Laura Waterman has been described as “mountain royalty.” With her late husband, Guy Waterman, she has written numerous articles and books on the outdoors, including the definitive 900-page classic, “Forest and Crag: A History of Hiking, Trail Blazing, and Adventure in the Northeast Mountains.” The Watermans were pioneering philosophers of wilderness ethics and are often credited as the inspiration for the modern Leave No Trace movement of low-impact camping and hiking.

Laura Waterman may seem like an improbable crusader and chronicler of wilderness. She grew up on the campus of the Lawrenceville School, an elite prep school in New Jersey where her father taught English and was a renowned scholar of Emily Dickinson. In the early 1960s, Laura got a job in publishing in New York City, where she met her future husband, Guy, who had been a speechwriter for Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon and Ford and for General Electric. In 1973, the young couple left the big city and became homesteaders on a 27-acre plot of land in East Corinth. Together, they wrote books and were stewards of the Franconia Ridge, home to a spectacular and popular skyline trail in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

In 2000, Laura’s life changed forever when Guy died by suicide. He was 67. Five years later, Laura wrote a memoir, “Losing the Garden: A Story of a Marriage,” in which she tried to make sense of it. But it has taken more than one book for her to understand what happened to Guy, and to her. Now at the age of 84, Laura Waterman has a new book, “Calling Wild Places Home: A Memoir in Essays.”

I recently visited Laura Waterman in her log house in East Corinth to talk about her books and her life. Her home is full of pictures of her and Guy in the mountains and living their off-grid Vermont homestead, which they called Barra. It is obvious as we walk around the house that Guy continues to have a strong presence in her life. 

"I needed to write the second memoir to understand better my role in Guy's suicide," Waterman explains. "I needed that 20 years to live with that and basically grow into the person that I needed to become."

Midway through her ninth decade, Laura Waterman is still summiting mountains. "I just feel so fortunate. I'm fortunate to be able to climb mountains, smaller ones. I'm very fortunate to be writing what I'm writing."

A note for our listeners and readers: This Vermont Conversation discusses suicide. If you are in crisis or need help for someone else, dial 988 for the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (formerly known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline) or text 741741 for the Crisis Text Line.