I took my first solo trip last year and have been hiking for twenty years or more. It was in January and was on the AT. It was very very cold and the solitude was something that I have never experienced in it's totallity. It was really earie at times but man did it do me a lot of good to experience that solitude..I don't think that I have been any where that I have experienced total solitude. Not even a sound...Not one..Scary a little but was nice...