Hiking Memoirs

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK A timely and important book that challenges everything we think we know about cultivating true belonging in our communities, organizations, and culture, from the #1 bestselling author of Rising Strong, Daring Greatly, and The Gifts of...

The Appalachian Trail is a bucket-list adventure and a sanctuary of natural beauty. But for some, the wilderness holds a deadly secret. Within this iconic landscape, real-life nightmares have unfolded, turning a dream hike into a fight for survival. This is the dark side of America's most famous footpath. Venture into a chilling collection of true stories that expose the hidden dangers of the trail. Uncover the terrifying accounts of hikers who have vanished without a trace, the shocking murders that have baffled investigators, and the cold cases that continue to haunt the mountains and ...

Not many people can say they met and married their spouse within thirty days of beginning to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. But that’s exactly what happened to twenty-five-year-old Claire Henley Miller. Mile 445 is the inspiring—and romantic—true story of how Miller left corporate life behind to embark on a 2,650-mile hike from Mexico to Canada. She is doing it alone, and the only gear she takes to survive the trek in the mountains of California, Oregon, and Washington fits inside her sixty-eight-liter backpack. At the start of her five-month journey, she meets a handsome young man ...

A young British backpacker goes missing on the West Coast Trail. No one is sure whether she died or simply disappeared. Apart from Laura. Twenty years later, a body has been found. And there's only one person who could reveal the secret that Laura's been hiding all this time. But she knows that two can keep a secret. IF ONE OF THEM IS DEAD.

Carrying only basic camping equipment and a collection of the world's great spiritual writings, Belden C. Lane embarks on solitary spiritual treks through the Ozarks and across the American Southwest. For companions, he has only such teachers as Rumi, John of the Cross, Hildegard of Bingen, Dag Hammarskjöld, and Thomas Merton, and as he walks, he engages their writings with the natural wonders he encounters, demonstrating how being alone in the wild opens a rare view onto one's interior landscape, and how the saints' writings reveal the divine in nature.   

After Paul Stutzman lost his wife to breast cancer, he sensed a tug on his heart - the call to a challenge, the call to pursue a dream. With a mixture of dread and determination, Paul left his job, traveled to Georgia, and took his first steps on the Appalachian Trail. What he learned during the next four and a half months changed his life and can change yours as well. In Hiking Through, you'll join Paul on his remarkable 2,176-mile trip through 14 states in search of peace and a renewed sense of purpose.

In Whistler's Walk: The Appalachian Trail in 142 Days, author Bill Monk brings readers his real-life, day-to-day account of hiking the Appalachian Trail in its entirety, from intense, necessary preparation at the start to the emotionally charged conclusion of summiting Mount Katahdin. Based on Monk's journal entries written daily along the way, readers are afforded the up-close and intimate privilege of witnessing his very real trials and triumphs, and each incredible, beautiful moment as he experienced it. Anyone who has hiked, or plans on hiking the Appalachian Trail, lovers of nature, ...

If you want to start hiking as an older adult or you hiked as a youth and are just getting back onto the trails, you’ll quickly discover that the hiking gear and skills used by today’s hikers have changed significantly in the past 20 years. From lightweight gear, footwear, and clothing to advances in GPS navigation and satellite communications, nearly every aspect of the hiking experience has been transformed, making hiking more accessible than ever for older adults. Written by Philip Werner, the founder of the highly acclaimed hiking website SectionHiker.com, Hiking Over 60 will bring ...

What happens when a burnt-out tech professional ditches the comforts of modern life and hikes 2,650 miles across the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada? A head-on collision of midlife crisis and wilderness reality, where he’s never felt more alive. Somewhere between blisters, bear poop, and resupply, it clicks. Those cryptic ideas of Zen and Taoism he skimmed almost two decades ago—about ‘simplicity’ and ‘attachment, ’ the kind most of us flag as hippie nonsense, actually started making a whole lot of sense.

Carrot Quinn fears that she's become addicted to the Internet. The city makes her numb, and she's having trouble connecting with others. In a desperate move, she breaks away from everything to walk 2,660 miles from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail. It will be her first long-distance hike.

