Best of
Outdoors

2002

Shadow Mountain: A Memoir of Wolves, a Woman, and the Wild


Renée Askins - 2002
    As head of this grassroots organization, she made it her goal to restore wolves to Yellowstone National Park, where they had been eradicated by man over seventy years before. In this intimate account, Askins recounts her courageous fifteen-year campaign, wrangling along the way with Western ranchers and their political allies in Washington, enduring death threats, and surviving the anguish of illegal wolf slayings to ensure that her dream of restoring Yellowstone's ecological balance would one day be realized. Told in powerful, first-person narrative, Shadow Mountain is the awe-inspiring story of her mission and her impassioned meditation on our connection to the wild.

The Hard Way: Stories of Danger, Survival, and the Soul of Adventure


Mark Jenkins - 2002
    He has made a life out of doing things the hard way. The result is a book that dives headfirst into adventure and experience. Jenkins transports the reader with him as he climbs the ice-encrusted Italian Ridge of the Matterhorn, sea kayaks from battlefield to battlefield along the Turkish coast of Gallipoli, sneaks across Tibet to reach Buddhism's holiest lake, descends unexplored canyons in Australia, and traverses the war-torn Simen Mountains of northern Ethiopia. If you've ever dreamed of escaping, lighting out for the unknown, read this book. In a world increasingly vicarious and secondhand, we all long to make decisions that matter, decisions of consequence. This is precisely what the outdoor life still requires. The Hard Way is a book about doing, not watching -- about leaping before you look.

Training for Climbing: The Definitive Guide to Improving Your Climbing Performance


Eric J. Hörst - 2002
    Drawing on new research in sports medicine, nutrition, and fitness, the author has created a training program to help any climber achieve superior performance and better mental concentration on the rock, with less risk of injury. A necessary book for rock climbers everywhere.

Grizzly Heart: Living Without Fear Among the Brown Bears of Kamchatka


Charlie Russell - 2002
    But Charlie Russell, who has had a forty-year relationship with bears, holds the controversial belief that it is possible to live with and truly understand bears in the wild. And for five years now, Russell and his partner, artist and photographer Maureen Enns, have spent summers on the Kamchatka peninsula, located on the northeast coast of Russia, and home of the densest population of brown bears in the world.Grizzly Heart tells the remarkable story of how Russell and Enns have defied the preconceptions of wildlife officials and the general public by living unthreatened -- and respected -- among the grizzlies of Kamchatka. In an honest and immediate style, Russell tells of the trials and successes of their years in the field, from convincing Russian officials to allow them to study, to adopting three bear cubs left orphaned when their mother was killed by a hunter (and teaching these cubs how to survive in the wild), to raising environmental awareness through art.Through a combination of careful study and personal dedication, Russell and Enns are persuading people to reconsider the age-old image of the grizzly bear as a ferocious man-eater and perpetual threat. Through their actions, they demonstrate that it is possible to forge a mutually respectful relationship with these majestic giants, and provide compelling reasons for altering our culture."We have been able to live beautifully with these animals, with no serious threat, because of what we've learned. Hopefully, sharing what we learn will help people -- and be a big help to our bears, too."

John Fielder's Best of Colorado


John Fielder - 2002
    The comprehensive book also contains information tons of outdoor recreation activities and maps.

The Bear in the Attic


Patrick F. McManus - 2002
    McManus's newest collection ponders the strange allure of the RV, the existential implications of being lost, the baffling tendency of animals to outsmart those who wish to hunt them, and the singular pleasure of doubling the size of every fish one doesn't actually catch.Combining the curmudgeonly voice of Dave Barry and the innocent tone of Garrison Keillor, McManus brilliantly captures the everyday absurdities that comprise our existence. Alongside his humor, McManus's inimitable vision consistently evokes a childlike wonder at the natural world. Even if we are running low on food, the compass is broken, and we are fairly certain we have just spotted a family of Sasquatches frolicking in the treetops, The Bear in the Attic makes the outdoors seem wildly irresistible.

