Dorworth has written elsewhere, "We were young ski racers in 1953, boys in love with an activity that took me out of myself and into a world of mountains, snow, crystal clean air and focused vision, out of the anger, confusion, and encompassing fury of my particular set of circumstances within a rage-filled generation. Skiing and, more specifically, ski racing probably saved my life, allowing me to grow into a social critic instead of the sociopath I might have become in response to society's violent and small-minded hypocrisies, pretensions, and shallow smugness. Skiing kept anger, adolescent hormones, and confusion in check enough to focus on a path that was to take me skiing all over the world. It formed and informed my life at least as much as the dynamics of family, the structure of schools, the warmth and generosity of true friends, the betrayals of false friends, and the other (and normal) vicissitudes of life."

The Only Path is a depiction of how that love saved him from dysfunction, alcoholism, and alienation.