Forced to face physical shortcomings, A 100 Mile Journey is the story of the struggle of a middle-aged woman hiking Section A of the Pacific Crest Trail and a few extra miles beyond. The full mileage of the trail hovers around 2,650 miles and stretches from the Mexican border to Canada. Section A meanders through arid valleys, scorching deserts and occasional mountain pine forests in southern California. Doubters said she wouldn’t last a day. Even though her ultimate goal was a complete thru-hike, she did finish section A, fighting aches and pains of small, niggling injuries and arthritis...

Oprah's Book Club 2.0 selection. A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe—and built her back up again. At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother's...

★★★★★ "I love how Martin shows us not to get caught up in the stress and tension of goas and deadlines!" - Reader Review _____ Martin Armitage never guessed that it would forever change the way he looked at his life when he decided to hike the entire 273 mile length of The Long Trail, stretching from the Canadian border in the north all the way to the southern end of the state of Vermont. Just a few short days into the walk, and forced to call a halt as an injury prevented him from continuing, he was filled with anger and a sense of failure and frustration. But what seemed like a ...

In Journeys North, legendary trail angel, thru hiker, and former PCTA board member Barney Scout Mann spins a compelling tale of six hikers on the Pacific Crest Trail in 2007 as they walk from Mexico to Canada. This ensemble story unfolds as these half-dozen hikers - including Barney and his wife, Sandy - trod north, slowly forming relationships and revealing their deepest secrets and aspirations. They face a once-in-a-generation drought and early severe winter storms that test their will in this bare-knuckled adventure.

An honest account of a woman's trek on the John Muir Trail is captured in this lively trail journal. Celebrate her joy as the beauty of the High Sierra in California is slowly revealed, feel the comradery of trail friends she meets along the way, and sympathize with her when all she wants is for the trail to end. Along the way — hikers of all ages — but especially mature hikers, will see how she and her husband met challenges head-on, lightened their load, planned meals and managed daily logistics for more than three weeks on the trail.

The Vermont Long Trail is a “pilgrimage of pain” like no other. A thru-hike is a grand adventure for those who have the physical and mental fortitude to attempt it. Most who do will fail. “Scribe” shares his most personal experiences on the nation’s first and most groundbreaking scenic long-distance hiking trail over three months riddled with comedy and blunder, from the highest highs to the lowest lows. This is a journey you won’t soon forget. Are you ready for one to call your own?

"A marvelous reflective meditation!" "The ending is superb" At 63 years of age, Terence Callery sets out on a personal quest to conquer the grueling 500 mile Camino de Santiago pilgrimage which ends at the tomb of St. James the Apostle in northwest Spain. After months of preparation, including daily three-hour training walks on coastal Maine roads near his home, he arrives in the spectacular Pyrenees Mountains. By the time he reaches Pamplona on the third day of his seven-week spiritual journey, he empties his backpack of several pounds excess belongings and begins the pilgrim’s fearless ...

In 1963 Colin Fletcher became the first man to walk the length of Grand canyon, below the Rim. It began with a dream, when he and a friend detoured from a cross-country trip to take a hurried look at the great natural wonder. Standing on the Rim, surrounded by the profound and almost mystical silence, Fletcher knew that something had happened to the way he looked at things. He also knew that the Canyon, with its depths and distances, cliffs, buttes, and hanging terraces, beckoned to him, calling him on a journey that would challenge both his body and his mind. 

Living a life of quiet desperation? Maybe you should run away, at least for a while. What Happens if You Keep Going? is a collection of 15 mostly true travel stories about accidental rites of passage and dirtbag pilgrimages. In a world of doomscrolling, political chaos, and creeping burnout, it’s encouragement that you don’t have to accept your fate—travel still provides a way to create the life you want. Among the stories, you’ll find: A teenage clown evangelist in Peru reluctantly accepting his life’s mission. A pilgrimage in Spain achieving the opposite of its intended result. ...

On a beautiful summer afternoon in 1998, Dan Stephens, a 22-year-old canoeist, was leading a trip deep into Ontario's Quetico Provincial Park. He stepped into a gap among cedar trees to look for the next portage - and did not return. More than four hours later, Dan awakened from a fall with a lump on his head and stumbled deeper into the woods, confused. Three years later, Jason Rasmussen, a third-year medical student who loved the forest's solitude, walked alone into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness on a crisp fall day.