Why are the best-selling hiking memoirs all written by quitters?

[Cookerhiker]

Continuing the thread drift, anyone who successfully completes a Colorado Trail thruhike SOBO receives a free Colorado Trail Nut Brown Ale from Carver's Brew Pub in Durango.

Colorado Trail 435 Celebrating completion in Durango.JPG

[bobp]

So, I don't think your joke quite means what you think it means....

I'm not joking. I'm completely serious. Melville appropriated whaling to craft a story about obsession and forces beyond control. Bryson appropriated hiking and the AT journey to craft a tale about life and growing older. He and Katz leave the trail as he notes that they aren't boys anymore, an admission of the compromises between youthful plans and eventual outcomes that are an inevitable part of growing up and growing old. There are constant contrasts between plans and less-than-desired results, in hiking, in the stewardship of the forests, and in life. The real meat of A Walk in the Woods would remain the same if Bryson and Katz had taken a roller-skating trip through the Deep South or a bike trip across the country.

Of course, I could be full of crap. I'm an engineer who reads for pleasure, not a professor of literature.

[rafe]

Yes, Bryson could have written about something completely different, but he didn't. At least not in the book we're discussing.

I suspect he didn't know, when he began his adventure, just how it would end up. He glommed on to the AT a bit by chance, as happens to many. Gets this crazy idea, decides to try it. And perhaps not incidentally, sells this crazy idea to his publisher as well, who (at the time) probably shrugged, rolled his eyes, and said, "sure Bill, sounds great. Go for it. Send me a manuscript when you're done."

[Lone Wolf]

Yes, Bryson could have written about something completely different, but he didn't. At least not in the book we're discussing.

I suspect he didn't know, when he began his adventure, just how it would end up. He glommed on to the AT a bit by chance, as happens to many. Gets this crazy idea, decides to try it. And perhaps not incidentally, sells this crazy idea to his publisher as well, who (at the time) probably shrugged, rolled his eyes, and said, "sure Bill, sounds great. Go for it. Send me a manuscript when you're done."

in a simple nutshell

[egilbe]

I carried one for a long time - cut the handle just enough so it would lay in the bottom of a zip lock. The stock handle on a toothbrush is about 1.5" too long and it annoyed me to have it fit diagonally. Now I carry one of those fold up traveling toothbrushes.

Haha, my toothbrush handle is cut off for the exact same reason.

[Yankee15]

I was given a copy of "A Walk in the Woods", put it in the back of my truck, and left it there while I thru hiked. When I got back, I donated it to the Salvation Army. I quit reading it before I even started.