Canyon Thinking

About this episode

Hudson Gardner reflects on his experience of spending time off-grid in a canyon, contemplating his artistic motivations and the beauty of solitude in nature.

Transcript Hey there So I am walking the backside of this little meadow, forested area where my mom lives It's on the edges of old farmland and I'm about to hop over a split rail fence, which is a little awkward, it's a little tall There's some, a lot of native plants around here, and also some volunteers from elsewhere Oregon ash and cottonwood, willow, aspen There's a grove of hawthorn in full flower This is a place where deer hang out Floods in the winter It's marshy where I am right now I could probably set up a tent back here It's quiet I've just come back from the far east side of the state I was off grid, down in a canyon for four days, in some pretty crazy country, working on a project and just existing really I think it was probably the least I've interacted with screens and media in maybe a decade I didn't really have cell phone signal for about a week and a half, pretty intentionally I basically just didn't turn my phone on unless I needed navigation And then there were three nights and four days when I was down in the bottom of this canyon where I really didn't do anything at all I just kind of existed down there Ate food and had a little fire now and then Watched the…

People in this episode

Host: Hudson Gardner

Topics covered

• nature
• self-reflection
• artistic process
• off-grid living
• solitude

Keywords

• off-grid
• canyon
• nature
• art
• solitude
• self-reflection
• Oregon

Mentioned in this episode

Places: Oregon, canyon

More episodes of Walk Around

• All The Energy in the World for Nothing At All · February 27, 2026 · 9 min
• Resistance Takes Effort · October 9, 2025 · 3 min
• Delivered Quietly · September 21, 2025 · 9 min
• It Takes A Long Time · August 1, 2025 · 6 min
• Faith, Beauty, and Bonds · July 12, 2025 · 17 min
• Lake Shore Document · June 23, 2025 · 9 min