A Last Hike In is a book of late life, of a writer's returning to his sources in wildernesses, the untamed places of the heart, of solitude and passion and love, and in the deep pasts of myths and ancient history as he continues his lifelong search for meaning, for what stays, the essential things of which, no matter the hour, we still have so much to say, so much there's left to tell. It is a song of the earth that, like Mahler's, as it approaches the end, listens for the profound call, like a summons from within the world, of what endures, of what sustains and consoles us, as if forever.