The View from Above
Ten classes built from a mountain.
In 2017, Dorian Johnson's son Bailand hiked Molly's Peak in Cub River Canyon, near Preston, Idaho, and didn't come home. A year later, Dorian hiked the same trail himself, for the first time all the way to the top. What became visible to him on that mountain, about meaning, reality, direction, self-trust, boundaries, belonging, connection, control, identity, and attachment, became the ten classes below.
The hike is the origin story. The lessons are broader than grief, they're about how anyone navigates an ordinary life: entering adulthood, changing careers, building a family, making a hard decision, finding their values, learning to lead. You don't need to be grieving to take one of these classes.
Where This Comes From
The Prologue
Bailand stood on Molly's Peak looking down at the river he loved. The Cub River ran through the canyon near Preston, Idaho. He had so many memories of this canyon, but had never seen its magnificence from this vantage point.
He took a seat on the highest rock he could find and brought out his phone. He had reception. After sending a quick text, he put his phone away to take in the tranquil expanse, and after a while, repeated the words from his text quietly to himself:
“This is a beast of a hike, but talk about a view.”
A year later, Dorian drove the same gravel road up Cub River Canyon to hike that trail himself. He'd attempted it once before, alone, a month after — raw, surreal, sacred — but this time he meant to go all the way to the top, the way he was sure Bailand had. Driving in, an ordinary road he'd once loved for fishing and hiking had become “staggering mixtures of mind-altering pain,” in his own words — and still, he went.
This is the only part of Dorian's memoir, The View from Above, told here verbatim, his own written words, recovered directly from his manuscript. Chapters 2 through 10 exist as a full audiobook and video series, not as text here, so the specific scene-by-scene story of the rest of the hike isn't retold on this page. What follows instead are the ten real recognitions and lessons Dorian has directly named as coming out of that mountain, in his own words, not further invented narrative.
The Book This Grew From
The View from Above
By Dorian Johnson, with Danielle Palmer
The Prologue above is the opening of this book, Dorian's own written account of Bailand's hike, and of returning a year later to climb the same trail himself. The ten classes on this page grew directly out of the recognitions Dorian names in it: what became visible to him about meaning, reality, direction, and connection, once he was standing where his son had stood.
Read the book for Dorian's full account. Continue below for the ten classes it led to.
The Climb
You begin somewhere. You see more as you go.
Take one class. Take several. Take all ten. If you take them in order, they follow the shape of a climb: what does this part of the trail teach me, then what does the next part teach me, until, from higher up, you can see the landscape differently than you could from where you started. Nothing here forces a tidy ending. Some days the honest answer is still “I don't know yet.”
The Ten Classes
1. The Loss of Meaning
GratitudeWhat is the point?
2. The Loss of Reality
HumilityWhat is real to me anymore?
3. The Loss of Dreams / Opportunities
Positive AttitudeWhere am I going?
4. The Loss of Self-Trust
Hard WorkWhat is my role?
5. The Loss of Decision-Making / Boundaries
FortitudeWhat do I choose when fear, guilt, shame, or doubt are present?
6. The Loss of Life's Vision
WisdomWhere do I belong?
7. The Loss of Connection
JusticeWhat does fair, honest, reciprocal connection look like?
8. The Loss of Control
Self-ControlWhat is actually mine to govern?
9. The Loss of Identity
IntegrityWho am I?
10. The Loss of Attachment / Support
LoveWho am I connected to, and what does connection mean?
Each class is facilitated by a Certified AVAIA Guide, or can be taken on your own, reading, a recognition activity, and an optional private AVAIA conversation.