An outdoor podcast without the highlight reel
Miles of Quiet is a podcast about hiking, fly fishing and van life, and about what being outside does to how you think once you stop filling the silence. I'm Henry Wilder. I host it.
Who I am
I spent most of my thirties managing construction projects in Portland. Good money, steady work, weekends in the mountains. At thirty-eight I had a bad year: a layoff and a long-overdue breakup, close enough together that they felt like one thing. I bought a used, high-mileage 2019 Sprinter, spent four months building it out in a driveway (plywood and aluminum, nothing precious), and drove south. It was supposed to be a one-year experiment. That was four years ago.
I'm based out of Bend, Oregon, where I keep a storage unit and enough of a life to call it home, but I'm on the road more than off it, mostly in the Cascades, the Rockies and the desert Southwest. I fix the van myself. I don't name it.
I've been fly fishing for about six years and I'm still not especially good at it. My dad taught me to fish on a dock with a worm when I was twelve; the fly rod came later. I release what I catch. I hike long, quiet days rather than summits, I cook over fire more seriously than is reasonable, and I get up early. That last one isn't negotiable.
What the show is
It's an honest account of time outside: the long boring middles, the rivers that say no, the nights alone, and the kind of quiet you can't get anywhere else. Each episode takes one idea, like boredom, patience, solitude, public land or the campfire, and follows it as far as it goes.
What it isn't
- An adventure podcast. No summit pushes, no near-death stories, nothing epic.
- A gear show. I'll tell you what worked and what fell apart, but I won't sell you a kit.
- A van life highlight reel. The water pump makes noises. It's in there.
Sponsors
Some episodes carry a short sponsor read. I only take ones for things I've actually used, I say so up front, and I've turned down the ones I couldn't stand behind.
