What an
odd title! Also, an unusual format, landscape rather than portrait.
The book is paperback and provides an excellent taster of the quite
new Pacific Northwest Trail in the USA. This is trail that was long
in the making, the result of many years pioneering work by Ron
Strickland, who wrote his own account in Pathfinder: Blazing a New
Wilderness Trail in Modern America, but they are very different
books. The PNT starts in Glacier National Park in Montana just south
of the Canadian border and ends on the Pacific coast near Seattle,
some 1200 miles.
Townsend's
book is an account of his solo hike along the PNT. Each of the seven
chapters covers a section of the trail. There is a heading comprising
a chapter name, the start and finish points of the section, the dates
and mileage and also a very helpful map showing the section with his
route and the PNT guidebook route. He didn't follow the guidebook
route all the time for various reasons. Whilst reading, I often found
myself referring back to the maps.
He writes
well and manages to make this far more than the "I got up early
..." type of account and my interest was sustained throughout. I
wanted to be there doing it as well. It wasn't an easy walk though,
far from it. There was a navigable trail along some of the route but
in some parts he was bushwacking and struggling to discern a path. It
was a tough walk and to complete it, as he did, was quite an
achievement. At other times, though, there were road sections that
were tedious and an e-reader came in useful!
The book
is generously illustrated with colour photographs taken by the author
as he went and complement the text very well.
At the
back of the book following the account of the walk are appendices
setting out some statistics, navigation, food (as resupply was
something that had to be well planned in advance), equipment and
clothing, finishing with a short section on photography. He took
1,868 photographs in the course of the walk.
I enjoyed
this book. It is well written and an engrossing read. It made me want
to be on the next flight across the Atlantic!
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