Ever since my first hike at the Grand Canyon when I was 20, I’ve been hooked on the natural world. Now, 25 years later, I’ve spent more nights in a tent than in a bed, covered over 55,000 miles on foot, ascended mountains around the world, and experienced deep love and even greater losses. My time in nature has been a catalyst for grief and growth, an ideal place to process all aspects of the human journey. As an author, I share my journey, and as a reader, I connect with the stories of others who have also found their path through the highs and lows of life among mountains.
I love Alone in Wonderland because the author does not shy away from the rawness of life, loss, and grief.
She doesn’t varnish herself with a coat of pretend and allows readers to connect with her in all her flaws. I found myself connecting with her, even though our lived experiences are wildly different, because she writes in such a beautiful, vulnerable way.
Winner of the Indie National Excellence Award for Nonfiction Category.
Christine discovered long distance backpacking while surfing the internet at work. She decided that day to attempt to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail. One adventure led to another and a few years later she set out on the Wonderland Trail in Mt Rainier National Park.
Her Rugged Outdoors Woman persona started as a joke, a nod to the outdoor adventurer that she wished to be. But in the years since, she has come into her own as a backpacker, rock climber, and trail runner. This book is a testament to the…
This is a modern classic in the outdoor genre for a lot of reasons: strong prose, excellent storytelling, etc.
However, I loved the book because the author sets her story of loss, grief, and redemption against the backdrop of the Pacific Crest Trail…a place I know intimately.
I found myself able to travel through her process alongside her through the desert and the mountains I know like friends. Her ability to bring both her story and the trail to life through her words is unique and moving.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • 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 death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the…
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
I resonated with the story within What We Owe to Ourselves deeply.
The author is able to share her internal world deeply, while also vividly describing the natural beauty and challenging landscapes she traverses.
The two journeys are woven together so well that I felt like I was right there alongside her as she moved through both the Colorado mountains and her feelings about her own life choices.
What We Owe to Ourselves: a 500-mile hike on the Colorado Trail
As a mountaineer, I connected to Christine’s story immediately. However, Edge of the Map does more than just chronicle her life and death.
I found myself compelled to think through my own life choices and the possible ramifications for myself and those I love as I followed Christine’s boot prints across mountain landscapes to her tragic end.
In many ways, this book was less about resonating with someone else’s loss, but about contemplating the risks I take and their potential to put those who love me into the position of grief.
"The next must-read." - REI, Uncommon Path magazine - Finalist, Colorado Book Awards - Nominee, Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature - Nominee, Banff Mountain Book Award for Mountain Literature- Nominee, Reading the West Book Awards- Nominee, High Plains Book Award **WATCH OFFICIAL BOOK TRAILER ON PAPERBACK PAGE LISTING** A dramatic and inspiring adventure story based on the lives of trailblazing mountaineer Christine Boskoff and her partner Charlie Fowler. Edge of the Map traces Christine's life as a high-altitude climber and mountain guide - from a two-day climbing course while a Lockheed engineer in Atlanta to her remarkable leadership of…
Fourteen is a coming-of-age adventure when, at the age of 14, Leslie and her two sisters have to batten down the hatches on their 45-foot sailboat to navigate the Pacific Ocean and French Polynesia, as well as the stormy temper of their larger-than-life Norwegian father.
I met Gail immediately after hiking the PCT in 2013. She gifted me a copy of her book, and I devoured it.
I Promise Not to Suffer was a beautiful layering of both love and loss as Gail explored her relationship with her husband and the lengths she’d go to for him, as well as her journey through the loss of her mother. Her backdrop of the Pacific Crest Trail was instantly familiar to me, even though her emotional journey was not.
Re-reading it after the loss of a parent brought new levels of connection for me.
Gail Storey was definitely not a hiker, never mind a camper. But when her husband, Porter, leaves his job as a hospice doctor to hike the 2,663-mile Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada, she refuses to let him go alone--even though the prospect of leaving their comfortable Houston home, hiking twenty miles a day while popping anti-depressants and hormones, and sleeping outside for six months terrifies her. Carrying Porter's handmade ultralight equipment, they sizzle in the Mojave Desert, nearly drown fording a swollen river, kick steps up icy mountains in the High Sierra, and stumble through the lava fields…
In 2018, I became the first woman to hike the entire Appalachian, Pacific Crest, and Continental Divide National Scenic Trails within one calendar year. Now, I tell the story of that journey for the first time.
This is not simply the story of backpacking thousands of miles, although it inherently is that story. It is also the journey of grief. It is an examination of motivation and how the lens with which we view our closest relationships shapes not only our actions, but how we view ourselves. It is the story of gratitude for how far we’ve come and acceptance of how much farther we have to go….
This memoir explores a daughter's relationship with her father and the impact his life has had on her own.
As Tami watches Roy drift further and further away from his true self, she longs for his honesty and a close relationship with him. But the longer Roy self-implodes, the more…