Birds of Georgia Field Guide


Stan Tekiela - 2002
    There's no need to look through dozens of photos of birds that don't live in Georgia. This book features 140 species of Georgia birds, organized by color for ease of use. Do you see a yellow bird and don't know what it is? Go to the yellow section to find out. Fact-filled information, a compare feature, range maps and detailed photographs help to ensure that you positively identify the birds that you see.

Poets on the Peaks


John Suiter - 2002
    A beautifully illustrated portrait of beat icons Kerouac, Snyder, and Whalen and the years in the Cascades high country that shaped their lives and work

Wild Stories: The Best of Men's Journal


Jim HarrisonTim Cahill - 2002
     Wild Stories collects thirty-two of the best pieces to appear in the magazine, written by its most esteemed contributors, including Jim Harrison, Sebastian Junger, P. J. O’Rourke, Rick Bass, Thomas McGuane, George Plimpton, Hampton Sides, Doug Stanton, Tim Cahill, and Mark Bowden. Each of the four chapters in Wild Stories showcases Men’s Journal’s diversity and taut storytelling power. “The Adventures” is a series of razor-sharp travel narratives, from a road trip across India on the perilous Grand Trunk Road to a search for grizzlies in Romania. “The Sporting Life” is a look into obscure corners of the sports world, where golf’s bush-league wannabes try to make it to the PGA and a group of cyclists out-suffer one another in pursuit of the mythic Hour Record. “Men’s Lives” includes profiles of singular adventurers such as Yvon Chouinard and Ned Gillette, and captures the rewards of such quintessentially male traditions as building a cabin on your own plot of land. And “The Reporting” collects definitive accounts of the most newsworthy disasters, as well as riveting dispatches from war zones in Somalia, Sudan, and Colombia, and from environmental hot spots in Alaska and Montana.Commemorating Men’s Journal’s tenth anniversary, Wild Stories is a diverse and entertaining anthology that explores the magazine’s basic creed: Life is an adventure. From the first page to the last, these are stories you’ll never forget.

Climbing Free: My Life in the Vertical World


Lynn Hill - 2002
    Before long she was arguably the best rock climber in the world, establishing routes so bold and difficult that few others could follow. And in 1994, Lynn succeeded on a climb that no one—man or woman—has been able to repeat: the first "free ascent" of the Nose on Yosemite's El Capitan, which means that she climbed 3,000 feet of vertical granite without using gear to aid her ascent—and all in under twenty-three hours. In Climbing Free Hill describes her famous climb and meditates on how she harnesses the strength and the courage to push herself to such extremes. She tells of her near-fatal 80-foot fall, her youth as a stunt artist for Hollywood, her friendships with climbing's most colorful personalities, and the tragedies and triumphs of her life in the vertical world. More than merely a story of adventure, this book stands out as a genuine, singular account of a life richly and boldly lived.

Among the Bears: Raising Orphan Cubs in the Wild


Benjamin Kilham - 2002
    The experience changed his life. While spending thousands of hours with the cubs, Kilham discovered unknown facets of bear behavior that have radically revised our understanding of animal behavior. Now widely recognized for his contributions to wildlife science, Kilham reveals that bears are altruistic and cooperate with unrelated, even unknown individuals, while our closer relatives, the supposedly more highly evolved chimps, cooperate only within troops of recognizable members. Beyond the natural history, he introduces individual bears who become enthralling and memorable characters.

Soul of Nowhere


Craig Childs - 2002
    For Childs, these are the types of terrain that sharpen the senses, and demand a physicality the modern civilized world no longer requires. Includes black-and-white photos and pen-and-ink drawings by the author.

