Books

[peakbagger]

I have seen a few excerpts for this book in Northern Woodlands.

Thirty-Eight: The Hurricane that Transformed New England

http://northernwoodlands.org/shop/item/thirty-eight

 

[jrbren]

I am currently reading (audio version)

A Passion for Nature: The Life of John Muir
by Donald Worster

I think it is very good.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5533235-a-passion-for-nature

I also enjoyed some of the others books mentioned, including recently
Hiking Through by Paul Stutzman, Following Atticus and Cheryl Strayed's Wild. Touching the Void & Escape from Lucania are classics I read many years ago, highly recommend as well.

 

[iAmKrzys]

Has anyone read 'Lost in the Wild: Danger and Survival in the North Woods'?

I ended up buyig this book on Amazon. My reading of it started kind of slow - a few pages at a time but once I got to about half way point when I felt that peope who were lost were running out of time I got totally drawn in and I couldn't stop reading until was I done. I found it to be a really fun read and I highly recommend it.

There were actually two things that I learned from the book:

1. to determine directions from the Sun, put in a stick in the ground, so that it points directly towards the Sun and casts no shadow, then wait for 20 minutes and the newly formed shadow points to the East.
2. "The rule of dominant handedness" (that's what the book calls it) says that if someone is right-handed then this person will walk in circles to right side of their intended direction in absence of visible landmarks or points of reference such as the Sun and similarly a person who is left-handed will tend to walk in circles to the left of intended direction. I googled for this rule and really couldn't find any references to this supposed rule but instead I found a scientific paper on the subject and it appears that it is far from certain what actually causes people to walk in circles: http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(09)01479-1

 

[TomK]

There were actually two things that I learned from the book:

1. to determine directions from the Sun, put in a stick in the ground, so that it points directly towards the Sun and casts no shadow, then wait for 20 minutes and the newly formed shadow points to the East.

Why wait 20 minutes? The instructions that came with my Swiss Army watch says to point the hour hand towards the sun, and the halfway point to 12 is South, going clockwise towards 12 in the morning, counter-clockwise towards 12 in the afternoon. And if daylight savings time is in effect, use the hour marker before the hour hand rather than the hour hand itself.

Never tried it though....

TomK

 

[egilbe]

"Not Without Peril, 150 Years or Misadventure on the Presidential Range in New Hampshire" by Nicholas Howe
"Desperate Steps: Life, Death, And Choice Made in the Mountains of the Northeast"
"Joe Dodge" William Lowell Putnam
"Green Cognac" William Lowell Putnam

WLP has written several books on Alpinism and was an early Hutmaster of the AMC and a friend of Joe Dodge. Interesting reading.

 

[iAmKrzys]

Why wait 20 minutes? The instructions that came with my Swiss Army watch says to point the hour hand towards the sun, and the halfway point to 12 is South, going clockwise towards 12 in the morning, counter-clockwise towards 12 in the afternoon. And if daylight savings time is in effect, use the hour marker before the hour hand rather than the hour hand itself.

Never tried it though....

TomK

What I find advantageous with the stick method is that you don't even need a watch.

 

[Stan]

What I find advantageous with the stick method is that you don't even need a watch.

I doubt many hikers are without some sort of time piece and if you know the time you can "fabricate" a watch, if even only in your mind, to apply the celestial tool described by TomK. I sometimes use a simplified version of pointing the hour hand towards the sun and reading 12 as south and 6 as north with disregard for the time zone ... and my watch is digital ... but I'm not using it for a precise position, just to make sure I didn't get turned around in the euphoria of the hike or thinking about dinner.

 

[sierra]

Annapurna by Maurice Herzog. A gripping tale of the first ascent of one of the toughest 8000 meter peaks by a French team in 1950. Classic old school mountaineering and a highly acclaimed book.

 

[DougPaul]

Annapurna by Maurice Herzog. A gripping tale of the first ascent of one of the toughest 8000 meter peaks by a French team in 1950. Classic old school mountaineering and a highly acclaimed book.

Unfortunately portions of that account are fiction... After you read it, follow it with "True Summit: What Really Happened on the Legendary Ascent of Annapurna" by David Roberts.

Doug

 

[sierra]

Unfortunately portions of that account are fiction... After you read it, follow it with "True Summit: What Really Happened on the Legendary Ascent of Annapurna" by David Roberts.

Doug

No kidding? oh well. I'm kind of out of the old style expedition book reading phase. I used to collect and sell them, so I got burnt out on the subject. Literary license is fairly common, then and now.

 

[jfb]

Annapurna by Maurice Herzog. A gripping tale of the first ascent of one of the toughest 8000 meter peaks by a French team in 1950. Classic old school mountaineering and a highly acclaimed book.

I enjoyed that book also (even if it was controversial), as well as the 1970 British ascent starring Dougal Haston and Don Whillans. Another good book was the tragic 1939 expedition to K2. Also, Walter Bonatti's autobiography, "The Mountains of My Life," which has a bit about K2.

 

[sierra]

I enjoyed that book also (even if it was controversial), as well as the 1970 British ascent starring Dougal Haston and Don Whillans. Another good book was the tragic 1939 expedition to K2. Also, Walter Bonatti's autobiography, "The Mountains of My Life," which has a bit about K2.

In the 1980's when I was cutting my teeth so to speak. I was enthralled with books relating to Himalayan expeditions. I owned well over a hundred. I started reading pre 1953 Everest stories then focused on major siege style climbs. By far the Chris Bonington books were my favorites. One of the coolest books I had was " The Seventh Grade" by Rienhold Messner, he was the cutting edge for Alpine Climbs. He used to take ice baths to toughen up for climbs, hardcore stuff. One more great one, Doug Scott who I met once in Boston. His book" Himalayan Climber, A lifetime's quest to the worlds greatest ranges" would keep most entertained.

 

[DougPaul]

No kidding? oh well. I'm kind of out of the old style expedition book reading phase. I used to collect and sell them, so I got burnt out on the subject. Literary license is fairly common, then and now.

Hertzog published the "marketing" version and the other expedition members were contractually prohibited from publishing their own versions. In reality, he was an amateur who was saved by the professional guides. Roberts obtained (posthumous) access to some of the other members diaries which presented a very different picture from that in the book including a significant amount of tension between the members.

I also used to read my share of expedition books... "Conquistadors of the Useless: From the Alps to Annapurna" by Lionel Terray (translated by Geoffrey Sutton) is another good one.

Doug

 

[egilbe]

Another book I'm enjoying reading: On Trails by Robert Moor. He discusses how trails come to be...trails. He starts with pre-historic history on how the first creatures came to move, to trails animals create, to trails man creates and why. It very informative.

 

[iAmKrzys]

Has anyone here read The Shortest Straw: Search and Rescue in the High Sierra ?