To take off to northern lands on the eve of winter with a purple toe and no trail to follow or guidebook to consult would be, to most rational thinkers, insane. Yet since everything about the Tar Sands and the XL and America’s contempt for the reality of climate change struck me as insane, too, I thought it would be fitting to embrace this spirit of insanity, throw all caution to the wind, and embark on my adventure anyway. And so: On a cool morning in September 2012, I strapped on my backpack, stuck out my thumb north of Denver, Colo., and hitchhiked 1,500 miles to the Alberta Tar Sands. After viewing the Tar Sands — a horizon-to-horizon Ayn Rand wasteland of bulldozed Boreal Forest, eerie yellow sulfur pyramids, and Armageddon-black tailing ponds — I hitchhiked south to Hardisty, Alberta, the northern terminus of the pipeline-to-be, where I’d begin my hike. My ultimate destination would be Port Arthur — an oil refinery city on the Gulf Coast of Texas, which would be the southern terminus of the XL. At first, I was daunted by all the unknowns. Where will I get my water? Where will I sleep? Will landowners shoot me for trespassing over their property? And what sort of terrain will I even be walking over? These were questions I had no answers to. The best plan, I figured, was to have no plan, except to adapt and improvise as conditions changed. And to walk every step of the way.