The Beckoning Silence


Joe Simpson - 2002
    Since his epic battle for survival in the Andes, recounted in Touching the Void, Joe Simpson has experienced a life filled with adventure but marred by death. He has endured the painful attrition of climbing friends in accidents which call into question the perilously exhilarating activity to which he has devoted his whole life. Probability is inexorably closing in. The tragic loss of a close friend forces a momentous decision. It is time to turn his back on the mountains that he has loved. Never more alive than when most at risk, he has come to see a last climb on the mile-high North Face of the Eiger as the cathartic finale to his climbing career.In a narrative that takes the reader through extreme experiences from an avalanche in Bolivia, ice-climbing in the Alps and Colorado and paragliding in Spain -- before his final confrontation with the Eiger -- Simpson reveals the inner truth of climbing, exploring the power of the mind and the frailties of the body through intensely lived accounts of exhilaration and despair. The subject of his new book is the siren song of fear and his struggle to come to terms with it.

Rain on the River: Selected Poems and Short Prose


Jim Dodge - 2002
    After eighteen years of publishing anonymously and reading only to local crowds in the Pacific Northwest, he began to issue occasional limited-edition letterpress chapbooks with a small press, as well as occasional broadsides and, since 1987, a winter solstice poem or story, most given as gifts to friends. Rain on the River contains work collected here for the first time, as well as three dozen previously unpublished poems. Dodge's poems and short prose offer the same pleasures as his fiction -- a splendid ear for language, great emotional range and subtlety, a sharp eye for the illuminating detail, and a sensibility that encompasses outright hilarity, savage wit, and tender marvel, all made eminently accessible through writing of uncompromising clarity and grace. "Like being at a nonstop party in celebration of everything that matters." -- Thomas Pynchon "A rollicking, frequently surprising adventure-cum-fairy tale. It also has a sweetness about it and an indigenous American optimism." -- The New York Times Book Review "Diverse, savvy, passionate.... Poetry should be a pleasure, and Jim Dodge's work is just that." -- Gary Snyder

National Audubon Society Field Guide to Fishes: North America


Carter Rowell Gilbert - 2002
    Covering both freshwater and saltwater species, this fully revised edition brings a new level of accuracy and usefulness to the original fishes field guide published over 20 years ago.Over 700 new full-color photographs, 286 black-and-white illustrations, and 637 maps combine to make this book the most comprehensive field guide available to the fishes of North America.•635 species covered in detail, with notes on 771 more•723 full-color identification photographs•286 black-and-white illustrations•Visual organization of species photographs by shape for easy identification•Range map for each species•Glossary of useful terms

The Gun Digest Book of Combat Handgunnery


Massad Ayoob - 2002
    With 48 states permitting concealed carry of firearms the advice in this book, including how to keep hold of a gun if a criminal tries to grab it, defending yourself with a concealed pistol, and understanding the legal aspects of self-defense with a gun, can help you be more proficient in using handguns.

Where Locals Hike in the Canadian Rockies: The Premier Trails in Kananaskis Country Near Canmore & Calgary


Kathy Copeland - 2002
    All lead to astonishing alpine meadows, ridges and peaks. Though these trails are little known compared to those in the nearby Canadian Rocky Mountain national parks, the scenery is equally magnificent. Includes Peter Lougheed and Spray Valley provincial parks. Discerning trail reviews help you choose your trip. Detailed route descriptions keep you on the path. The authors participate in 1% For the Planet.

Paddling Eastern North Carolina


Paul G. Ferguson - 2002
    From exciting whitewater of the Piedmont foothills to quiet blackwater of the Coastal Plain, the guidebook includes over 3,200 miles of paddling trips on 97 streams. The trips are selected from over three-quarters of North Carolina from the Yadkin-Pee Dee Basin to the coast: Some of these streams are covered by a guidebook for the first time. Each trip includes detailed descriptions, maps, distance, difficulty, width, and gauge information. Also included is information about River Rating Systems, Paddling Safety, Paddlers Rights, Paddling Courtesy, River Camping, River Gauges, Water Quality, River Selection, and Clubs and Organizations.

