Books I Should Have Already Read #3
A Walk in the Woods
By Bill Bryson
A Walk in the Woods
By Bill Bryson
Well, it is not a classic, but Bryson is a popular author with books about subjects ranging from hiking, popular science, etymology, and the UK. He is an honorary Officer of the British Empire and an university chancellor. Also, Robert Redford already secured the rights for the book and will make it into a movie sometime soon. Some serious credentials.
This book escaped me all throughout college where many fellow environmental studies students praised its narrative of the Appalachian Trail. I have discovered that those that love hiking only like one thing second to that and that is reading about it. OK, well, they are individuals so one hiker might really like pistachio flavored ice cream as his second choice and another always gives Maine Coon cats her second place medal. I have never really sensed a real desire to talk about hikes from the hikers. While you are on a trail, the fact that the only controlled variables in the whole hike are that strip of earth and whatever you have strapped to your back make for some serious, "Well, you just had to be there" moments. Except for really wacky moments like losing your pants while trying to ford a creek or being chased by bees in the shape of a fist! Or, just regular bees. Equally terrifying. They always want to take you there, however. Then you won't need to listen or read! Hikers are a friendly lot and, in my experience, always want to bring more appreciation to their trails.
And by hikers, I mean hikers. The kind of people that have actually taken their Nalgene bottles outside of the office. Or, a person who doesn't even own a Nalgene since the clunky plastic seems to pedestrian. Maybe that bright purple bottle will attract a bear, rookie! You ever thought of that!? These folks sleep in their sleeping bags for fun, laying them over an old comforter situated on the porch. Their boots are lost to the reverse gravity of their feet pounding the earth and not eaten away by the whorls of winter salt.These folks have wardrobes full of natural hues. Hunter greens, tans, granite, sage, and mahogany brown. But these colors, on these folks, are not drab. The energy of their stride and the adventure make everything come alive until you realize why should you hike in anything else. Certainly not something purple, because it might attract bears! And not in blue jeans, at least according to Bryson's research.
A UK resident in my previous book club tried to get us to read Bill Bryson's Notes from a Small Island once and I wonder if A Walk in the Woods would have shown up here any earlier if we had chosen his suggestion. Better late then never because I appreciate Bryson's honest voice and snarky wit. I have no idea if any of the cartoony events he mentions actually happened in the exact circumstances in the book, but I came to trust Bryson in the early chapters. He does an immense amount of research on the (roughly 2,100) mile long trail, but never feels overbearing or depressingly authoritative. If you read these posts and realize that my voice switches from observation to exposition (see above) then you probably realize that I am a big fan of "wonder." Bryson never loses that wonder, framing the trail and the journey, in the path's scale. Until I read the book, I never understood exactly what the trail was. I had ex-girlfriends, classmates, co-workers, and colleagues tell me about the desire to walk it from Maine to Georgia (or vice versa), but what the hell was it. I was always trying to impress these people (or at least get along with them) so I never really asked. But, Bryson, paints a trail that is meticulously maintained and well traveled, albeit rarely completed. When your local municipality has a 500 foot road with potholes able to disable a tank (I am looking at you Ithaca!), an unbroken trail of 2,100 miles maintained by an alliance of the unlikely (volunteers, state officials, entrepreneurs, federal officials, etc.) can restore your faith in humanity. Bryson and all his fellow trail writer/advocates portray a national treasure, the kind of narrative that has saved the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil development. I will probably never hike the trail, but I ma glad to know that it is there and that others can enjoy it.
The book features a particularly fresh point of view. Bryson likes to hike, but he also loves cheeseburgers and can't help but feel laughed at while purchasing his supplies at the outdoor store. His hiking partner (Stephen Katz) wheezes and whines throughout the climb and tosses supplies because they were too heavy on his back. While trail veterans might roll their eyes at such unfit people hiking the trail, Bryson and Katz democratize the trail for all of us whose hardest hike ever was the steepest incline possible on the gym's elliptical machines. Before reading the book, I knew it was humorous, but I still expected a serious anti-establishment tone to it. Something along the lines Edward Abbey or Bill McKibben, where hikers can find themselves in wilderness and lose all the absurdities of "modern living." Such works spoke to the people I mentioned before and I imagined Bryson doing the same, except with some MST3k wit and not Abbey's crabbiness.
Instead, Bryson makes the trail a physical and metaphorical through line for the eastern seaboard. The segment in Northern Georgia brings up the necessary Deliverance reference and how such stereotypes have harmed the region's image. A side trip through Pennsylvania mentions Centralia, PA; an abandoned town siting on top of a continuous old mine fire.
