Far out

This time we’ve chatted with Tricia Pearsall: adventuring pen-woman, lifelong world-traveler, and long-time travel-writer for Virginia Living who has been everywhere from Panama to Nepal and post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan to Machu Picchu. Her latest travelogue, “Seismic Siberia,” appeared in the August 2010 issue and takes us on a backpacking trek she took across Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula over moss-covered tundra, and past foraging bears skirting glacial lakes and active volcanoes.

Pearsall has a keen eye for place, and a rare ability to distill an often-giant experience into just, well, le bon mot.

VL: How did the trip to Siberia come about?

TP: I was researching a trek or hike in the Altai or Caucasus Mountains in Siberia, Lake Baikal, and came upon a Kamchatka trek. It sounded like an exciting volatile landscape full of wildlife, and then when I started reading more about the volcanic activity, I was hooked!

VL: In “Seismic Siberia” you wrote about encountering a golden-haired Mama bear digging for marmots. What was your first reaction?

TP: The first thing we saw was actually her baby—honking and coming our way. When the baby saw us she split back to Mama bear. My first reaction was, 'This is fantastic! This is why we came.’ Then, after realizing we were downwind and vulnerable, my next thought was ‘Camera!’

VL: What sparked your interest in travel?

TP: I have wanted to travel and experience people, cultures and land that was not like home ever since selling cookies to get two free weeks at Girl Scout camp - a black water swamp called Camp Pretty Pond in North Carolina.

VL: How far afield have you gone?

TP: When my kids were young we traveled as a family to Europe and backpacked in Colorado, Washington and Belize. When the kids got older and left for school, I started backpacking by myself in the Weminuche Wilderness in Colorado and Glacier Peak Wilderness in Washington. Then I had a chance to do a month-long trek to Ladakh and Zanskar, India in 1998. I suddenly realized how much there is to experience, and how special the traveling community is and so I have tried to do a long trip every year since.