Workouts in a Binder: Swim Workouts for Triathletes


Gale Bernhardt - 2002
    The workouts in this set provide a handy, compact, inspiring -- and waterproof -- program. The book comprises seven workout categories: Anaerobic Endurance Speed, Anaerobic Endurance Form, Force Speed, Force Form, Muscular Endurance Speed, Muscular Endurance Form, and Muscular Endurance Distance. The variety of workouts included and their ease of use keep the process engaging and allow users to more easily achieve elusive swimming goals. Workouts in a Binder can easily be used in conjunction with triathlon training manuals such as Training Plans for Multisport Athletes or The Triathlete's Training Bible, or as stand-alone workouts for swimmers.

The Blue Bear: A True Story of Friendship and Discovery in the Alaskan Wild


Lynn Schooler - 2002
    In 1990, Schooler met Japanese photographer Michio Hoshino, and began a profound friendship cemented by a shared love of adventure and a passionate quest to find the elusive glacier bear, an exceedingly rare creature, seldom seen and shrouded in legend. But only after Hoshino's tragic death from a bear attack does Schooler succeed in photographing the animal -- completing a remarkable journey that ultimately brings new meaning to his life. The Blue Bear is an unforgettable book. Set amid the wild archipelagoes, deep glittering fjords, and dense primordial forests of Alaska's Glacier Coast, it is rich with the lyric sensibility and stunning prose of such nature classics as Barry Lopez's Arctic Dreams and Peter Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard.

60 Hikes Within 60 Miles: Nashville: Including Clarksville, Gallatin, and Murfreesboro


Johnny Molloy - 2002
    This guide offers trekkers of all ages and fitness levels a variety of day hikes throughout middle Tennessee, from historical hikes like the Outdoor Confederate Earthworks Walk to great recreational trails such as the Couchville Lake Loop. Maps, directions, and trail details are included for each hike."

The Shark-Watcher's Handbook: A Guide to Sharks and Where to See Them


Mark Carwardine - 2002
    The ultimate shark-watcher's guide, this comprehensive and ground-breaking book is essential reading for any marine enthusiast who wants to navigate the waters of those who consort with sharks. The Shark-Watcher's Handbook covers everything you need to know about sharks and shark watching: the history, techniques, risks and controversies; a thorough overview of shark natural history and biology; the many threats facing sharks and how snorkelers and divers can help; and even how to get good shark photographs, safely. There is also an extensive, fully illustrated directory of the twenty-four species most commonly encountered by shark watchers. Each entry includes important information on natural history, classification, diet, reproduction, behavior and range; and there are special sections on identification, the potential danger to divers and good places for a close encounter.The book includes the first detailed directory of more than 250 of the world's shark-watching hotspots, with a detailed description of each site and information on everything from the species most likely to be seen and the best time of year to visit to contact details for further information and travel notes.Whether you're a professional diver, someone contemplating your first close encounter with a shark, or the sort of person who prefers to view these extraordinary animals in the pages of a book, The Shark-Watcher's Handbook is an attractive, invaluable, and utterly fascinating guide to the underwater world of sharks.

U.S. Air Force Search and Rescue Survival Training: AF Regulation 64-4


U.S. Air Force - 2002
    Reprint of Department of the Air Force field manual.

The Best in Tent Camping: New England: A Guide for Car Campers Who Hate RVs, Concrete Slabs, and Loud Portable Stereos


Lafe Low - 2002
    This guide assists tent campers in their journey of discovery among these beautiful sites, detailing campgrounds in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Including a five-star rating system, detailed contact information and accurate maps, this guide is a must-have for all tent campers interested in this breathtaking region.

The Corbetts And Other Scottish Hills (Smc Hillwalkers' Guide)


Donald J. Bennet - 2002
    and 3,000 ft.) and many other popular lower hills. Other hills include popular classics such as Criffel, Tinto, The Pentlands, The Eildons, The Ochils, Ben Venue, Mount Blair, Bennachie, Stac Pollaidh, Suilven and a wide range of hills throughout the islands, from Lewis to Arran.

