Download or read book Halfway to Heaven written by Mark Obmascik and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-05-12 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fat, forty-four, father of three sons, and facing a vasectomy, Mark Obmascik would never have guessed that his next move would be up a 14,000-foot mountain. But when his twelve-year-old son gets bitten by the climbing bug at summer camp, Obmascik can't resist the opportunity for some high-altitude father-son bonding by hiking a peak together. After their first joint climb, addled by the thin air, Obmascik decides to keep his head in the clouds and try scaling all 54 of Colorado's 14,000-foot mountains, known as the Fourteeners -- and to do them in less than one year. The result is Halfway to Heaven, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Obmascik's rollicking, witty, sometimes harrowing, often poignant chronicle of an outrageous midlife adventure that is no walk in the park, although sometimes it's A Walk in the Woods -- but with more sweat and less oxygen. Half a million people try climbing a Colorado Fourteener every year, but only twelve hundred have reported summiting them all. Can an overweight, stay-at-home dad become No. 1,201? With his ebullient personality and sparkling prose, Obmascik brings us inside the quirky, colorful subculture of mountaineering obsessives who summit these mountains year after year. Honoring his concerned wife's orders not to climb alone, Obmascik drags old friends up the slopes, some of them lifelong flatlanders tasting thin air for the first time, and lures seasoned Rockies junkies into taking on a huffing, puffing newbie by bribing them with free beer, lunches, and car washes. Among the new friends he makes are an ex-drag racer trying to perform a headstand on every summit, the lead oboe player in a Hebrew salsa band, and a climber with the counterproductive pre-climb ritual of gulping down four beers and a burrito. Along the way, Obmascik experiences the raw, rowdy, and rarely seen intimacy of male friendship, braced by the double intoxicants of adrenaline and altitude. Though danger is always present -- the Colorado Fourteeners have killed more climbers than Mount Everest -- Mark knows his aging scalp can't afford the hair-raising adventures of Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, and his quest becomes a story of family, friendship, and fraternity. In Obmascik's summer of climbing, he loses fifteen pounds, finds a few dozen man-dates, and gains respect for the history of these storied mountains (home to cannibalism, gold rushes, shoot-outs, and one of the nation's most famed religious shrines). As much about midlife and male bonding as it is about mountains, Halfway to Heaven tells how weekend warriors can survive them all as they reach for those most distant things -- the summits of mountains and a teenage son. And as one man exceeds the physical achievements of his youth, he discovers that age -- like summit height -- is just a number.

Download or read book Climb Glacier National Park Volume Three written by Blake Passmore and published by . This book was released on 2013-04-15 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volume Three: The Northern Highline, Lake McDonald and Sperry Glacier Basin

Download or read book Day Hiking Mount St Helens written by Craig Romano and published by Mountaineers Books. This book was released on 2015-04-24 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *CLICK HERE to download sample hikes from Day Hiking Mount St. Helens* 80 day-hiking routes, summit routes, camping options, and more General details on visitors’ centers and nature trails along each of the four major Monument access roads Popular winter trails also included Whether you just want to stretch your legs on a short interpretive trail near the visitors’ center or you’re looking for an uncrowded backcountry route on the side of an active volcano, Day Hiking: Mount St. Helens will help you select the adventure you’re looking for. This addition to the popular "Day Hiking" series includes a new feature: hikes of less than 3 miles—nature and interpretive trails—that are featured in short write-ups, without a point by point description or map. They are a bonus to the meat of this collection of the best trails on Mount St. Helens and in the surrounding forests. The guide also includes photos, maps, descriptions, and driving directions to all the longer trails, indicating those with camping sites and opportunities to link hikes for multi-day adventures. The book is organized according to the mountain’s aspects—east side, west side, south side, or north side, which is how many people explore it. **Mountaineers Books designates 1 percent of the sales of select guidebooks in our Day Hiking series toward volunteer trail maintenance. For this book, our 1 percent of sales is going to Washington Trails Association (WTA). WTA hosts more than 750 work parties throughout Washington’s Cascades and Olympics each year, with volunteers clearing downed logs after spring snowmelt, cutting away brush, retreading worn stretches of trail, and building bridges and turnpikes. Their efforts are essential to the land managers who maintain thousands of acres on shoestring budgets.

