Annotated Bibliography: Philosophical Books (The "Why" of Backpacking)

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY: Philosophical Books (Why We Backpack)

"Cultivate your mind, so that when you are alone, you'll be in good company."

--Ernest Palincsar (my 7th grade teacher)—

==============================

• Beyond the Wall by Edward Abbey:Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1984, 203 pages.Abbey, called the Thoreau of the West, compiled all his essays which deal with the desert into this volume. The deserts range from Alaska's Arctic desert to Mexico, and include deserts in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. The title refers to escaping beyond the walls which trap civilization, the walls of unreality, asphalt, cement, poison air, and mutilated rivers, and finding self, solitude, peace, and nature in the "old true world of the desert." With his usual droll humor, sarcasm, and disdain for most things human, Abbey revels in desert world life, often waxing poetic as he describes his experiences, philosophy, and inner feelings while in the areas he most loves. Numerous listings of the desert flora and fauna he encounters are included, and comparisons between the creatures of the desert and Man abound, with the former being praised and the latter being disparaged, both with good cause.

• Desert Solitaire:A Season in the Wilderness: A Celebration of the Beauty of Living in a Harsh and Hostile Land by Edward Abbey: Ballantine Books, New York, 1968, 303 pages.
  Written in his trademark poetic prose, rich in imagery and vocabulary, this spellbinding book recounts episodes, great thoughts, and observations during his two 6 month tenures as a National Park Service backcountry ranger in Arches National Monument, Utah. One chapter details his raft trip through Glen Canyon just before the dam flooded the canyon, creating Lake Powell. Reverence is shown to the canyon and all it contains, and disdain is heaped upon the Government which would so blithely destroy it just to create electricity for cities which he felt should not even be where they were. He glorifies his desert and all it represents and all the multifarious life it supports, and in response to comments regarding the lack of water in his desert, he replies that it has no such shortage. Rather, it has just the right amount, else there would not be the "generous spacing among plants and animals, homes and towns and cities."

• Down the River by Edward Abbey: Penguin Books, New York, 1982, 242 pages.
  Yet another compilation of Abbey's wonderful essays which had appeared in various big-name periodicals. Their purpose, he claims, is "to serve as antidotes to despair, [for] despair leads to boredom, electronic games, computer hacking, poetry, and other bad habits." The self-proclaimed agrarian anarchist rereads and responds to Thoureau, philosophizes while atop Aztec Peak firetower in Arizona with his wife, condemns the MX missile program and protests at Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant, but most of the essays revere river water trips, from the Canadian Yukon to the San Juan, and on to the granddaddy of them all, the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.

• The Journey Home: Some Words in Defense of the American West by Edward Abbey: Penguin Books, New York, 1977, 242 pages.
  This series of essays begins with Abbey's first adventure at the age of 17 (by bus, hitchhiking, and "riding the rails" hobo fashion) in 1944, when he traveled for 3 months from his home in Pennsylvania to Seattle and San Francisco and then back home through Arizona and New Mexico, beginning his love affair with mountains and desert. The essays range geographically from Utah to Hoboken, New Jersey, and include a car trip through Big Bend National Park on a road not fit for cars, summer stints atop fire lookout towers in Glacier National Park and on the Grand Canyon's North Rim, death and life in Death Valley, and a reenactment of Major Powell's raft trip down the Green River. As always, humanity is the aggressor and nature the victim as he delineates the rape of the land and the ultimate lure of the mountains and desert.

• The Lost Grizzlies: A Search for Survivors in the Wilderness of Colorado by Rick Bass: Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston,1995, 241 pages.
  Do grizzlies still live in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado? The author and friends made three separate backpacks/bushwacks into these mountains in search of confirming evidence, all the while trumpeting the mystery and extolling the spirit of the mountains and its predators. Images, allusions, metaphors, and similes predominate in his riveting poetry-prose as he transforms his observations and philosophy into spirtualism. Wilderness, mountains, flora, wildlife, and especially bears are treated reverentially. Mankind and his inventions are not.

• The Forests: A Celebration of Nature, in Word and Image compiled by Michelle Lovric: Courage Books/Running Press, Philadelphia; 1996; 62 pages.This handsome book combines artwork and photography with excerpts from works by the world's most renowned authors, all dealing with trees, woods, wilderness, and things natural.

• The Man Who Walked Through Time by Colin Fletcher: Vintage Books/Random House, New York; 1967; 248 pages.
  Colin Fletcher is the spiritual guru of backpacking, interspersing great thoughts with his remarkable experiences. In this book, he details his two-month long1967 walk through the entire length of the Grand Canyon, a walk never repeated because construction of the Glen Canyon dam precludes a repeat of the feat. The author had to battle heat, lack of water, and inaccessibility for resupply. He cached food and water and relied on three parachute drops of supplies. But the book is far more than a chronicle of a hiker. Rather, "It became a pilgrimage, a stunning spiritual odyssey during which one man began to understand mankind's singular place in the vastness of nature."

• The Ragged Mountain Portable Wilderness Anthology edited by Jan Adkins: Ragged Mountain Press, Camden, Maine; 1993; 138 pages.
  This compendium of excerpts from poetry and essays is arranged in categories such as Setting Out, The Land, Fellow Creatures, Adversity, and The Nature of Things. A nice feature is a brief biography for each quoted author. The selections are designed to provoke thought and perhaps entice you to locate the original and read more by the 69 authors included in the book.

• The Secret Worlds of Colin Fletcher by Colin Fletcher: Vintage Books/Random House, New York; 1989; 268 pages.
  This book celebrates the joy of solo backpacking as the author describes 8 different backpack and day trips and how they healed his soul and nourished his spirit. "A literary feat bordering on magic.... He shows us all how to break free in our minds by trail-blazing through the wilderness."

• Sacred Paths and Muddy Places: Rediscovering Spirit in Nature by Stephen Altschuler: Stillpoint Publishing, Walpole, NH; 1993; 241 pages.
  A compilation of essays written as the author discovers nature -- both Mother Nature and his own inner nature -- and learns how both can heal emotional pain, reaffirm values, and touch one's inner being, first during a four year sojourn in a shack in the New Hampshire woods, and later in California's Bay area.

• The Wilderness Companion: Reflections for the Back-Country Traveler by David Backes: NorthWord Press, Inc., Minocqua, WI; 1882; 112 pages. 
  This thought-provoking book is a compilation of excerpts from poetry and essays designed to stimulate thought, and through such reflection, to broaden one's self. The quotations are arranged into categories, such as Silence, Solitude, Beauty, Mystery, Harmony, Self-Knowledge, Truth, Life, Humility, Adversity, etc.
  
  

  ---

To see a World in a grain of sand,
And a Heaven in a wild flower,
To hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an hour.

-- William Blake -- 

---