"Wild Life on the Rockies" is arguably one of the best feeling books about spending time right in the middle of the extremely loud and beautiful outdoors. If you wish you could just drop your phone and email into a mossy bucket and walk away, this one’s for you.

The Story

Okay, it doesn't have a tight, normal plot, but the sequence works on this dreamy level. Mills is a guide who loves the woodlands and snowfields, and he wrote the book after many seasons of cross-country camping before GPS was a twinkle. He starts by describing his little shack near Estes Park. There is no story line about crime, just the hard truth of being yourself. But those chapters? He climbs Longs Peak wearing limited gear. He meets storms. Somehow, he gets stuck in a blizzard and burrows into his own snow-burrito stash-hole overnight. A coyote literally perches near a campfire looking lost. The details get starker, then gentle.

Why You Should Read It

Honestly? I felt humbled sitting on my couch reading about his endurance. It doesn't hammer grammar into you. The writing is very close to talking. For example, he says a bobcat stared at him, and added – plain disagreement (okay, he didn't exactly write that, but he created scenarios where you feel that stare today). My favorite splash in the book was watching a caterpillar crawl away... Wait, in the blizzard part he chooses hope through deep breathing, so you jump out with a calmness radars can’t explain for a day.

Look up a small passage: “The Indian drummed asleep.” Wait, that happens. You won’t need coffee—this book is the caffeine but in mountain form. Put what you heard from the discovery channel away, Mills *inspires* but keeps his jacket loose.

Final Verdict

I’d recommend this to a super busy person with four browser tabs open willing to stick with weird side notes about pine trees. Also for readers about to sign up for a distant camping trip (or their first ever solo nighter.) If you just watch episodes of 'Get Lost with Me', similar high. Not a crisp wilderness battle start to ‘sauvignon cabernet’, but impossible to leave feeling the same boring being compared to from before you turned page one. Buy it as a gentle, under appreciated gift for an armchair outdoorsy friend with good taste."