Download or read book Hiking Through written by Paul Stutzman and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 2012-03-12 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With breathtaking descriptions and humorous anecdotes from his 2,176-mile journey along the Appalachian Trail, Paul Stutzman reveals how immersing himself in nature and befriending fellow hikers helped him recover from a devastating loss.

Download or read book Up to Heaven and Down to Hell written by Colin Jerolmack and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-20 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A riveting portrait of a rural Pennsylvania town at the center of the fracking controversy Shale gas extraction—commonly known as fracking—is often portrayed as an energy revolution that will transform the American economy and geopolitics. But in greater Williamsport, Pennsylvania, fracking is personal. Up to Heaven and Down to Hell is a vivid and sometimes heartbreaking account of what happens when one of the most momentous decisions about the well-being of our communities and our planet—whether or not to extract shale gas and oil from the very land beneath our feet—is largely a private choice that millions of ordinary people make without the public's consent. The United States is the only country in the world where property rights commonly extend "up to heaven and down to hell," which means that landowners have the exclusive right to lease their subsurface mineral estates to petroleum companies. Colin Jerolmack spent eight months living with rural communities outside of Williamsport as they confronted the tension between property rights and the commonwealth. In this deeply intimate book, he reveals how the decision to lease brings financial rewards but can also cause irreparable harm to neighbors, to communal resources like air and water, and even to oneself. Up to Heaven and Down to Hell casts America’s ideas about freedom and property rights in a troubling new light, revealing how your personal choices can undermine your neighbors’ liberty, and how the exercise of individual rights can bring unintended environmental consequences for us all.

Download or read book Scraping Heaven written by Cindy Ross and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cindy Ross chronicles the experiences she and her family had while traveling along the Continental Divide.

Download or read book Zen on the Trail written by Christopher Ives and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-09-11 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover how hiking can be a kind of spiritual pilgrimage—calming our minds, enhancing our sense of wonder, and deepening our connection to nature. Evoking the writings of Gary Snyder, Bill Bryson, and Cheryl Strayed, Zen on the Trail explores the broad question of how to be outside in a meditative way. By directing our attention to how we hike as opposed to where we’re headed, Ives invites us to shift from ego-driven doing to spirit-filled being, and to explore the vast interconnection of ourselves and the natural world. Through this approach, we can wake up in the woods on nature’s own terms. In erudite and elegant prose, Ives takes us on a journey we will not soon forget. This book features a new prose poem by Gary Snyder.

Download or read book 50 Hikes in New Jersey Fifth Explorer s 50 Hikes written by New York-New Jersey Trail Conference and published by The Countryman Press. This book was released on 2020-04-28 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A treasury of trails that takes you to the best wild places in the Garden State Known more for its urban areas than its green spaces, the Garden State is actually a crossroads for major interstate trails including the Maine-to-Georgia Appalachian Trail, the 150-mile Highlands Trail, and the 60-mile Delaware and Raritan Canal State Park Trail. Hike along the Appalachian ridge or over the ragged Wyanokies, pass into pine barrens or through marshes and dunes on the coast, and you’ll see that New Jersey has so much more to offer than just cities. These 50 routes cover walks, hikes, and backpacking trips from the Kittatinnies to Cape May. With excursions from 1.5 to 28 miles in length, accompanied by driving directions, trailhead information, difficulty ratings, and detailed maps, this roster of hikes will suit everyone from families out for a nature walk to adventurous backpackers up for challenge.

