, hiking isn’t even essential to a good solo trip. The trip could just as easily take place at a rented cabin or yurt (try neversummernordic.com or leadvillebackcountry.com), or at a campground. Others might even take a road trip as a solo adventure. The Flat Tops Trail Scenic Byway that heads from Meeker through Buford to Yampa would be a great route, with views of the massive block of lava that is the Flat Tops, pushed up and flattened on top, unlike anything else Colorado offers. In terms of going it alone, you’d have to visit Nevada to find more solitude in a car. It’s not the backpacking that matters; it’s the soloing that counts.
My bottom line was simply that I did the trip all by myself, thank you very much. It was as if I were 15 instead of 50 – I made some minor mistakes, but at least they were mine to make, consequences and all. And all it cost me was a tank of gas and one stop at REI.

Wendy Underhill, a writer, parent and community do-gooder, has set a goal for 2009: “Have more fun.” Traveling the byways of Colorado is one of the big ways she’s fulfilling that goal.