Book picks similar to
An Ice Axe, a Camera, and a Jar of Peanut Butter: A Photographer's Autobiography by Ira Spring
outdoors
outdoor-nature
adventure
biography-memoir
Holding Fast: The Untold Story of the Mount Hood Tragedy
Karen James - 2008
Hood.In December 2006, millions of people across the world prayed and waited in anguish to learn the fate of 3 climbers trapped on Mt. Hood. The worst storm in the last decade was pounding the mountain with hurricane-force winds that would not permit the army of rescue workers to do their work. No one below could forget the last phone call Kelly James placed to his wife, telling her that he was trapped in a snow cave just below the summit. What happened next would change the lives of everyone involved and deeply touch millions of people who desperately hoped to see a Christmas miracle.For more than a week, the search dominated the news as family members huddled below, praying for the climbers' safe return. But the story did not end when Kelly James's body was airlifted off the mountain and the cameras stopped rolling. For Karen, the year after Kelly's death was spent searching for answers to what really happened on the mountain. In this journey of adventure, tragedy, love and loss, she reveals never-released information about the fateful climb and behind-the-scenes details of how the family coped with the shocking news.
My Old Man and the Mountain: A Memoir
Leif Whittaker - 2016
He returned home a hero. My Old Man and the Mountain is Leif Whittaker's engaging and humorous story of what it was like to "grow up Whittaker"―the youngest son of Jim Whittaker and Dianne Roberts, in an extended family of accomplished climbers. He shares glimpses of his upbringing and how the pressure to climb started early on. Readers learn of his first adventures with family in the Olympic Mountains and on Mount Rainier; his close yet at times competitive relationship with his brother Joss; his battle with a serious back injury; and his efforts to stand apart from his father's legacy. With wry honesty he depicts being a recent college grad, still living in his parents' home and trying to find a purpose in life―digging ditches, building houses, selling t-shirts to tourists―until a chance encounter leads to the opportunity to climb Everest, just like his father did. Leif heads to Nepal with all the excitement, irony, boredom, and trepidation that are part of high-altitude climbing. Well-known guides Dave Hahn and Melissa Arnot figure prominently in his story, as does "Big Jim." But Leif's story is not his father's story. It's a unique coming of age tale on the steep slopes of Everest and a climbing adventure that lights the imagination and fills an emotional human endeavor with universal meaning."Whittaker writes as he climbs mountains, with courage, grace, and a dash of humility. The result is an utterly compelling tale of a young man who bravely tackles two great challenges--one made of rock and ice and one made of doubts and fears. Its's a great read." --Daniel James Brown, author of The Boys in the Boat. "Leif Whittaker, son of the first American to summit Everest, has given us a deliciously irreverent perspective on growing up in the shadow of a famous father, and how that journey helped shape a unique perspective on one young man's own relationship with a mountain...and a dad." --Tom Hornbein, author of Everest: The West Ridge. "It might be easy to feel lost in the shadow of a father who was the first American to stand on top of Mount Everest. Leif Whittaker tells the unique story of finding his own identity--as a son, and as a climber--with humility, candor, and a wonderful sense of humor." --Brendan Leonard, author of Sixty Meters to Anywhere.
927 Days of Summer: Around the World in a VW Van (Drive Nacho Drive)
Brad Van Orden - 2015
This is where 927 Days of Summer picks up the trail. After shipping Nacho from Argentina to Malaysia on a container ship, Brad and Sheena resume their journey, this time with the ambitious goal of driving all the way around the world. When they roll out of the shipping container onto Malaysian soil, their odometer turns over 300,000 miles. Is Nacho really up for the brutal journey ahead?This hilarious, and often harrowing tale follows them through the sweltering jungles of Southeast Asia, the buzzing hornet's nest of India, into the remote Nepalese Himalayas, through the stony hills of Anatolia to the Sahara Desert in Africa, through Europe and beyond. Whether dodging rickshaws on crater-filled roads, defying Maoist rebels on cliff-hanging Himalayan tracks, getting hopelessly stuck in the desert on the Pakistani border, or becoming the subjects of an international missing persons case in the remote mountains of Laos, there is never a dull moment in 927 Days of Summer. Come along as a diverse cast of characters guides our subjects through a world of unfolding landscapes and cultures on the road trip to end all road trips, and then ask yourself: can you really just go home, unpack, and eat a sandwich?
Running with Champions: A Midlife Journey on the Iditarod Trail
Lisa Frederic - 2006
Lisa Frederic didn't set out to run the Iditarod. She just fell in love with the event and wanted to help. She ended up working as a volunteer for the Trail Committee at various checkpoints. Then she helped Iditarod champion Jeff King train his puppies. She had never mushed before. She was a rookie, but a rookie with heart and drive. She started out with short races and eventually raced the 1,049 miles from Anchorage to Nome in the Iditarod. Her story speaks to everyone who has ever followed a dream and found that the dream realized is even bigger than the imagined one.
