The Amazon Travel Books Department has recommended the outdoor adventure narrative, Skywalker–Highs and Lows on the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), by Bill Walker (‘Skywalker’). This is the story of 6’11” Bill Walker’s turbulent thru-hike of the 2,663 mile Pacific Crest Trail in 2009. Walker lost 43 pounds, but came away enthralled by the extraordinary variety of terrain on the PCT, as well as the colorful cast of...

The annual Trail Days Festival in Damascus, Virginia is one of the outdoor world’s marquee events. For good reason. It was started in 1987 with the idea of bringing together hikers from previous years. It has succeeded signally in that regard; but it is also a lot more than that. The whole outdoor community seems to be on display. For starters, Damascus is the perfect place to have the event; it is widely known as the friendliest town on...

Outdoor adventure narratives are a cottage industry. And for good reason. A cursory look at history shows that the deepest yearning of humans is to move. “The great affair is to move,” wrote Pascal in his Pensees’s. “Complete calm is death.”Indeed, from our earliest time as a species, humans have sought to better their plight by perpetual motion, the Bedouins, Kurds, Aborigenes, to name but a few with this...

Like most hikers and authors, I love doing presentations to groups. Heck, you spend almost six months thru-hiking, around the most diverse cast of characters imaginable, passing through almost every type of weather possible, feeling half-starved, dehydrated, scared to death (if you’re me!), and bone-tired. And then if you decide to write about it–as I’m wont to do–you spend approximately the next year obsessing over...