Book picks similar to
Performance Kayaking by Stephen B. U'Ren
outdoor
outside-adventure
river
favorites
November Project: The Book: Inside the Free, Grassroots Fitness Movement That's Taking Over the World
Brogan Graham - 2016
No facility. No machines. Just two dudes and a tribe of thousands. Welcome to November Project’s world takeover.What started 4 years ago as a simple monthlong workout pact between two former Northeastern University oarsmen in Boston has grown into an international fitness phenomenon. November Project espouses free, public, all-weather, outdoor group sweats that turn strangers into friends and connect everyone to the city in which they live. It’s been described as everything from flashmob fitness to “the fight club of running clubs” and a cult. But November Project prides itself on defying categories.In November Project: The Book, Brogan Graham (a.k.a. BG) and Bojan Mandaric, in their own spicy, big-hearted words, chronicle, along with tribe member and writer Caleb Daniloff, their fitness movement’s genesis, evolution, operations, membership, “secret sauce,” and future―and along the way, show you how you can get fit and societally engaged. The book also includes illustrated workouts; the keys to meaningful civic engagement; information on using your city as a gym; advice on starting an NP tribe; tips on growing, sustaining, and invigorating membership through social media; and thoughts on the collective power of community.
The Sweet Season: A Sportswriter Rediscovers Football, Family, and a Bit of Faith at Minnesota's St. John's University
Austin Murphy - 2001
The time has come, he concludes, to fly beneath the radar of big-league sports, to while away a season with the Johnnies. So, he moves his family to the middle of Minnesota to chronicle a season at St. John's, a Division III program that has reached unparalleled success under the unorthodox guidance of John "Gags" Gagliardi.The Sweet Season is an account of what happens when a family pulls up stakes and spends months in a strange and wonderful place. It is also, not incidentally, the story of the most incredible football program in the country, run by a smiling sage who has forgotten more about the game than most of his peers will ever know.
Bushcraft: Outdoor Skills and Wilderness Survival
Mors Kochanski - 1988
With clear instructions, extensive use of diagrams and a color photo supplement, this comprehensive reference includes all the practical skills and knowledge essential for you to survive and enjoy the wilderness: * Lighting and maintaining a fire * Chopping wood and felling a tree * Creating a shelter and keeping warm * Safe use of the axe and bush knife * Plants and animals important for survival * Food, water and outdoor cooking * Wilderness first aid. * This bestseller should be required reading for hikers, campers, hunters, foresters, backwoods adventurers, scouts, youth groups--anyone with a passion for the outdoors.
Trail Blazer: My Life as an Ultra-distance Runner
Ryan Sandes - 2016
Since bursting onto the international trail-running scene by winning the first multistage race he ever entered – the brutal Gobi March – Ryan has gone on to win various other multistage and single-day races around the globe. Written with bestselling author and journalist Steve Smith, Trail Blazer – My Life as an Ultra-distance Trail Runner recounts the life story of this intrepid sportsman, from his experiences as a rudderless party animal to becoming a world-class athlete, and includes details on his training regimes, race strategies and aspirations for future sporting endeavours.Sports enthusiasts will enjoy the adrenaline-inducing trials and tribulations of one of South Africa’s most awe-inspiring athletes, while endurance-sport participants – from beginners to aspirant pros – will benefit from his insights and advice. As Professor Tim Noakes says in the Foreword to this book: ‘However much we might think we know and understand, there are some phenomena which now, and perhaps forever, we will never fully comprehend. We call such happenings “enigmas”. Or even miracles. Ryan Sandes is one such.’
Mountain Bike Like a Champion: Master the Techniques of America's Greatest Rider
Ned Overend - 1999
At the start of the fourth and final lap was a pitch of rocky, loose trail that went straight up the face of a ski run.... My Swiss rival had been dismounting and running this climb while I stayed on my bike. On previous laps, I'd opened a little gap, so I knew this would be my chance. I attacked when Thomas got off again. He never caught me.... To ride that steep trail, I had to use five climbing techniques. There's no reason why you can't make them part of your arsenal, too."
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.
In Search of River Phoenix: The Truth Behind The Myth
Barry C. Lawrence - 2004
The complete book about the life of Academy Award nominee River Phoenix, from his parents beginning, his birth, member of a cult religion, to his TV acting, activism, veganism and movie career.
Philosophy of Sailing: Offshore in Search of the Universe
Christian Williams - 2018
The Ogre: Biography of a mountain and the dramatic story of the first ascent
Doug K. Scott - 2017
Few are both.On the afternoon of 13 July 1977, having become the first climbers to reach the summit of the Ogre, Doug Scott and Chris Bonington began their long descent. In the minutes that followed, any feeling of success from their achievement would be overwhelmed by the start of a desperate fight for survival. And things would only get worse.Rising to over 7,000 metres in the centre of the Karakoram, the Ogre – Baintha Brakk – is notorious in mountaineering circles as one of the most difficult mountains to climb. First summited by Scott and Bonington in 1977 – on expedition with Paul ‘Tut’ Braithwaite, Nick Estcourt, Clive Rowland and Mo Anthoine – it waited almost twenty-four years for a second ascent, and a further eleven years for a third. The Ogre, by legendary mountaineer Doug Scott, is a two-part biography of this enigmatic peak: in the first part, Scott has painstakingly researched the geography and history of the mountain; part two is the long overdue and very personal account of his and Bonington’s first ascent and their dramatic week-long descent on which Scott suffered two broken legs and Bonington smashed ribs. Using newly discovered diaries, letters and audio tapes, it tells of the heroic and selfless roles played by Clive Rowland and Mo Anthoine. When the desperate climbers finally made it back to base camp, they were to find it abandoned – and themselves still a long way from safety.The Ogre is undoubtedly one of the greatest adventure stories of all time.
