AUTHOR: Bill Bryson
PUBLISHED: 2006
GENRE: Non-Fiction/Memoir
For most people, the Appalachian Trail is an abstract thing. At best, it evokes a romantic notion of a purer, cleaner America, on the move and enjoying our bounty. At worst, people hear Appalachian and start having flashbacks to “Deliverance” and Ned Beatty squealing like a pig. As for me, I can technically say I hiked the Appalachian Trail: about 10 feet of it, where it crossed onto the small trail at High Point State Park that I was walking on a family camping trip. I can’t say that it meant anything to me at that time. But after A Walk in the Woods, I feel like it should have.
Bill Bryson, a prolific writer with an easy, conversationalist style, had been living in England for years before moving back to New England. When he discovers a small trail near his home, he begins to study the Appalachian Trail (or the AT) and its significance before coming to the unusual decision to walk it himself. This is no small feat: the AT runs over 2,000 miles from Georgia to Maine. Walking it takes months, and less than 25% of people who start at one end make it all the way to the other. Making it in one season means leaving when there’s still snow on the ground and forging ahead through whatever the next two seasons throw at you. Everything you need goes on your back, and “bed” means a wooden platform you may or may not be sharing with other hikers (or bears, or rats, or ants). It’s a feat for the fittest outdoorsmen.
Bryson is neither fit not an outdoorsman. His hiking companion, Steven Katz – an old high school buddy he hasn’t seen in 25 years and who, Bryson states, shows up looking like “Orson Welles after a very bad night” – is even less equipped, and seems to be more avoiding something back home than looking for an adventure on the trail. Logic should have dictated that they shake hands and part ways, but they don’t. They start to hike. And despite being the Felix and Oscar of the AT – Bryson has to stop every few miles and wait for Katz to catch up, all the while hoping Katz hasn’t gotten frustrated and thrown something important into a gully – they make it work.
Bryson’s greatest talent is his storytelling, and his anecdotes about those he and Katz meet along the way are hilarious, especially Mary Ellen, a short, frumpy woman who latches on to them for a few days and spends the entire time criticizing everything they do and honking to clear out her ears. (They guiltily ditch her, only to discover she has been talking smack about them to the next group of hikers to pass through.) Best of all are his stories of Katz himself; in particular, the story of the Laundromat, Bertha’s underwear, and Bertha’s husband. It’s a little absurdity among the wilderness.
In amongst tales of the Trail, Bryson gives short histories of the American park system and the Trail, and of the changing attitude towards our public places. It is probably not a surprise that these parks are woefully understaffed and underfunded. Many of the support stations along the way are closed, and the towns that grew up next to trail breaks are either dying or have lost all connection to the trail. But the trail remains, even as the history of all is forgotten.
In the end, they only make it as far as Tennessee. But “only as far as Tennessee” is still 500 miles of hard hiking in snow and rain and heat with 50 pounds on your back and blisters on your feet. It’s 500 miles of wilderness, of forest and open space and quiet. It’s 500 miles of the beauty and magnitude that so astounded the first European settlers, and that is so rapidly disappearing in a sea of construction and urbanization. 500 miles is an accomplishment to be applauded. Bryson’s story will make you laugh and hopefully inspire you – if not to walk the Appalachian Trail, then at least to get outside and show some appreciation for the natural world around us.
LENGTH: 397 pages
MAINSTREAM OR NOT: Oh, sure. Hiker memoirs are all the rage. NOT.
SO, SHOULD I READ IT OR NOT?: For hikers and campers, this will be an inspiration. For fans of a good story or a little history, it will be a fun time. For people who think that any sleeping arrangement that doesn’t involve 500-thread count sheets is an act of sadism, it will be horrifying.
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