Best Hikes with Dogs Western Washington


Dan A. Nelson - 2002
    BEST HIKES W/DOGS: WESTERN WA

Canyoneering 2: Technical Loop Hikes in Southern Utah


Steve Allen - 2002
    Every hike contains the four essentials of a great canyoneering route: spectacular canyons, intimate narrows, big views, and physical challenge. Although the routes are difficult, newcomers to the canyons will also find detailed information here that can be used to plan less demanding excursions. Hikes include Muddy Creek in the San Rafael Swell, Dirty Devil North, Dirty Devil South, Dark Canyon, White Canyon, Escalante East, and Escalante South. For experienced canyoneers.

Field Guide to Insects of Southern Africa


Mike Picker - 2002
    An introductory chapter discusses the insect body, life history, classification and distribution patterns and relatives of southern African insects. It also touches on collecting, displaying and curating insects and explains 'How to use this book'.

Traditional Lead Climbing: Surviving The Learning Years


Heidi Pesterfield - 2002
    Illustrations, photos and step-by-step instructions. Emphasizes leading technique, mental preparation, and appropriate gear.

Flying the Alaska Wild


Mort D. Mason - 2002
    This type of true grit adventure was a common occurrence for Alaska bush pilot Mort Mason, who encountered numerous white-knuckle situations while honing his skill--and his luck--in a profession that only a handful of pilots have had the stamina to endure. Flying the Alaska Wild is a heart-pounding, edge-of-the-chair collection of fascinating stories about the rough-and-tumble life of an Alaska bush pilot--straight from the pilot’s seat. Recounting thirty years of adventures, skilled storyteller Mason presents tales of his own experiences, and also tells the legendary stories of other old-time bush pilots.

Hiking Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks


Laurel Scheidt - 2002
    Contains easy day hikes to challenging backpacking trips.

The Best in Tent Camping: Tennessee: A Guide for Car Campers Who Hate RVs, Concrete Slabs, and Loud Portable Stereos


Johnny Molloy - 2002
    The Best in Tent Camping: Tennessee is a guidebook for tent campers who like quiet, scenic, and serene campsites. It's the perfect resource if you blanch at the thought of pitching a tent on a concrete slab, trying to sleep through the blare of another camper's boombox, or waking to find your tent surrounded by a convoy of RVs.

AHS Encyclopedia of Plants and Flowers


Christopher Brickell - 2002
    Since 1922, they have provided America's gardeners with the highest quality gardening and horticultural education possible.

All-Mountain Skier: The Way to Expert Skiing


R. Mark Elling - 2002
    Drawing from his extensive experience as a ski professional, instructor Mark Elling delivers essential advice and information--including tips from other expert skiers--to help readers perform like pros.

Encyclopedia of Planting Combinations


Tony Lord - 2002
    Confidence in working with plant combinations can mean the difference between a mediocre garden and one that sings. The Encyclopedia of Planting Combinations is the perfect tool to help gardeners create a stunning garden. Rich with inspiration and practical advice, the expanded and updated edition includes:An 18-page analysis on combining plants according to location, soil, climate and seasons An 18-page analysis of planting styles, with instructions on how to re-create many of the combinations shown in the book -- perennials, meadow planting, matrix planting, grasses and more 12 pages on the leading innovators in combination planting, including Piet Oudolf, Penelope Hobhouse and Beth Chatto An additional 300 color photographs Garden designers' signature combinations -- and why they work An updated easy-to-use layout that features more prominent at-a-glance symbols and spotlights plant characteristics and cultivation requirements. This comprehensive directory and cultivation guide provides 4,000 combinations for beautiful and successful plantings, with entries fully cross-referenced. With authoritative and imaginative text, superb photographs and thousands of planting combinations, the Encyclopedia of Planting Combinations is ideal for gardeners at all experience levels.

Trees of New England: A Natural History


Charles Fergus - 2002
    Includes detailed illustrations and range maps.