Coastal Tuna (Coastal Adventure Series Number 4)
Don Rich - 2020
Marlin sees this as a perfect opportunity for the fishing foundation to educate people across the country about the importance of protecting another fishery. He also knows that Mallard Cove Marina on Virginia's Eastern Shore will make the perfect new home for the show, and that its resident charter boats and crews will be part of a great new cast. While he is prepared to deal with the big egos of some of the old cast members, he hadn't figured on having a shadowy saboteur that wanted the show cancelled, and is willing to do whatever it takes to get it cancelled...permanently. Nor is he ready for the old cast members that will also stop at nothing to get re-hired and bring the show back south.So, follow the Mallard Cove gang as they deal with those old cast members, and they race to put a stop to the sabotage before someone else gets killed or the show becomes history!
Kisses From Nimbus: From SAS to MI6 An Autobiography
P.J. 'Red' Riley - 2017
His is the story the establishment doesn’t want you to read.br>Captain P. J. “Red” Riley is an ex-SAS soldier who served for eighteen years as an MI6 agent. Riley escaped internment in Chile during the Falklands war during an audacious top-secret attempt to attack the Argentinian mainland. He was imprisoned in the darkness of the Sierra Leonean jungle, and withstood heavy fire in war-torn Beirut and Syria. In 2015, he was arrested for murder but all charges were later dropped. In this searing memoir, Riley reveals the brutal realities of his service, and the truth behind the newspaper headlines featuring some of the most significant events in recent British history. His account provides startling new evidence on the Iraq war, what Tony Blair really knew about Saddam Hussain’s weapons of mass destruction before the allied invasion, and questions the British government’s alleged involvement in the death of Princess Diana. Chaotic, darkly humorous and at times heart-wrenchingly sad, Kisses From Nimbus charts the harrowing real-life experiences of a soldier and spy in the name of Queen and country.
Changing Cadence: Meditations on Life, Family and Country from a Leather Bicycle Seat
Michael Dillon - 2014
It’s a story common to many, but Dillon's response was far from expected. Instead of searching for new employment, he bought a bicycle, loaded it with camping gear and pedaled alone across the United States. Changing Cadence recounts the story of Dillon's travels through the farming and fishing communities of the South; the ranch lands and Bible Belt of Texas; the lonely deserts of New Mexico and Arizona; and finally up the coast of California. Along the way, he crosses paths with others who share his need for wanderlust: the brokenhearted woman from London exploring the West alone on a motorcycle; the pair of college students walking across the country in support of the Tea Party; the woman hiking the circumference of the country on a prosthetic leg (along with her three-legged dog); and fellow cyclists like Don, a middle-aged, yarn-spinning, former Marine with a grey ponytail and a penchant for McDonald’s Egg McMuffins. Over the course of more than 3,500 miles, Dillon rediscovers himself, his family and his country, and learns that it’s never too late for a little adventure.
Run Wild
Boff Whalley - 2012
This is not a man who signs up to big city marathons and pounds the pavements. With his down to earth voice and a great sense of humour, Boff writes about how running brings a real world of discovery and adventure, from reaching the top of a mountain with the sun at your back and moon in front creating two shadows to running up Mt Fuji on a break from work. For Boff, running is about freedom, experiencing of the world, your place in it and generally just enjoying yourself. Running is a way to get back to that simplest of relationships - the one between our feet and the earth.
Car Camping: The Book of Desert Adventures
Mark Sundeen - 2000
He's like Huckleberry Finn Sort of. He's a twenty-two-year-old housepainter living at his parents' house in Southern California, across a four-lane street from a gated subdivision. Now this suburban innocent is striking out on the only type of adventure he can afford: he's getting into his station wagon and going camping in the desert. Join Mark Sundeen on his rumble-tumble journey across the Southwest, and find that the mystical home of Butch Cassidy, Chief Cochise, and Major John Wesley Powell has been transformed into something entirely strange yet unexpectedly familiar. It's a new West of low-rent trailer parks and high-dollar houseboats, of hot-springs singles scenes and homeless river guides and hapless soul-searchers, for sun-beat old-timers chewing the cud of the land and survivalist teenagers hiding out form the Man. It's a place far from the America you thought you lived in, but close enough to drive to in your car. Car Camping is a modern-day western adventure in the spirit of Mark Twain and Jack London, and you're invited to come along.
Unchained: One Woman, One Bike, One Dream... One World
Rubina Soorty - 2019
She is daunted by busy dangerous roads, wild animals and the possibility of getting lost. And yet in 2013, completely unprepared and unsure if she can make it to London 60 miles away, she sets off around-the-world with her bicycle, Percy, and her mother's ashes.Unchained is a deeply personal travelogue about an around-the-world bicycle tour and the journey within. The story gradually unfolds as she crosses beautiful but unfamiliar lands with a fully loaded bicycle whilst struggling with the recent loss of her mother and her feelings of love.Ruby's journey, that takes her cycling across 5 continents, is a story about the ups and downs of the road, the highs and lows of life, trusts and betrayals, the loving kindness of nameless strangers, and a slow realisation of our deep connection with nature and the oneness of humanity. But above all, it is a tale of love.
