To reconnect with his past. And to better understand the 19th-century Cascade Range advocate John Waldo, the state's answer to California's naturalist John Muir. Despite great expectations, near trails end Welch finds himself facing an unlikely challenge. Laughs. Blisters. And new friends from literally around the world-his PCT adventure offered it all. But he never foresaw the bittersweet ending.

    The author of Bad Land realizes a lifelong dream as he navigates the waters of the Mississippi River in a spartan sixteen-foot motorboat, producing yet another masterpiece of contemporary American travel writing.  In the course of his voyage, Raban records the mercurial caprices of the river and the astonishingly varied lives of the people who live along its banks.  Whether he is fishing for walleye or hunting coon, discussing theology in Prairie Du Chien or race relations in Memphis, he is an expert observer of the heartyland's estrangement from America's capitals ot power and culture, and its helpless nostalgia for its lost past.  Witty, elegaic, and magnificently erudite, Old Glory is as filled with strong currents as the Mississippi itself.

    He quit his job of seventeen years and embarked upon a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail, a 2,176-mile stretch of varying terrain spanning fourteen states. During his nearly five-month-long hike, he battled brutal trail conditions and overwhelming loneliness, but also enjoyed spectacular scenery and trail camaraderie.With breathtaking descriptions and humorous anecdotes from his travels, Stutzman reveals how immersing himself in nature and befriending fellow hikers helped him recover from a devastating loss. Somewhere between Georgia and Maine, he realized that God had been with him every step of the way, and on a famous path through the wilderness, he found his own path to peace and freedom.

    Two veterans of decades of adventuring in Grand Canyon chronicle the first complete and comprehensive history of Canyon misadventures. These episodes span the entire era of visitation from the time of the first river exploration by John Wesley Powell and his crew of 1869 to that of tourists falling off its rims in Y2K. These accounts of the 550 people who have met untimely deaths in the Canyon set a new high water mark for offering the most astounding array of adventures, misadventures, and life saving lessons published between any two covers. Over the Edge promises to be the most intense yet informative book on Grand Canyon ever written.

    She chaperoned baby sea turtles on their journey to sea. She pursued bad guys on her galloping patrol horse. She jumped into rescue helicopters bound for the heart of the Grand Canyon. She won arguments with bears. She slept with a few too many rattlesnakes. Hell yeah, it was the best job in the world! Fortunately, Andrea survived it. In this graphic and yet surprisingly funny account of her and others’ extraordinary careers, Lankford unveils a world in which park rangers struggle to maintain their idealism in the face of death, disillusionment, and the loss of a comrade killed while holding that thin green line between protecting the park from the people, the people from the park, and the people from each other. Ranger Confidential is the story behind the scenery of the nation’s crown jewels—Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Great Smokies, Denali. In these iconic landscapes, where nature and humanity constantly collide, scenery can be as cruel as it is redemptive.

    However, trail life is not always as rewarding and romantic as the pictures you see or second-hand stories you hear. "Divided" provides an accurate account of life on trail: what hikers ponder, eat, love, loathe, and the questions they tire of answering. Some moments are too short, some are painfully long while others are whisked away unceremoniously with the wind. Follow along on the journey as Brian navigates difficulties, successes and everything between while attempting to walk from Mexico to Canada. “The greatest challenge of being a long-distance backpacker is learning how to live fully on - and off - the trail. In 'Divided,' Brian shares the rugged beauty and grueling challenges of the Continental Divide Trail along with thought-provoking insights which encourage the reader to reassess his or her own path and consider new alternatives.” Jennifer Pharr Davis, "The Pursuit of Endurance" “If you’ve ever wondered what it is like to wander along the entire length of the multi-thousand mile Continental Divide Trail, Brian Cornell’s 'Divided' will take you on a journey from Mexico to Canada that just may have you planning your own hike of this magnificent trail!” Lawton Grinter, "I Hike Again" " 'Divided' is unlike any hiking memoir I've read. Cornell is undeniably talented and his unique prose vividly conveys the hypnotic nature of long-distance hiking without leaving the reader in a trance. A modern-day 'Desert Solitaire.' " Gary Sizer, "Where’s the Next Shelter?" "An honest look at what life on the Divide is truly like." Heather Anderson, "Thirst: 2600 Miles to Home"

    Brew led her pit crew, the group of generous, loving hikers who supported Jen along the way, providing company along the epic trail and as much food as Jen could stomach. Experience the trek with Jen and Brew as they battle shin splints and a stomach scare that threatens to end the attempt early, encounter wildlife at every turn, and meet the colorful cast of characters that help Jen complete her journey. 46 Days also includes an introduction and afterword by Jennifer with first-hand reflections on her life-changing voyage.

