Exploration

Helen Thayer once walked 4,000 miles across the Sahara from Morocco to the Nile River, kayaked 2,200 miles of the Amazon River, and became the first woman to travel alone to any of the world's poles.

Winter is the season of withholdings come free and taboos undone. Those things we tell ourselves which are not for the warm months come to roost, and our allowances to ourselves grow as the season’s light shrinks.

Once I started thinking about water seeping through this limestone, I signed up to take a tour of the Minnetonka Caves located above St Charles towards the northern side of the lake.

Writer and explorer Gretel Ehrlich is author of 13 books, including "The Solace of Open Spaces." She has written for National Geographic, The Atlantic,…