Of course, it is odd to find a hotel on top of Mount Washington and that you can drive your car all the way up one of the highest peaks in the continental US. My limited experience with hiking is in the El Yunque rain forest back home where you can walk up to the highest (publicly accessible) point on a 3,526 feet tall. It is an easy hike, with the only hazards being the poorly marked signs dating back from the 70's and slightly washed out ridges near the top forcing you to hop the length of a little bit less than a yardstick. But even here there are roads, where, if you made it pass the rangers, drive up to a concrete shack built for some communication towers. It feels phony there and more so on the Appalachian Trail. There is a sobering statistic where Brysion says, "Ever twnty minutes on the Appalachian Trail. Katz and I walked farther than the average American walks in a week." Maybe that has changed since the book came out in 1998 ( most of the trip happened in 1996), but it reamins powerful. There are asides on the death of the small trails towns to multinational chains and the commercialization of the trail. All these asides come across as mournful and not vindictive, something I have seen in such hiking literature. Shouldn't we be blowing up the bridges, Mr. Bryson?
Bryson portrays fellow travelers in cartoony tones. Selfish day hikers that actually dress like they are out for a safari and an irritating latch-on that had the annoying tendency to pinch her nose and blow, in an effort to clear her head. Apparently she honked all the way along the trail and when the guys ditched her, later feeling bad, are able to identify her by asking fellow passerbys if they had heard the honking girl. And they meet those people that your parents warned you about when telling you never to accept rides from strangers along with enough local color to make ten PBS specials!
Bryson appreciates the trail and venerates it, but never takes it beyond what it actually is. The trail is nature, not magical, and packs dangers for those ill prepared. He reflects on the fears created by the nine murders in the trails and how these are isolated cases, ill compared to the potential for twisting your ankle or dying of hypothermia. Bryson and Katz only walk abot 870 miles of the trail by the time they quit. The took a cab along part of the Virginia section, following a road that runs parallel to the trail. In Pennsylvania, Bryson goes it alone and has to rely on his chair, hiking to the next checkpoint and then hiking back to previous one where his car was parked. He then drives up to the new start, doubling back on himself in a snail's paced hike through the Keystone State.
When Bryson and Katz quit, I found their epilogues wholesome. While a "crunchy" hiker might sneer at their lack of devotion (Katz is excited to watch X-Files that first night after calling it quits. My hero!), Bryson mentions how 870 miles is still a whole hell of a lot. From New York to Chicago he says and that few people ever complete a true, non-stop, one season hike. He ends with more respect for the trail and the "cubic" woods that surround it. More respects for the comforts he has at home and the love of his family. "Yes and no," is how the boys described their feelings at the end and if that means finding the middle ground, then more people should read this book.
Peace!
This book escaped me all throughout college where many fellow environmental studies students praised its narrative of the Appalachian Trail. I have discovered that those that love hiking only like one thing second to that and that is reading about it. OK, well, they are individuals so one hiker might really like pistachio flavored ice cream as his second choice and another always gives Maine Coon cats her second place medal. I have never really sensed a real desire to talk about hikes from the hikers. While you are on a trail, the fact that the only controlled variables in the whole hike are that strip of earth and whatever you have strapped to your back make for some serious, "Well, you just had to be there" moments. Except for really wacky moments like losing your pants while trying to ford a creek or being chased by bees in the shape of a fist! Or, just regular bees. Equally terrifying. They always want to take you there, however. Then you won't need to listen or read! Hikers are a friendly lot and, in my experience, always want to bring more appreciation to their trails.
And by hikers, I mean hikers. The kind of people that have actually taken their Nalgene bottles outside of the office. Or, a person who doesn't even own a Nalgene since the clunky plastic seems to pedestrian. Maybe that bright purple bottle will attract a bear, rookie! You ever thought of that!? These folks sleep in their sleeping bags for fun, laying them over an old comforter situated on the porch. Their boots are lost to the reverse gravity of their feet pounding the earth and not eaten away by the whorls of winter salt.These folks have wardrobes full of natural hues. Hunter greens, tans, granite, sage, and mahogany brown. But these colors, on these folks, are not drab. The energy of their stride and the adventure make everything come alive until you realize why should you hike in anything else. Certainly not something purple, because it might attract bears! And not in blue jeans, at least according to Bryson's research.
