Wanderer from My Birth Book

This fascinating book, a series of letters written in 1873 by Isabella L. Bird to her sister, documents the amazing adventure of a resourceful and daring Victorian woman. Its lush descriptions of the natural world (sunrises and sunsets, plant life, landscapes, animals, and all varieties of weather) and of domestic life (buildings, living conditions, relationships, gardening, cooking and cleaning) are captivating and entertaining.

In the autumn and early winter of 1873, on her return to England from the Sandwich Islands, the author travelled from San Francisco by train through the Sierra Nevadas. After a couple of days exploring the area near Truckee on a hired horse, she continued by train through to Cheyenne, Wyoming (which she described as "a God-forsaken, God-forgotten place" which existed solely as a railway depot for the distribution of essential goods to settlers within a 300-mile radius).

While continuing her journey by train and wagon south to Fort Collins, Colorado, the author was smitten by her first glimpse of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. She writes (still 25 miles from the mountains) "they are gradually gaining possession of me." The mountains had captured her heart and she was determined to find someone to guide her through the Front Range into beautiful Estes Park, nestled in the hollow between the Front Range and the Long's Peak Massif.

The Park, apparently inhabited by native tribes thousands of years ago, was first "discovered" by Europeans when fur trader Rufus B. Sage visited in 1843. In 1859, gold-digger Joel Estes settled there with his family for six years, eking out a living by ranching and hunting. The tallest of the peaks which surround Estes Park, Long's Peak, was named for early explorer Major Stephen H. Long who, while exploring the plains, noticed the high mountain on the horizon. Long's was first climbed in 1868, and mapped extensively in 1871. In early September 1873, the first woman to ascend Long's Peak was among the party of the Hayden Survey, a government expedition. One can only suppose that this event spurred the author's interest in visiting Estes Park and climbing Long's Peak herself.

After several unsuccessful attempts, the author finally reached Estes Park, where she lived with one of the two families settled there, and made the acquaintance of the famous desperado, "Rocky Mountain Jim" Nugent, with whom she explored the local area and summited Long's Peak. Estes Park became her home base during her sometimes pastoral, sometimes hair-raising solitary horseback explorations. She was well-known among the local population, and her reputation as a hard worker, a keen explorer, and a superior horsewoman preceded her wherever she went. It was with a heavy heart that, in December 1873, Isabella Bird left her mountain home to return to England.

I listened to a superb recording of this book by the Librivox volunteer, Laura Caldwell. The experience was, for me, like a multi-media installation consisting of a variety of vivid word pictures, which both informed me and spurred me on to further research. I found many websites with interesting information, maps, and photographs about the people, the history, and the geography of the places that the author visited. The couple of weeks that I spent with this book was time well spent. In fact, I would do it again!