FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JC Young’s Running From Ghosts Explores the Difference Between Chasing Freedom and Finding It
The published memoir uses Alaska’s mountains, extreme skiing, and personal reflection to help readers question what drives their own ambitions
San Franciso, CA – Sep 9, 2026 - Some people spend years working toward a goal without stopping to ask what they expect that goal to give them.
For author JC Young, the pursuit began in the mountains of Alaska. Skiing offered movement, risk, identity and the powerful feeling of being fully present. It also became a way to measure progress, avoid convention and imagine a life beyond ordinary expectations.
Young examines that complicated relationship in his published memoir, Running From Ghosts: Religion, Mountain Adventure and the Search for Freedom, now available on Amazon.
The book is built from firsthand experiences, dated journal entries and reflections written during a defining period in Young’s life. Although skiing provides the physical setting, the deeper subject is familiar to anyone who has ever attached too much of their identity to one dream.
Young’s early ambition was clear. He wanted to ski major Alaskan mountains, compete at a high level, and build a life around the activity that made him feel most alive. Over time, however, skiing began to represent different kinds of freedom. It offered escape from social pressure, a sense of personal identity and, eventually, questions about money, work, creativity and inner purpose.
The story follows that evolution through several forms of freedom, including physical, social, economic, creative and interior freedom. Rather than presenting personal growth as a straight path, Young shows how people often return to the same questions at different stages of life.
The book speaks to people who have built their identity around a career, relationship, belief or long-held ambition. It asks what remains when the goal changes, when success feels different than expected, or when the thing that once provided direction begins creating another kind of confinement.
Young does not tell readers to abandon their passions. Instead, he invites them to examine the role those passions play.
Are they moving toward something meaningful, or simply trying to outrun discomfort? Are they choosing their path, or protecting an identity they no longer need? Has the dream continued to grow with them, or are they still serving a version of themselves formed years ago?
Running From Ghosts offers mountain adventure, physical danger, and an intimate record of a young man testing the limits of his environment and beliefs. Its lasting value, however, lies in the questions readers may carry back into their own lives.
Publication and Availability
Running From Ghosts is published and available now on Amazon:
Purchase Running From Ghosts on Amazon
About JC Young
JC Young is an Alaska-raised writer whose work connects wilderness experience, risk, and personal reflection with larger questions about identity, creativity, and freedom.
Media Contact
Name:JakeYoungAlaska
Email:jacobyoungak@gmail.com
Website: https://jakeyoungalaska.com/
