Long-Distance Hiking: Lessons from the Appalachian Trail


Book Description

Blending sage advice with personal experiences and anecdotes, this unconventional book is an unusually thoughtful account of long-distance trekking on the Appalachian Trail. Mueser draws upon interviews and questionnaire data gathered from over 100 long distance hikers hoofing it through the Applachian Mountains.




Walking the Appalachian Trail


Book Description

Accounts by thru-hikers, organized by topic. Foreword by hiker Maurice Forrester and stunning color photos by Mike Warren.




Hike Your Own Hike


Book Description




How to Hike the Appalachian Trail: a Comprehensive Guide to Plan and Prepare for a Successful Thru-Hike


Book Description

Everything you need to know to complete your thru-hike. The AT is a life changing experience and an amazing accomplishment. Half of the battle is proper preparation. This book is everything I wish I would have known before setting off on my thru-hike. Complete with personal tips and experiences. Learn how to budget wisely, save money and not waste cash. Know how to allocate 6 months of your time and plan your exit. Master your gear with a massive guide on everything from your spork to your tent. Understand clothing, layering and materials. Hear about what life is really like on the trail. Know which direction to go, when and why. Familiarize yourself with a state by state breakdown of the trail. Learn how to mentally prepare an optimistic framework for the "I-wanna-quit-days". Understand the physical demands and methods to prevent injury. Prepare yourself for the nutritional needs with food ideas and favorite meal plans. Know the REAL dangers on the AT. "Female Needs" section from AT record-holder Heather 'Anish' Anderson. And a whole lot more...







Walking on the Wild Side


Book Description

The most famous long-distance hiking trail in North America, the 2,181-mile Appalachian Trail—the longest hiking-only footpath in the world—runs along the Appalachian mountain range from Georgia to Maine. Every year about 2,000 individuals attempt to “thru-hike” the entire trail, a feat equivalent to hiking Mount Everest sixteen times. In Walking on the Wild Side, sociologist Kristi M. Fondren traces the stories of forty-six men and women who, for their own personal reasons, set out to conquer America’s most well known, and arguably most social, long-distance hiking trail. In this fascinating in-depth study, Fondren shows how, once out on the trail, this unique subculture of hikers lives mostly in isolation, with their own way of acting, talking, and thinking; their own vocabulary; their own activities and interests; and their own conception of what is significant in life. They tend to be self-disciplined, have an unwavering trust in complete strangers, embrace a life of poverty, and reject modern-day institutions. The volume illuminates the intense social intimacy and bonding that forms among long-distance hikers as they collectively construct a long-distance hiker identity. Fondren describes how long-distance hikers develop a trail persona, underscoring how important a sense of place can be to our identity, and to our sense of who we are. Indeed, the author adds a new dimension to our understanding of the nature of identity in general. Anyone who has hiked—or has ever dreamed of hiking—the Appalachian Trail will find this volume fascinating. Walking on the Wild Side captures a community for whom the trail is a sacred place, a place to which they have become attached, socially, emotionally, and spiritually.




A Walk in the Woods


Book Description

God only knows what possessed Bill Bryson, a reluctant adventurer if ever there was one, to undertake a gruelling hike along the world's longest continuous footpath—The Appalachian Trail. The 2,000-plus-mile trail winds through 14 states, stretching along the east coast of the United States, from Georgia to Maine. It snakes through some of the wildest and most spectacular landscapes in North America, as well as through some of its most poverty-stricken and primitive backwoods areas. With his offbeat sensibility, his eye for the absurd, and his laugh-out-loud sense of humour, Bryson recounts his confrontations with nature at its most uncompromising over his five-month journey. An instant classic, riotously funny, A Walk in the Woods will add a whole new audience to the legions of Bill Bryson fans.




In Beauty May She Walk


Book Description

In 2000, inspired by her father, Leslie Mass decided she would turn a lifelong fantasy into reality. At the age of 59 she began to train for a grueling journey ? a thru-hike of the 2,000-mile Appalachian Trail. In Beauty May She Walk chronicles Leslie?s struggles and triumphs during her hike. On the trail, Leslie struggles with how to balance the needs of her family and friends while making the trail a priority; how to shed years of social conditioning that dictate how a woman should act; and how to know when to ask for help, while understanding that sometimes, help has to come from within. For the first few weeks, Leslie learns how to pitch a tent in the rain, keep animals out of her food, and lighten the load on her back. As the terrain toughens, she struggles to physically keep up with the trail community she depends on socially to keep going, and realizes the difficulty of maintaining her obligations to family and friends while focusing her efforts on putting one foot in front of the other, every day. And after September 11, 2001, she copes with being seemingly the only hiker on the trails for miles, eventually forcing her to change her definition of ?hiking her own hike.? A suburban college professor, Leslie is just like any other woman you might pass on the grocery aisle. Her story is an inspiring physical and mental journey to reach the goal of a lifetime.




Lost on the Appalachian Trail


Book Description

Join Kyle and his little dog "Katana" as they take you along for every step of their 2,185 mile adventure hiking the entire Appalachian Trail. Confront the terrain, severe weather, injury, dangerous wildlife and questionable characters as you grow and learn as Kyle did from start to finish of this epic adventure. Make some friends for life, learn the finer points of long distance hiking, and realize that what you take within your backpack is not nearly as important as what you bring within yourself... This exciting and often times humorous narrative does more than simply tell the story of Kyle and Katana's adventures on trail. You will be inspired, while learning what it takes mentally and physically to accomplish an undertaking such as hiking thousands of miles through mountainous wilderness while braving countless obstacles all determined to make you quit. Nobody said it was easy, but if you can make it to the end, your life will be changed forever. What are you waiting for? Adventure is calling...For more content from the Author, as well as to follow his past, present, and future adventures; check out the following pages!Website/Blog: BoundlessRoamad.comInstagram: @_roamad_Facebook: facebook.com/kyle.rohrig.7Youtube: youtube.com/c/NomadWisdom




When You Find My Body


Book Description

When Geraldine “Gerry” Largay (AT trail name, Inchworm) first went missing on the Appalachian Trail in remote western Maine in 2013, the people of Maine were wrought with concern. When she was not found, the family, the wardens, and the Navy personnel who searched for her were devastated. The Maine Warden Service continued to follow leads for more than a year. They never completely gave up the search. Two years after her disappearance, her bones and scattered possessions were found by chance by two surveyors. She was on the U.S. Navy’s SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) School land, about 2,100 feet from the Appalachian Trail. This book tells the story of events preceding Geraldine Largay’s vanishing in July 2013, while hiking the Appalachian Trail in Maine, what caused her to go astray, and the massive search and rescue operation that followed. Her disappearance sparked the largest lost-person search in Maine history, which culminated in her being presumed dead. She was never again seen alive. The author was one of the hundreds of volunteers who searched for her. Gerry’s story is one of heartbreak, most assuredly, but is also one of perseverance, determination, and faith. For her family and the searchers, especially the Maine Warden Service, it is also a story of grave sorrow. Marrying the joys and hardship of life in the outdoors, as well as exploring the search & rescue community, When You Find My Body examines dying with grace and dignity. There are lessons in the story, both large and small. Lessons that may well save lives in the future.




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