Fearless on Everest: The Quest for Sandy Irvine
Julie Summers - 2000
These two names have been inextricably joined since the two climbers disappeared on Mount Everest more than 75 years ago. Could they have been the first to reach the summit of the world's highest mountains-some 30 years earlier than Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay? Mallory's story has been well chronicled, but Irvine has always been overshadowed by his more famous climbing partner and little has been written about him. Who was he? Why was he invited by the British Everest Committee to join the 1924 expedition despite his limited mountaineering experience? And why did Mallory, 16 years his senior, select Irvine as his partner for the final assault on the summit? Julie Summers, great niece of Sandy Irvine, has been fascinated since childhood by the story of Uncle Sandy. In May 2000, Julie made an astonishing discovery: a long forgotten and unopened trunk containing Irvine's letters and photographs from Everest. Drawing on these and other material, Julie writes a revealing story of a fearless young adventurer whose life and death linked him with one of the greatest mountaineering legends of all time.
Struck: A Husband’s Memoir of Trauma and Triumph
Douglas Segal - 2018
Miraculously, his daughter was unharmed, but his wife faced a series of life-threatening injuries, including the same one that famously left Christopher Reeve paralyzed. Following the accident, Segal began sending regular email updates to their circle of friends and family—a list that continued to grow as others heard of the event and were moved by the many emotional and spiritual issues it raised. Segal's compelling memoir is an intimate and honest chronicle built around these email updates, and is a profound example of how people show up for one another in times of crisis.Alternatingly harrowing, humorous, heartbreaking, and hopeful, this is an uplifting tribute to love, determination, and how the compassion of community holds the power to heal, serving as an inspiring testament to the resilience of the human spirit when faced with pain and adversity.
A Simple Life: Living off grid in a wooden cabin in France
Mary-Jane Houlton - 2021
They were already used to a simple life, having spent the last three years living on their boat in France for the summer seasons, and returning to the UK and their caravan for the winters. This tiny cabin would now be their new home for the winter months, taking them a step further along the road to self-sufficiency. They had no electricity, no kitchen, no bathroom or bedroom and the loo was a bucket in a shed, but the property came with five acres of field and woodland.From now on their lives would be simple, pared back to the basics, but they found that an off-grid lifestyle was by no means an uncomfortable experience. Responsibilities didn’t disappear but they changed, becoming less onerous. There was more time to think, and to appreciate the natural world around them. Living in such rural isolation, each day brought something new to marvel at: deer browsing in the field at dusk, salamanders on the doorstep, owls calling by night.If their own world felt increasingly magical, the outside world was far from it. They had moved to a foreign country at an historic time, living through a pandemic and adapting to the day-to-day implications of Brexit.A Simple Life doesn’t just follow Mary-Jane and Michael as they settle into their new lives, it also raises questions about what really matters to people. What makes us happy? How does it feel to have few possessions? Will life become unbearable without a flushing toilet?Thought-provoking and amusing, this book opens a window onto a different way of living. Mary-Jane shares a wealth of information and, if you have ever found yourself longing for a simpler life, this might tempt you to take those first tentative steps on the journey.
Taliban Escape!: One Woman Journey Out of Hell
Aabra - 2012
www.aabra.us Amazon: www.amazon.com/taliban-escape-woman&#...
Stories I've Heard, Characters I've Met, & Lies We've Told in My 44 Alaskan Years
Tom Brion - 2016
An Off the Grid lodge owner in Fish Lakes, Alaska, Tom enthralls roomfuls of guests every year from the Lower 48 and around the world with tales of his adventures, foibles, and SNAFUs in 44 years living in the Alaskan wilderness. From his start as a Pennsylvania farmboy who ran off to join the United States Air Force, to his arrival in Alaska with less than a hundred dollars in his wallet and a growing family in his back seat, to his forty years as a Bush pilot and his accidental introduction to the fishing lodge business, to his multiple brushes with death, hardship, and questionable characters, Tom Brion has a story to cover it all. A pioneer in sustainable homesteading and off-the-Grid living, Tom Brion built his first lodge in Alaska on five acres in the Lake Creek area, in 1979, and continues to this day building and working heavy machinery 60 miles from any road. Born in 1941, Tom has collected 74 years of humorous, heart-wrenching, and sometimes mind-blowing stories of traveling, hunting, and exploring the backcountry of Alaska in the pilot’s seat of a Vietnam-era Cessna Birddog. A biography in the form of short life stories, Tom Brion’s memoir takes us to a rural Bush life where people live off the land, drill their own wells, put out their own forest fires, and depend on their neighbors to pick up their mail. Surrounded by nature, Tom continues to fly, plow, run his bulldozer, and wrangle his subsistence fishwheel up the river every year in the Skwentna area of Alaska, where temperatures in winter drop to 45 below zero and summers can see entire months without rain. Follow him in this (mostly) nonfiction anthology of (somewhat) true stories from the Last Frontier as he gives the straight scoop about bears, outhouses, farming, flooding, fishing, moose, guns, and aviation in the 49th State.An avid hunter, outdoorsman, fisherman, and jack of all trades, Tom documents his life with photos and illustrations that detail an epic adventure from start to finish.