Following Atticus is an autobiography and an adventure story about a muckracking Irish newspaperman, whose life is transformed by a small dog and their winter adventures together. Set in the high peaks of New Hampshire’s White Mountains, they battle disease and nature’s …
Read More »Book reviews
The Randolph Paths Guidebook and Waterproof Map
I’ve been exploring many of the trails in the White Mountains North Country this summer, including those maintained by the Randolph Mountain Club (RMC) which maintains the trail systems immediately north and south of Rt 2 in the Northern Presidentials (Mts Madison, …
Read More »The Real Grandma Gatewood
Grandma Gatewood is often cited at the first ultralight backpacker because she thru-hiked hiked the Appalachian Trail using a shower curtain as a shelter with only 12 pounds of gear. I doubt that’s the reason for her success. More than anything, she …
Read More »AWOL on the Appalachian Trail – Book Review
A new updated edition of David Miller’s classic Appalachian Trail memoir, AWOL on the Appalachian Trail will be available on October 18th, 2010. Published by Amazon Encore, it will be available in paperback and as a Kindle edition. I’ve just finished reading …
Read More »Trekking the Southern Appalachians
I was going through my hiking bookshelves the other day and I came across Trekking The Southern Appalachians published by Backpacker Magazine. I don’t remember every buying it and anything published by Backpacker Magazine is, well, suspect. Boy, was I ever surprised …
Read More »Dan Doan and the 50 Hikes Series
Dan Doan. There’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time. I came across a few of his hiking guides on Sunday as I was going through my bookshelves, weeding out books I haven’t used in a long time, for donation …
Read More »Hostile Habitats: Scotland’s Mountain Environment
About two years ago, I started to become a lot more interested in the flowers, trees, animals, bugs, fungi, and geology that I encountered on my backpacking trips. I became an amateur naturalist. This added a whole new dimension to my walks …
Read More »NOLS Wilderness Guide: A Book Review
The NOL’s Wilderness Guide (National Outdoor Leadership School) is a great book to read even if your are an experienced hiker and backpacker. The book provides in-depth instruction on a wealth of topics including: expedition planning how to dress for the backcountry …
Read More »Sky Islands and Desert Canyons
This post is about writing and hiking. I’ve been reveling this week in Chris Townsend’s hiking memoir, Crossing Arizona: A Solo Hike Through the Sky Islands and Deserts of the Arizona Trail Here’s a short excerpt that I keep returning too. “A …
Read More »Great Hiking and Outdoor Memoirs
I really like reading hiking and outdoor memoirs because they combine personal insights and emotions with the writers’ experience of everyday routine, physical trials, town encounters, and natural wonder. There’s a richness in them that you don’t often find in autobiographies or …
Read More »Exploring New Hampshire’s White Mountains
The Wilderness Map Company, publishers of the Green Mountain Club’s Vermont’s Long Trail Waterproof Hiking Map, has just released a new Tyvek map called “Exploring New Hampshire’s White Mountains.” This map is not available online, but I got a first edition copy on …
Read More »How to Read the Forested Landscape
I just finished reading an incredible book called Reading the Forested Landscape: A Natural History of New England, authored by Tom Wessels, an ecologist and environmental biologist who teaches at the Antioch New England Graduate School in New Hampshire. This book teaches …
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