Praised by Bear Grylls, Levison Wood has been called "the toughest man on TV" (The Times UK). Now, following in the footsteps of the great explorers, Levison recounts the beauty and danger he found along the Silk Road route of Afghanistan, the Line of Control between Pakistan and India, the disputed territories of Kashmir and the earth-quake ravaged lands of Nepal. Over the course of six months, Wood and his trusted guides trek 1,700 gruelling miles across the roof of the world.Packed with action and emotion, Walking the Himalayas is the story of one intrepid man's travels in a world poised on the edge of tremendous change.

    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.

    In this sometimes scary, frequently funny and intriguing journey around the country, Phoebe attempts to discover and conquer its wildest places.From spending the night in the decaying wreckage of a World War Two bomber at Bleaklow to pitching next to the adrenaline-inducing sheer drops of Lizard Point, Phoebe’s extreme sleeps defy her perceptions of the great outdoors and teach her about herself along the way.

    Starting atop Springer Mountain in Georgia, Sir Stooge makes his way over more than 2,100 miles of earth to summit the beautifully lonesome Mount Katahdin in Maine. Along the way, he meets some great friends: from Tangy and Munchies in Georgia to the silent John in the Wilderness, and all the rest between. Through the beauty of the Earth, the laughs, celebrations, struggles, and pain, he learns some things about himself, and the thing we collectively call life. Using journal entries as the basis of the text, Sir Stooge enhances the gritty, emotional entries with post-trail commentary. The coupling of raw entry with polished narrative creates a complete picture of life on the trail. Through his adventures, Sir Stooge grants the reader insight into life on the trail—physically, mentally, and spiritually.To read what the author has to say about the ideas and themes in this book, visit: http://www.quinnwriter.com/blog/thoug...

    His method is exploratory, meandering, personal. He begins by encircling it, first by car then on foot. He finds that the mountain is a complex of moss-bearded hemlocks and old-growth firs, high meadows that blossom according to a precise natural timeclock, sheets of crumbling pumice, fractured glaciers, and unsteady magma. Its snow fields bristle with bug life, and its marmots chew rocks to keep their teeth from overgrowing. Rainier rumbles with seismic twitches and jerks—some one-hundred-thirty earthquakes annually. The nightmare among geologists is the unstoppable wall of mud that will come rolling down its slopes when a hunk of mountain falls off, as it does every half century (and we’re fifty years overdue). Rainier is both an obsession and a temple that attracts its own passionate acolytes: scientists, priests, rangers, and mountain guides. Rainier is also a monument to death: every year someone manages just to disappear on its flanks; imperiled climbers and their rescuers perish on glaciers; a planeload of Marines remains lodged in ice since they crashed into the mountain in 1946. Referred to by locals as simply "the mountain," it is the single largest feature of the Pacific Northwest landscape—provided it isn’t hidden in clouds. Visible or not, though, it’s presence is undeniable.

    Somebody had to'And, as soon as Bill Bryson was old enough, he left. Des Moines couldn't hold him, but it did lure him back. After ten years in England, he returned to the land of his youth, and drove almost 14,000 miles in search of a mythical small town called Amalgam, the kind of trim and sunny place where the films of his youth were set. Instead, his search led him to Anywhere, USA; a lookalike strip of gas stations, motels and hamburger outlets populated by lookalike people with a penchant for synthetic fibres. Travelling around thirty-eight of the lower states - united only in their mind-numbingly dreary uniformity - he discovered a continent that was doubly lost; lost to itself because blighted by greed, pollution, mobile homes and television; lost to him because he had become a stranger in his own land.The Lost Continent is a classic of travel literature - hilariously, stomach-achingly funny, yet tinged with heartache - and the book that first staked Bill Bryson's claim as the most beloved writer of his generation.

    In this travel narrative, she tells the story of her on-the-ground discovery of the relics and memories a few thousand mountain residents left behind when the government used eminent domain to kick the people off their land to create the park.With historic maps and notes from hikers who explored before her, Eisenfeld and her husband hike, backpack, and bushwhack the hills and the hollows of this beloved but misbegotten place, searching for stories. Descendants recount memories of their ancestors “grieving themselves to death,” and they continue to speak of their people’s displacement from the land as an untold national tragedy.Shenandoah: A Story of Conservation and Betrayal is Eisenfeld’s personal journey into the park’s hidden past based on her off-trail explorations. She describes the turmoil of residents’ removal as well as the human face of the government officials behind the formation of the park. In this conflict between conservation for the benefit of a nation and private land ownership, she explores her own complicated personal relationship with the park—a relationship she would not have without the heartbreak of the thousands of people removed from their homes.Purchase the audio edition.