    His journeys are as intellectual and spiritual as they are physical, and we are by his side, in his head." So wrote Robin Russin for the LA Times about Mark Jenkins’s last book, The Hard Way.In A Man’s Life, Jenkins walks across northern Afghanistan, retracing the ancient route of Marco Polo; clandestinely enters northern Burma, slipping along the forgotten Burma Road; climbs a new route in Uganda’s Mountains of the Moon; bicycles across Lithuania with a long-lost friend; canoes through Surinam with the Maroons, descendants of escaped slaves. Described by critic Bill Berkeley as having a "Whitmanesque openness to experience," Jenkins’s desire to explore and understand the world has pushed him to extremes most of us cannot imagine—being arrested in a dozen different countries from Tibet to Tajikistan, breaking a dozen bones, climbing inside glaciers in Iceland, narrowly escaping falling glaciers on Mont Blanc. Through his willingness to put himself out there, Jenkins captures profound glimpses of our chaotic, contradictory, ever-morphing world.A Man’s Life shares how these experiences change Jenkins from a reckless young globetrotter to a mature, contemplative family man who seeks adventure because he viscerally must, and yet is constantly aware of the dangers of the world and its cool-faced indifference to one man’s life. Each departure from home could be permanent and each homecoming is layered with pathos—his latest journey might have cost him his daughter’s first steps or his wife’s birthday. The tales in A Man’s Life explore the razor’s edge between life and death, as well as the nature of love and friendship, failure and redemption. Together, they unite Jenkins’s stunning travels with his lucid contemplations on the meaning of it all.Praised by Richard Bernstein in The New York Times for being able to "[transform] a common sight into a moment of pure magic" and by Amanda Heller in the Boston Globe as "blessed with a rare combination of physical and intellectual grace … he makes us understand what pushes the man who pushes the envelope," Jenkins is one of the rare writers who channels action-packed adventure into lyrical, evocative storytelling.

    Everest disaster vanished into thin air, one man had the courage to bring them down alive... On May 10, 1996, two commercial expeditions headed by expert leaders attempted to scale the world's largest peak. But things went terribly wrong. Crowded conditions, bad judgement, and a bitter storm stopped many climbers in their tracks. Others were left for dead, or stranded on the frigid mountain. Anatoli Boukreev, head climbing guide for the Mountain Madness expedition, stepped into the heart of the storm and brought three of his clients down alive. Here is his amazing story-of an expedition fated for disaster, of the blind ambition that drives people to attempt such dangerous ventures, and of a modern-day hero, who risked his own life to save others..

    Keenly aware that the course of the nation's destiny lay westward—and that a "Voyage of Discovery" would be necessary to determine the nature of the frontier—President Thomas Jefferson commissioned Meriwether Lewis to lead an expedition from the Missouri River to the northern Pacific coast and back. From 1804 to 1806, accompanied by co-captain William Clark, the Shoshone guide Sacajawea, and thirty-two men, Lewis mapped rivers, traced the principal waterways to the sea, and established the American claim to the territories of Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. Together the captains kept this journal: a richly detailed record of the flora and fauna they sighted, the native tribes they encountered, and the awe-inspiring landscape they traversed, from their base camp near present-day St. Louis to the mouth of the Columbia River, that has become an incomparable contribution to the literature of exploration and the writing of natural history.

