Writing in his diary in August 1842, Thoreau noted that “there is much to console the wayward traveller upon the dustiest and dullest road” because the “path his feet travel is so perfectly typical of human life.” As a lifelong journeyer and seeker he often used the metaphor embedded in his diary notation for that summer day: “Now climbing the highest mountains, now descending into the lowest vales. From the summits we see the heavens and the horizon, from the vales we look up to the heights again.” Thoreau sought utopia in nature and in himself at Walden by journeying westward a short distance from Concord to establish a community of one. There he found a piece of sacred earth and anchored himself in order to confront some practical problems having to do with economy, nature, and society.