Why ditch the crowd?

Mike LIBECKI dangles from his hanging shelter halfway up Ship’s Prow, a 2,000-foot overhanging buttress of granite that rises straight up from a frozen arctic sea.

With a rigging of ropes and safety devices, Libecki claws his way up steep pitches in a quest to be the first to climb a new route on this remote chunk of rock on a flyspeck island in Canada’s Northwest Territories.

And he’s alone.

If he falls during the three weeks it will take him to get to the top, there are only sheets of sea ice below. If he’s injured, there’s no one within hundreds of miles.

As he inches his way up the rock face, the 30-year-old veteran climber from Utah revels in this pure connection with the wild, a remote, glassy landscape punctuated with neon pink and purple sunsets saturating the sky.

“Every day, I’d watch the sun roll down the horizon for 12 hours,” he said.

People venture into the wilderness alone to seek a more intimate bond with nature, to hear and see things that may be muted or overlooked when others are around, to escape the clutter and chaos of daily life or to step outside their physical limits and test their mettle. But none of that’s possible if you adhere to the “don’t go alone” rule, a credo officials have been pounding hard lately after eight hikers -- five of whom set out by themselves -- slipped and fell to their deaths on Southern California’s icy mountains last month.

“You can’t argue against the advice not to go alone in the wilderness,” says Ed Talon of the American Hiking Society, who has logged 40,000 miles on trails, most of them alone. “But the truth is, it’s far more dangerous to drive down the highway than it is to hike solo.”

Despite the risks of going alone, the emotional payoff of a solitary journey isn’t possible if you stick with the pack.

“Today’s climbers are like trappers and explorers of earlier centuries, yearning to see what’s on the other side, and more importantly, to discover something about themselves,” said Lloyd Athearn, deputy director of the American Alpine Club. “Even the best partner will grate on your nerves at times.... Going with a partner always involves a compromise, but when you’re alone, you don’t make any compromises you aren’t willing to make.”

Some people go alone by default -- and wind up hooked. Last summer when Kelly Kineen couldn’t find a buddy with weeks to spare, the 26-year-old sports writer hiked a 270-mile stretch of the Pacific Crest Trail by herself and liked it. A lot.

“There are rare opportunities for women to follow their own impulses and make their own decisions,” Kineen said. “Being able to set my schedule on the trail and make decisions that work for me is liberating.”

Linda Jeffers conquered her lifelong phobias -- the fear of being alone, the fear of animals in the wild, the fear of the dark -- by immersing herself in nature. After a period of self-examination three years ago, the 59-year-old Tarzana woman planned her first long-distance solo hike: the 211-mile John Muir Trail from Yosemite Valley to Mt. Whitney.

Friends and family members joined her at the beginning and end of her 23-day trek, but on her first day alone she sobbed uncontrollably. Walking amid the raw beauty of the High Sierra, Jeffers slowly found strength in the solitude

“Going up the steep switchbacks, I began to hear the birds and smell the pine trees and feel the warmth of the sun,” she said. “All of my senses came alive. I had been driven by fears all my life. I loved the feeling of overcoming those self-imposed limitations.”

Being alone also is a way to sharpen senses and allow a deeper connection with nature. “You afford yourself the luxury of listening when you’re alone,” said Michael Saenz, 41, of Lake Elsinore. “You can hear the pulsing wind rush through the pines. It’s like the mountains are breathing.”

Last fall while hiking on the Willow Creek Trail in the San Jacinto Mountains late one afternoon, Saenz saw something moving in the trees about 15 yards away. It was a buck, about 350 pounds with a huge rack. “I felt privileged to be there at that moment,” he said. “There’s no way I would have seen it with another person present.”

But it’s not always easy to break from the herd.

“Emotionally, it’s just too hard,” said Jeff Olson, a sociology professor at the University of Wyoming and an experienced hiker and backpacker. “We live in a world where we are not routinely given the tools to learn to be alone.”

But it’s also a world in which being alone makes us vulnerable.

Three years ago, Barry Tessman, a river guide and professional photographer, was preparing for a National Geographic photo shoot in Vietnam when he left his Kernville, Calif., home to kayak on nearby Lake Isabella. His empty boat was discovered later that morning on the lake, the paddle stowed inside. Tessman’s body was found a month later within a mile of where his kayak was found.

The official cause of death was drowning, but the coroner found evidence of blunt-force trauma to his head, a finding that raised suspicions of foul play in the eyes of family members who posted a $20,000 reward for information about his death.

Tessman’s father understands and defends the practice of going alone, despite the anguish of losing his son.

“The whole point of the outdoors is to get away from people and all the mechanized stuff that surrounds us,” said Norm Tessman, 66, who regularly bikes, hikes and paddles by himself near his home in Cottonwood, Ariz. “Listen, I don’t want to get killed. But being alone in the outdoors is well the worth the risk.”

Libecki would agree. Though he still sometimes climbs with partners, he’s a self-confessed solo junkie.

“Having a partner is a crutch,” he said. “You have someone to rescue you, someone to belay you, someone to clean your pitches. For me, going solo is the ultimate reality.”

Libecki has completed other solo adventures, including two climbing expeditions in Greenland and a 45-day walk across China’s 600-mile Taklimakan desert.

But reflecting on that successful ascent of Ship’s Prow on Scott Island in 1999, he knows that solo adventures have come to define who he is. “You realize you can safely do it, and do it with a smile,” he said.

“It was the ultimate accomplishment getting up the route. It was me and the Earth and the weather and the polar bears. That’s my only proof of God. That’s my religion.”

Wendy Knight is a climber and freelance writer who lives in Vermont.