Good adventure books or nature literature?

[Powder River]

I'm reading as many books as I can before I go on my thru that will get me pumped up for adventure and nature. Anybody have any good ones? Currently I'm reading Sailing Alone Around the World by Joshua Slocum, and just got done reading The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris.

Next will probably be Bill Bryson (2nd read for me) however I'm going to stop there with the AT specific books, because I want my experience of names and places to be fresh and new. In other words, what are some non AT adventure books or nature driven literature?

Also on my list is Desert Solotaire by Edward Abbey, Into Thin Air and Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, The Snows of Kilimanjaro and The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. One other idea is Walden by Henry David Thoreau but I come up blank after that. Got any to add? Fire away!

[ScottP]

Basho's A Narrow Road to the Deep North--it's basically a trail journal+poetry written by one of Japan's greatest poets.

http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~kohl/ba...gue/index.html

I'm also partial to the Chuang Tzu (Burton Watson translation)--it's a work/collection of Taoist philosophy. I think it has a lot to say about hiking.

As far as adventure novels, if you're partial to sci-fi/fantasy check out L.E. Modesitte's Towers of Sunset, or C.S. Friedman's Black Sun Rising Trilogy

[fiddlehead]

"In the Land of the White Death" is an amazing story written by a Russian named Albanov as is Shackleton's adventure ("Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage")

Also, the Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiesen is an all time favorite of mine. (I just finished reading "Stone of Silence by George Shaller which is a book written about the same journey but Matthiesen's is better IMO)

Try also: "Yak Butter and Black Tea" by Wade Blackenbury who i had the pleasure to meet here in Thailand 2 years ago when i was rock climbing over on Ton Sai. I had read his book and was amazed at some of his stories in it, we got to talking and i told him about my ambition of traveling around the world without flying but was stuck getting from Nepal to Thailand and he said he could help me get thru both Bhutan and Burma through some back doors he knew about. Anyway, he's pretty cool dude and has done a lot of adventurous stuff.

[jrwiesz]

"The Man Who Walked Thru Time", by Colin Fletcher. RIP

[Lone Wolf]

"My Side of the Mountain" by Jean George

[Mrs Baggins]

If you have the time, because it's a biggie, read "Sacajewea" by Anna Waldo. It's the story of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Another biggie is "This Thing of Darkness" by Harry Thompson, the story of the Fitzroy expedition to So. America.

[woodsy]

K2 TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY by Jim Curran copyright 1987 *****
"a gripping story that belongs with the classics of mountaineering"
In 1986, 27 men an women reached the top of the "savage mountain", the second highest peak in the world, 13 died trying.
Hard to put this one down once you start!

[Monello]

The Final Frontiersman: Heimo Korth and His Family, Alone in Alaska's Arctic Wilderness by James Campbell

They live up near the artic circle. Hunts, fishes and traps to feed his family. His family was featured in this video:

National Geographic's Braving Alaska (1992)


Or this guy. Lived alone for 35 yrs in a hand built cabin.

One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey
by Sam Keith

[Johnny Swank]

**** Shameless Self Promotion Alert!****

God-willing, my book on our 2,150 mile paddle down the Mississippi will be out late spring/early summer

[rafe]

The Ancestor's Tale, by Richard Dawkins. The ultimate nature story.

[Spirit Walker]

Steve Newman's "Worldwalk", Walkin' Jim Stoltz's book, Karsten Heuer's books, Mardie Murie, Ed Abbey, Model T's books, Larry Luxemburg's book on the AT, Barry Lopez's books, Peter Jenkins' books.

[Mags]

Travels with Charlie by Steinbeck.

The opening lines of the book alone make it worth it:

When I was very young and the urge to be someplace was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked. . . In other words, I don't improve, in further words, once a bum always a bum. I fear the disease is incurable.

Part of why we do these long hikes (for many of us) are for the journey and the need to satisfy an itch for wanderlust.

Good read.

In a similar vein, try RIVER HORSE and BLUE HIGHWAYS by William Least Heatmoon. River Horse especially has some good passages that relate to journeys:

...who can say where a voyage starts - not the the actual passage
but the dream of a journey and its urge to find a way?



Pessimism and negativism are cankers in the soul of long
distance voyagers, and continuance of journeys owes about
as much to blind faith as realistic assessment,

[Johnny Swank]

Great choices Mags. Travels with Charlie is a fine read.

[Pony]

Not a nature book, but The Lord of the Rings always makes me feel like going on an adventure.

[rafe]

Not a nature book, but The Lord of the Rings always makes me feel like going on an adventure.

What, you've never seen any Orcs or Ents on the trail? I've met at least a few Hobbits and Striders.

[clured]

Walden. Thoreau is like a god.

[Lone Wolf]

Thoreau is like a god.

to who?

[Mrs Baggins]

Not a nature book, but The Lord of the Rings always makes me feel like going on an adventure.

It was The Lord of the Rings that set me on this adventure of hiking and backpacking - at the age of 45. I had read the book a couple of times but it was the movies.......coming on the heels of 9/11........a combination of those two things. Now I read the book every single year.

[clured]

to who?

To me.

1234

[ThrashHammer]

"Walking the Big Wild", by Kirsten Hauer, I believe that is the author's name. It's about a biologist's trek from Yellowstone to the Yukon. Mostly on his own, with his border collie along side. Great book.

"True North", by Jim Harrison, He also wrote Legends of the Fall and a lot of other classics. It is about a troubled youth from the U.P. that fights a lot of demons in life and uses the outdoors as an outlet.