I think you're right, Charmion, and I know there is a connection to the later work - when I was out on trails lugging a backpack or climbing glaciers doing the rest step in the quiet of the wilderness I'd be thinking in a way that was essentially composing essays, making notes at rest or in the tent. I didn't start carrying a camera as early as I was carrying a note pad (Rite in the Rain, of course) but it's all there in the early days. There are journals also.

Twenty-some years later when I applied to go to graduate school in English the graduate advisor was puzzled that someone with a park and recreation/ranger background would want to go into English and he initially denied the application. But I used as a reference a professor I met - I'd started taking classes post-baccalaureate and that professor told him I'd do fine and let me in. Type casting rears it's ugly head (and hasn't he heard of Edward Abbey or Gary Snyder or Jack Kerouac or Terry Tempest Williams?)

Three month check on the knee today. And I'll ask them to weigh and measure so my height is on the record. Must choose light clothes since I'll be dressed when weighed.