Download or read book Backpacking with the Saints written by Belden C. Lane and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014-11-12 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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--Bell Mountain Wilderness with Søren Kierkegaard, Moonshine Hollow with Thich Nhat Hanh--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. The discipline of backpacking, Lane shows, is a metaphor for a spiritual journey. Just as the wilderness offered revelations to the early Desert Christians, backpacking hones crucial spiritual skills: paying attention, traveling light, practicing silence, and exercising wonder. Lane engages the practice not only with a wide range of spiritual writings--Celtic, Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, Hindu, and Sufi Muslim--but with the fascination of other lovers of the backcountry, from John Muir and Ed Abbey to Bill Plotkin and Cheryl Strayed. In this intimate and down-to-earth narrative, backpacking is shown to be a spiritual practice that allows the discovery of God amidst the beauty and unexpected terrors of nature. Adoration, Lane suggests, is the most appropriate human response to what we cannot explain, but have nonetheless learned to love. An enchanting narrative for Christians of all denominations, Backpacking with the Saints is an inspiring exploration of how solitude, simplicity, and mindfulness are illuminated and encouraged by the discipline of backcountry wandering, and of how the wilderness itself becomes a way of knowing-an ecology of the soul.

Download or read book Hiking the Holy Mountain written by John McKinney and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Walking with Inigo written by Gerald Coleman and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Psalms in My Backpack written by Linda Jane Niedfeldt and published by Xulon Press. This book was released on 2020-04-25 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Psalms in My Backpack is a memoir of our family hiking 262 miles of the Appalachian Trail (AT)--without cell phones--and surviving.Here I am on the AT, weighed down by my 35-pound backpack. In 1990, hiking the AT was meant to be a fun adventure. But as our family of six lugged overstuffed backpacks, we weren't always having fun.We carried burdens heavier than our packs as we scaled rocky cliffs or cowered in raging storms. Sometimes we leaped over poisonous snakes and suffered from thirst and hunger.But even in desperate times, we trusted that God would provide safety and peace. Our trust is expressed in Psalm verses that introduce each of the 154 vignettes. Original photos and pencil drawings complete the tale.Told from a mom's perspective, the story appeals to adventurous moms--and dads--backpackers and wanna-be-hikers.As you read, you might think the risks of the AT were too extreme. Maybe you'll admire us or scorn us. Maybe our adventure will encourage you or discourage you from backpacking. Whatever your reaction, I'm confident this story will entertain and transform you. Linda Jane "Janie" Niedfeldt is an outdoorsy, small-town gal. After college, marriage, and four children, she dabbled at teaching but focused on writing. Niedfeldt wrote two children's historical fiction books, then dozens of newspaper stories and a few national magazine articles. In 1995, she and her husband Tom started a travel business, taking her small-town life perspective to more than 75 countries. Now in retirement, she's written two more children's novels and her first memoir, Psalms in My Backpack.

Download or read book Hiking the Wonderland Trail written by Tami Asars and published by Mountaineers Books. This book was released on 2012-07-24 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: CLICK HERE to download the chapter on "Backpacking" from Hiking the Wonderland Trail "There's no other trip, trail or peak that any backpacker should rank higher on his life list than the Wonderland Trail." - Backpacker magazine * Comprehensive and affectionate guide to one of the nation’s iconic wilderness trails * Everything you need to help plan this 93-mile trek, whether done in one trip or several * Lavish, full-color design, yet informative and practical, with 125 photographs and 18 maps * Find even more details, updates and added trip extensions at hikingthewonderlandtrail.com Washington State's famed Wonderland Trail is a spectacular 93-mile route that circumnavigates Mount Rainier, challenging hikers with its strenuous 22,000 feet of cumulative elevation gain and loss. Hiking the Wonderland Trail: The Complete Guide to Mount Rainier's Premier Trail is an authoritative guidebook penned by Washington native Tami Asars, a professional instructor on hiking the trail, a third-generation hiker of the Cascade mountains, and seven-time hiker of the entire Wonderland Trail. In this guide Asars draws on her experience, covering these essentials: * How to work with the Wonderland Trail permit reservation system, and when to apply * Recommended gear--with a checklist--and ways to reduce pack weight, prevent blisters, and stay warm and dry * How to pack the perfect backpack * Food and fuel caching on the Wonderland, tips and instruction * Detailed camp-to-camp route descriptions and suggested itineraries * How to extend your adventures with the Northern Loop Trail and the Eastside Trail Over the years, Asars has taken extensive notes that she shares at workshops and in the field. Hiking the Wonderland Trail distills her boot-tested knowledge so that everyone can enjoy the magic of Mount Rainier's premier trail.

