In April 2004, Barbara Egbert and Gary Chambers and their precocious 10-year-old daughter Mary embarked on a 2,650-mile hike from Mexico to Canada along the famed Pacific Crest Trail. This the well-told tale of their epic adventure, which required love, perseverance, and the careful rationing of toilet paper. Six months later, Mary would become the youngest person ever to successfully walk the entire trail.The trio weathered the heat of the Mojave, the jagged peaks of the Sierra, the rain ...

"Witty, wise, and full of heart, Gail Storey’s winning memoir of her hike on the Pacific Crest Trail at the age of fifty-six is a book for every one who ever dreamed of taking the road less traveled. I Promise Not to Suffer is as inspiring as it is hilarious, as poignant as it is smart. It’s one of those oh-please-don’t-let-it-end books. I’d carry it in my backpack anywhere.”—Cheryl Strayed, author of WildWith comfortabl...

The inspiring account of a 2650 mile solo hike from Mexico to Canada along the Pacific Crest Trail.Despite never having hiked before, George Spearing decided to take 'leave of absence' from his job as a firefighter in the New Zealand Fire Service and walk the length of America.This is the story of his five month journey, travelling entirely on foot and off-road through the desert areas and High Sierra Nevada of California and the Cascade ranges of Oregon and Washington. Final...

**#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe—and built her back up again.A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Century**At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, sh...

Girl in the Woods is Aspen Matis's exhilarating true-life adventure of hiking from Mexico to Canada—a coming of age story, a survival story, and a triumphant story of overcoming emotional devastation. On her second night of college, Aspen was raped by a fellow student. Overprotected by her parents who discouraged her from telling of the attack, Aspen was confused and ashamed. Dealing with a problem that has sadly become all too common on college campuses around the country, she stumbled th...

Danger, belly laughs, inspiration, white sand beaches, old growth forests, mud, tree roots, river crossings, straining muscles, incredible views and two friends who probably had no business even attempting the West Coast Trail. This is the true life adventure, as reported by a middle aged traveler, who finds that a life changing event becomes both life-altering and life-affirming during the seven day wilderness hike on Vancouver Island's rugged west coast.Robert J Bannon takes the r...

A thrilling birdwatching adventure and true story of obsession, The Big Year chronicles the fiercely competitive quest of three men racing across North America to shatter a birding record for the ages.Every January 1, a quirky crowd storms out across North America for a spectacularly competitive event called a Big Year—a grand, expensive, and occasionally vicious 365-day marathon of birdwatching. For three men in particular, 1998 would become a grueling ba...

Brothers often promise to do something together when they 'grow up." Do they always follow through? When war and a Purple Heart Medal alter those promises, should the surviving brother continue? My promise to my brother haunted me for over forty years. Finally, life stopped getting in the way and I set out on the Appalachian Trail to fulfill that youthful promise.Three Hundred Zeroes describes the Appalachian Trail (A.T.) as it meanders for almost 2,200 miles (3,500 km) through some...

Brilliant, witty, perceptive essays about fly-fishing, the natural world, and life in general by the acknowledged master of fishing writers.With his inimitable combination of wit and wisdom, John Gierach once again celebrates the fly-fishing life in Standing in a River Waving a Stick and notes its benefits as a sport, philosophical pursuit, even therapy: “The solution to any problem—work, love, money, whatever—is to go fishing, and the worse the problem, t...

Brilliant, witty, perceptive essays about fly-fishing, the natural world, and life in general by the acknowledged master of fishing writers.In No Shortage of Good Days John Gierach takes readers from the Smokies in Tennessee to his home waters in Colorado, from the Canadian Maritimes to Mexico—saltwater or fresh, it’s all fishing and all irresistible. As always he writes perceptively about a wide range of subjects: the charm of familiar waters, the etiquet...

The man-eating proclivities of Komodo dragons. The complicated art of being a cowgirl. A picaresque ramble with a merry band of tree-cleaners. The big-wave crusaders of the world's best surfers. For the past twenty years, Outside magazine has set the standard for original and engaging reports on travel, adventure, sports, and the environment.Along the way, many of America's best journalists and storytellers--including such writers as Jon Krakauer, Tim Cahill, E. Annie Proulx, Edwar...

When your life plan explodes, you ask yourself the big questions: What do I really need in life? How can I make my life a work of art? Should I buy a house? Have kids? What is a life? Following in Kerouac and Steinbeck's tire tracks, a 32-year-old, post-breakup Brendan Leonard hits the road in search of healing and a new, post-economic-downturn American Dream. Sleeping in the back of a beat-up station wagon, he seeks answers—and hopefully, the occasional shower—in the postcard-worthy place...