    His writing career had taken a dubious turn, his wife had a demanding career of her own, his daughter was preparing to leave home for college, and he had become used to a sedentary lifestyle. Wonderfully witty and insightful, Running to the Mountain chronicles Katz's hunger for change and his search for renewed purpose and meaning in his familiar world.Armed with the writings of Thomas Merton and his two faithful Labradors, Katz trades in his suburban carpool-driving and escapes to the mountains of upstate New York. There, as he restores a dilapidated cabin, learns self-reliance in a lightning storm, shares a bottle of Glenlivet with unexpected ghosts, and helps a friend prepare for fatherhood, he confronts his lifelong questions about spirituality, mortality, and his own self-worth. He ultimately rediscovers a profound appreciation for his work, his family, and the beauty of everyday life--and provides a glorious lesson for us all.

    In 1977, at the age of seventeen, Conway left his family's comfortable suburban home to move to the Appalachian Mountains. For more than two decades he has lived there, making fire with sticks, wearing skins from animals he has trapped, and trying to convince Americans to give up their materialistic lifestyles and return with him back to nature. To Gilbert, Conway's mythical character challenges all our assumptions about what it is to be a modern man in America; he is a symbol of much we feel how our men should be, but rarely are.

    What we learned about ourselves and about each other. And the sorry tale of how I came to walk a mile in my underpants… In February 2016 I asked Alex, my youngest son, if he wanted to come for a walk with me. Why? Because I wanted a physical challenge before I was too old for a physical challenge – and I wanted some father/son time before Alex went to university and things were never quite the same again. But I wasn’t a walker: I was a writer: someone who spent his days slumped over a desk. The furthest I’d walked was four miles with the dog on a sunny day. So I had to get fit, I had to find out if I could walk 90 miles in 5 days – and I had to come face to face with the ghosts that had haunted me for ten years. “I absolutely love it. Such an easy read and very humorous.” ‘Father, Son and the Pennine Way’ takes you from the February afternoon when I asked Alex to come for a walk with me, to the day we sent off from Malham in North Yorkshire, to the moment we strode up the final hill into Dufton, just outside Carlisle. …But it’s not a book about walking. This is a book about a father/son relationship told through a walk. If you want a traditional guidebook, don’t buy the book. But if you want to be entertained, inspired, amused and taken on a wonderful journey through the Yorkshire Dales, then you’ll love this book. “A brilliant story. Really well put together and very funny.”

    Alice Honeywell and Bobbi Montgomery invite readers to follow their ride by bicycle across the United States, as they face scorching sun, driving rain, buffeting winds, equipment failures, killer hills, wild fires, and even a plague of grasshoppers.    As Alice and Bobbi pedal along  their 3,600-mile journey, they test and deepen their friendship, defy their aches and pains, experience the vast and varied beauties of their country, and discover the challenges and satisfaction of a scaled-down lifestyle. And, they encounter unfailing generosity from people they meet—from the prayers of a North Dakota woman for their safekeeping, to the offer of a house in Michigan, to invitations for dinner and a place to sleep at stops all along the way. And there are incidents to laugh over, too, such as the bewildered woman who asked them, “Well, but where do you pack your dresses?”    Ride along with Alice and Bobbi as they embrace retirement with gusto and live their dream.Winner (Gold Medalist), Travel Essays, Foreword Magazine’s Books of the Year

    He teams up with Megan, a sassy college grad whose indomitable spirit eclipses her lack of experience, and Lemmy, a cartoonist from overseas whose off-kilter commentary on the wonders and frustrations of the trail keeps everyone laughing. Sprawling through the woods and towns of the Appalachian mountains, the trail carries the trio through real and fanciful ups and downs ranging from hilarious to perilous. Much more than an orderly account of mountain tops and meals, it is an adventure about friends figuring things out as they go. It's about screw-ups and solutions, awe and inspiration. If you long for the horizon, or to sleep under the stars, then come along for the hike of a lifetime. All you have to do is take the first step.

    After chronicling her European journey of self-discovery in Without Reservations, this Pulitzer Prize—winning columnist for the Baltimore Sun quit her job and left home again. This time she roamed the world, taking lessons and courses in such things as French cooking in Paris, Border collie training in Scotland, traditional Japanese arts in Kyoto, and architecture and art in Havana. With warmth and wit, Steinbach guides us through the pleasures and perils of discovering how to be a student again. She also learns the true value of this second chance at educating herself: the opportunity to connect with and learn from the people she meets along the way.

    So say the backcountry experts at Backpacking Light magazine in a new book that redefines modern day backpacking as safe, comfortable, and fun?but with a much lighter pack. This is the most comprehensive and rigorous text ever published on lightweight backpacking. In addition to chapters about gear and basic skills, Lightweight Backpacking & Camping covers advanced topics, and has the latest information about the best lightweight gear and apparel, including the manufacturers that make it and the retailers that carry it.

    The city makes her feel numb, and she's having trouble connecting with others. In a desperate move she breaks away from everything to walk 2,660 miles from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail. It will be her first long-distance hike.In the desert of Southern California Carrot faces many challenges, both physical and emotional: pain, injury, blisters, aching cold and searing heat, dehydration, exhaustion, loneliness. In the wilderness she happens upon and becomes close with an eclectic group of strangers- people she wouldn't have chanced to meet in the “regular world” but who are brought together, here on the trail, by their one common goal: make it to Canada before the snow flies.