Download or read book Dances with Marmots written by George G. Spearing and published by George Spearing. This book was released on 2005 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The account of a 4300km solo hike from Mexico to Canada through the desert areas and high Sierra Nevada of California and the Cascade ranges of Oregon and Washington.

Download or read book Waterfalls and Wildflowers in the Southern Appalachians written by Timothy P. Spira and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2015-03-02 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If you love waterfalls, here are some of the best hikes in the Southern Appalachians. And if you love plants--or simply would like to learn more about them--you will be in hiking heaven: naturalist Tim Spira's guidebook links waterfalls and wildflowers in a spectacularly beautiful region famous for both. Leading you to gorgeous waterfalls in Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Georgia, the book includes many hikes in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and along the Blue Ridge Parkway. As he surveys one of America's most biologically diverse regions, Spira introduces hikers to the "natural communities" approach for identifying and understanding plants within the context of the habitats they occupy--equipping hikers to see and interpret landscapes in a new way. Each of the 30 hikes includes: * a detailed map and GPS coordinates * a lively trail description highlighting the plants you are most likely to see, as well as birds and other animals along the way * an associated plant species list Also featured: * beautiful color photographs of 30 destination waterfalls, 125 plants, and more * detailed descriptions of 125 key plant species * 22 drawings to help identify plant structures * a glossary of botanical terms

Download or read book God Walk written by Mark Buchanan and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2020-07-14 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on Jesus's example of walking, bestselling author Mark Buchanan explores one of the oldest spiritual practices of our faith. What happens when we literally walk out our Christian life? We discover the joy of traveling at the speed of our soul. We often act as if faith is only about the mind. But what about our bodies? What does our physical being have to do with our spiritual life? When the Bible exhorts us to walk in the light, or walk by faith, or walk in truth, it means these things literally as much as figuratively. The Christian faith always involves walking out, as again and again we find the holy in the ordinary. "Come, follow me," Jesus said, and then he was off. The most obvious thing about Jesus's method of discipleship, in fact, is that he walked and invited others to walk with him. Jesus is always "on the way," "arriving," "leaving," "approaching," "coming upon." It's in the walking that his disciples are taught, formed, tested, empowered, and released. Part theology, part history, part field guide, God Walk explores walking as spiritual formation, walking as healing, walking as exercise, walking as prayer, walking as pilgrimage, suffering, friendship, and attentiveness. It is a book about being alongside the God who, incarnate in Jesus, turns to us as he passes by--always on foot--and says simply, "Come, follow me." With practical insight and biblical reflections told in his distinct voice, Buchanan provides specific walking exercises so you can immediately implement the practice of going "God speed." Whether you are walking around the neighborhood or hiking in the mountains, walking offers the potential to awaken your life with Christ as it revives body and soul.

Download or read book Seriously Good Freezer Meals written by Karrie Truman and published by Robert Rose. This book was released on 2018-02-22 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Seriously Good Freezer Meals provides home cooks with the tools they need to make delectable, healthy meals using fresh and flavoursome ingredients, with information on shopping, cooking, freezing, thawing and everything in between. This unique compilation of 150+ family- and freezer-friendly recipes, made without processed foods, will help busy families save time and money while still enjoying home-cooked meals. The book provides an all-encompassing look at cooking freezer meals: getting organized, making lists, shopping strategies, nutritional information, making a lot of freezer meals in one day, freezer organization, freezer meal swaps, thawing and more. It also offers a mini starter programme for beginners, an intermediate programme and, for more advanced cooks, a guide to making 50 freezer meals in a day. Within the beautifully photographed full-colour pages you will discover recipes for every meal of the day and for every occasion."--