Abstract

With the enactment of the Wildemess Act, wildemess solitude has become a major issue in the assessment and designation of wildemess areas. Interpreting this solitude criterion to mean loneliness, federal agencies have judged wildlands according to their “isolation potential.” This perspective is highly inaccurate given the etymological derivation of solitude-“soul-mood.” Wildemess solitude is in fact a communion with wild nature. Philosophically it reflects a wildemess episteme and land aesthetic grounded in organicism. The natural aesthetic categories of Sole-the rare or unique -and the Sublime properly reflect the intent of wildemess solitude in cognitive experience. The result of this experience is an “at-one-ment” with wild nature affirming religious rapture and ecological egalitarianism. Consequently, federal agencies ought to employ wildemess review criteria grounded in natural aesthetic theory.