Wyoming is the least-populated of the United States, housing a mere 532,668 souls scattershot across 97,818-square-miles. Great expanses of its terra are truly incognita. Its vast windswept range-land and high peaks are ruggedness incarnate, magnets for the imagination that dare us to enter the marrow of raw wildness. But as lost Teton hikers, bear-mauled Yellowstone tourists, hardscrabble miners, frozen-solid cows and their long-suffering, laconic drivers attest, Wyoming is a harsh land.

Photo: Routavelo, via Flickr
It's not just the land that's harsh. Whatever its mood windy and cold, windy and hot, windy and raining, windy and snowing, windy and sleeting Wyoming's weather will drive sane people away. The Cowboy State's topography and climate mix a cocktail of badness that's as irascible and ornery as the hard-drinkin'est, card-cheatin'est, stock-thievin'est old outlaw.

But Wyoming gives answers. There is something telltale in the ocean of sage stretching across central Wyoming, lapping against the foothills of those inimitable Rocky giants. If we listen, we will hear.

I needed answers a few Augusts ago, so I knew I needed Wyoming. My mother had just fallen from life. She was gone, and there was a sudden emptiness. After the initial whirl of numbed socializing and funereal ritual, I wanted the total opposite: openness, solitude and starkness a meeting with death's meaning. A solo ride on the Continental Divide through Wyoming's uncaring, unsparing, unpeopled harshness was the prescription.

Photo: Routavelo, via Flickr
The first moments of any tour positively drip with possibility, and this one was no exception. I felt the simple release of a world wonderfully bounded by two wheels, a road ahead, wind and sun. I delighted in the circular monotone of pedaling. I ignored the dusty pickups buzzing by much closer than they should. I reveled in the sights: raven, hawk, eagle, cows and deer sharing the sageland. And one frickin' enormous cloud...

Read the rest of Aaron s story here, via MountainGazette.com.

Aaron Phillips lives in Salt Lake City and is currently making the yearly transition from free heels to two wheels. He teaches writing at the University of Utah.