The Complete Walker IV
Colin Fletcher - 1968
Together, they have made this fourth edition of The Complete Walker the most informative, entertaining, and thorough version yet.The eighteen years since the publication of The Complete Walker III have seen revolutionary changes in hiking and camping equipment: developments in waterproofing technology, smaller and more durable stoves, lighter boots, more manageable tents, and a wider array of food options. The equipment recommendations are therefore not merely revised and tweaked, but completely revamped. During these two decades we have also seen a deepening of environmental consciousness. Not only has backpacking become more popular, but a whole ethic of responsible outdoorsmanship has emerged. In this book the authors confidently lead us through these technological, ethical, and spiritual changes.Fletcher and Rawlins's thorough appraisal and recommendation of equipment begins with a "Ground Plan," a discussion of general hiking preparedness. How much to bring? What are the ideal clothes, food, boots, and tents for your trip? They evaluate each of these variables in detail--including open, honest critiques and endorsements of brand-name equipment. Their equipment searches are exhaustive; they talk in detail about everything from socks to freeze-dried trail curries.They end as they began, with a philosophical and literary disquisition on the reasons to walk, capped off with a delightful collection of quotes about walking and the outdoor life. After a thoughtful and painstaking analysis of hiking gear from hats to boots, from longjohns to tent flaps, they remind us that ultimately hiking is about the experience of being outdoors and seeing the green world anew.Like its predecessors, The Complete Walker IV is an essential purchase for anyone captivated by the outdoor life.
This is me
Danny Wilks - 2013
This is an adventure born from watching old movies and programs of people living and travelling in the Alaskan/Canadian wilderness. It is a story of a solo quest to get to Alaska by kayak with very little experience, surviving in the wilderness along the way; it’s a story of learning to believe in yourself when some others think you’re crazy, of putting one foot in front of the other each day, and of trusting your wits to get you out of a situation if it all goes wrong. Some describe it as crazy, some say it’s a spirit quest. All I know is that I needed to do it, so I did.
Uncharted: A Couple's Epic Empty-Nest Adventure Sailing from One Life to Another
Kim Brown Seely - 2019
This is an adventure story about a voyage from one life chapter to another that involves a too-big sailboat, a narrow and unknown sea, and an appetite to witness a mythical blonde bear that inhabits a remote rainforest.Kim Brown Seely and her husband had been damn good parents for more than 20 years. That was coming to an end as their youngest son was about to move across the country. The economy was in freefall and their jobs stagnant, so they impulsively decided to buy a big broken sailboat, learn how to sail it, and head up through the Salish Sea and the Inside Passage to an expanse of untamed wilderness in search of the elusive blonde Kermode bear that only lives in a secluded Northwest forest. Theirs was a voyage of discovery into who they were as individuals and as a couple at an axial moment in their lives. Wise and lyrical, this heartfelt memoir unfolds amid the stunningly wild archipelago on the far edge of the continent.
A Journey to Softness: In Search of Feel and Connection with the Horse
Mark Rashid - 2016
“Softness,” via what many in the horse world today might refer to as “feel,” begins, Rashid says, with one simple truth: “It’s not about what we do that starts us on the path to softness, but rather, it’s what we don’t do.” Softness is having the sensitivity we need in order to feel when and if the horse tries to “give.”It is about develping the kind of awareness and feel it takes to know when we are working against our horses, rather than with them. In these forthright stories, readers get a glimpse of a life that has produced a man known for his ability to solve difficult problems with communication rather than force, as well as methods and techniques gleaned from decades of work with horses, horse people, and the “way of harmony” through the martial arts.
Origami Boxes
Tomoko Fuse - 1975
Instructs in the folding of paper into such three-dimensional forms as square, triangular, and hexagonal boxes and their lids.
Learning To Breathe
Andy Cave - 2005
Every day he would descend 3,500 feet into the Grimethorpe pit. But at weekends, Andy inhabited a very different world — thousands of feet above the pitheads of the colliery. Introduced to his local mountaineering club while a miner, he soon learned to cherish this newfound freedom. Living through the coalminer’s strikes of the mid-eighties — the guilt, the broken friendships, the poverty — Andy continued to indulge his passion, and in 1986, after much soul-searching, he quit the mines in order to take up mountaineering professionally. At the same time he decided to educate himself, acquiring, almost from a standing start, academic qualifications including a PhD. in sociology. This extraordinary twin odyssey is graphically recalled in this remarkable book. Andy also recounts the grim tale of one of the steepest and most difficult summits in the world — the north face of Changabang in the Himalaya. Seventeen days later, he and two of his teammates — his best friend had already perished — crawled into base camp, frostbitten and emaciated. His account of this terrifying experience provides a dramatic climax to this extraordinary story. Learning to Breathe is first and foremost a lively and humorous memoir, written with energy and insight, about two very different groups of men, each navigating equally inhospitable worlds. Finally, on a larger scale, it is an examination of our ability to draw on inner strengths and the strengths of others.