A UK resident in my previous book club tried to get us to read Bill Bryson's Notes from a Small Island once and I wonder if A Walk in the Woods would have shown up here any earlier if we had chosen his suggestion. Better late then never because I appreciate Bryson's honest voice and snarky wit. I have no idea if any of the cartoony events he mentions actually happened in the exact circumstances in the book, but I came to trust Bryson in the early chapters. He does an immense amount of research on the (roughly 2,100) mile long trail, but never feels overbearing or depressingly authoritative. If you read these posts and realize that my voice switches from observation to exposition (see above) then you probably realize that I am a big fan of "wonder." Bryson never loses that wonder, framing the trail and the journey, in the path's scale. Until I read the book, I never understood exactly what the trail was. I had ex-girlfriends, classmates, co-workers, and colleagues tell me about the desire to walk it from Maine to Georgia (or vice versa), but what the hell was it. I was always trying to impress these people (or at least get along with them) so I never really asked. But, Bryson, paints a trail that is meticulously maintained and well traveled, albeit rarely completed. When your local municipality has a 500 foot road with potholes able to disable a tank (I am looking at you Ithaca!), an unbroken trail of 2,100 miles maintained by an alliance of the unlikely (volunteers, state officials, entrepreneurs, federal officials, etc.) can restore your faith in humanity. Bryson and all his fellow trail writer/advocates portray a national treasure, the kind of narrative that has saved the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil development. I will probably never hike the trail, but I ma glad to know that it is there and that others can enjoy it.
The book features a particularly fresh point of view. Bryson likes to hike, but he also loves cheeseburgers and can't help but feel laughed at while purchasing his supplies at the outdoor store. His hiking partner (Stephen Katz) wheezes and whines throughout the climb and tosses supplies because they were too heavy on his back. While trail veterans might roll their eyes at such unfit people hiking the trail, Bryson and Katz democratize the trail for all of us whose hardest hike ever was the steepest incline possible on the gym's elliptical machines. Before reading the book, I knew it was humorous, but I still expected a serious anti-establishment tone to it. Something along the lines Edward Abbey or Bill McKibben, where hikers can find themselves in wilderness and lose all the absurdities of "modern living." Such works spoke to the people I mentioned before and I imagined Bryson doing the same, except with some MST3k wit and not Abbey's crabbiness.
Instead, Bryson makes the trail a physical and metaphorical through line for the eastern seaboard. The segment in Northern Georgia brings up the necessary Deliverance reference and how such stereotypes have harmed the region's image. A side trip through Pennsylvania mentions Centralia, PA; an abandoned town siting on top of a continuous old mine fire.
Of course, it is odd to find a hotel on top of Mount Washington and that you can drive your car all the way up one of the highest peaks in the continental US. My limited experience with hiking is in the El Yunque rain forest back home where you can walk up to the highest (publicly accessible) point on a 3,526 feet tall. It is an easy hike, with the only hazards being the poorly marked signs dating back from the 70's and slightly washed out ridges near the top forcing you to hop the length of a little bit less than a yardstick. But even here there are roads, where, if you made it pass the rangers, drive up to a concrete shack built for some communication towers. It feels phony there and more so on the Appalachian Trail. There is a sobering statistic where Brysion says, "Ever twnty minutes on the Appalachian Trail. Katz and I walked farther than the average American walks in a week." Maybe that has changed since the book came out in 1998 ( most of the trip happened in 1996), but it reamins powerful. There are asides on the death of the small trails towns to multinational chains and the commercialization of the trail. All these asides come across as mournful and not vindictive, something I have seen in such hiking literature. Shouldn't we be blowing up the bridges, Mr. Bryson?
Bryson portrays fellow travelers in cartoony tones. Selfish day hikers that actually dress like they are out for a safari and an irritating latch-on that had the annoying tendency to pinch her nose and blow, in an effort to clear her head. Apparently she honked all the way along the trail and when the guys ditched her, later feeling bad, are able to identify her by asking fellow passerbys if they had heard the honking girl. And they meet those people that your parents warned you about when telling you never to accept rides from strangers along with enough local color to make ten PBS specials!
Bryson appreciates the trail and venerates it, but never takes it beyond what it actually is. The trail is nature, not magical, and packs dangers for those ill prepared. He reflects on the fears created by the nine murders in the trails and how these are isolated cases, ill compared to the potential for twisting your ankle or dying of hypothermia. Bryson and Katz only walk abot 870 miles of the trail by the time they quit. The took a cab along part of the Virginia section, following a road that runs parallel to the trail. In Pennsylvania, Bryson goes it alone and has to rely on his chair, hiking to the next checkpoint and then hiking back to previous one where his car was parked. He then drives up to the new start, doubling back on himself in a snail's paced hike through the Keystone State.
When Bryson and Katz quit, I found their epilogues wholesome. While a "crunchy" hiker might sneer at their lack of devotion (Katz is excited to watch X-Files that first night after calling it quits. My hero!), Bryson mentions how 870 miles is still a whole hell of a lot. From New York to Chicago he says and that few people ever complete a true, non-stop, one season hike. He ends with more respect for the trail and the "cubic" woods that surround it. More respects for the comforts he has at home and the love of his family. "Yes and no," is how the boys described their feelings at the end and if that means finding the middle ground, then more people should read this book.
Peace!
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