    If they had, we wouldn't hear the delicious details of how horribly wrong it all went. Like Marrit Ingman's disastrous honeymoon in Maui—and the repercussions of societal pressure for the perfect love escape in paradise. Or of how the entire kitchen of C. Lill Ahrens's new Seoul apartment is literally lost in translation. Or why Ayun Halliday would attempt to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, when her training consisted of drinking beer and rolling her own cigarettes, and her gear cost $14.99 at Sportmart. From Kandahar to Baja to Moscow, these wry, amusing stories capture the comic essence of bad travel, and of the female experience on the road.Roughly translated / C. Lill Ahrens --Kilimanjaro / Ayun Halliday --Hamil's house of fun / Kay Sexton --I could do this in my sleep / Karin Palmquist --Adventure Pete / L.A. Miller --Constipated in Palinuro / Judith Levin --The trail / Erica J. Green --How to travel with a man / Kate Chynoweth --A useful and comprehensive travel dictionary for girls / Buzzy Jackson --Tri training in Russia / Mara Vorhees --Worry warts / Lisa Taggart --In search of Sami / Ann Lombardi --Bigger than France / Spike Gillespie --Souvenirs from Ecuador / Bethany Gumper --Heading South / Samantha Schoech --Knocked off my high horse in New Zealand / Catherine Giayvia --The lion sleeps tonight / Sarah Franklin --No strings attached / Paige Porter --Y2K in Kandahar / Hannah Bloch --Prada on the Plaka / Michele Peterson --Honeymoon in Hell / Marrit Ingman --The occidental tourist / Judy Wolf

    With the author's own wonderful Alaska stories and information on wildlife, native culture, landmarks, historical sites, shopping, and more, you won t miss a thing. Upton's Handbook traces the route used by most Alaska cruises, with maps and text keyed to a route numbering/navigational system that is frequently announced onboard, allowing the passenger to easily follow his ship s progress from Mile One. The wonderful illustrated maps and color photography throughout keep you informed throughout your journey, making a wonderful souvenir when it ends.

    In his revealing autobiography Reinhold Messner reflects on his remarkable career. His story is more than a recounting of "firsts." Here Messner reveals the forces and events that have shaped him as an individual and as a climber--including his brother's tragic death on Nanga Parbat in 1970.Messner takes us from the days of his first climb of the Sass Rigais in the Dolomites with his father at age 5 to his later turning away from the overcrowded Alps and 8,000 meter-peaks to find fulfillment in the remoter parts of the world and in crossing the wastes of Antarctica. In between emerges the man as famous for his disciplined approach as for his innovative spirit. Messner evolved his philosophy of the single free-climbing line with its uncompromising purity of style in the Dolomites and, as equipment and technique developed, he was in the forefront of the transference of fast lightweight alpine methods to the great ranges. "Reinhold Messner: Free Spirit" puts the career of a mountaun pioneer in full perspective.

    With nothing to lose, he left everything he knew behind and set out on an epic international adventure. For the next seven years, Dave trudged across glaciers and frozen wastelands and through dense, dangerous forests. He communed with penguins and elephants, kept company with cannibals and gunrunners, and spoke with the dead. And though he'd never been a climber, he ended up joining history's courageous few when he ascended into the clouds to stand at the summit of Mt. Everest.Drawn from Dave's personal diaries, The Altitude Journals is the poignant, inspiring, and endlessly exciting true story of a remarkable midlife crisis. It is an unforgettable tale of one man who went to amazing extremes to repair a shattered life--and how he regained the powers to love and forgive, and to believe in himself once again.

    But despite her perceived athletic mediocrity, the newspaper editor from Alaska harbors an outlandish ambition: the "world's toughest mountain bike race," a 2,740-mile journey from Canada to Mexico along the rugged spine of the Rocky Mountains. A race of that magnitude demands a daunting training plan, which Jill aspires to until she literally breaks the ice on a frozen lake in the Alaska wilderness. Serious frostbite proves to only be the beginning in a series of setbacks that threaten to change her dream from outlandish to impossible. But, as Jill explains to a skeptical friend, "The fact that something’s impossible has never been a good reason not to try.""Be Brave, Be Strong," is the true story of an adventure driven relentlessly forward as foundations crumble. This is a brutally honest account of one woman's incredible journey and simple discovery — to take on the world's toughest mountain bike race, one doesn't have to be the world's toughest woman. Not even close.