But the point is that Bryson read the books full of troubling statistics. There’s nothing to say that they won’t start a modest rampage tomorrow.”Įven as the style of writing kept me in high spirits, I am now twice as aware of how perilous the wilderness would be for a pansy-ass bookworm like me. “And is 500 certified attacks really such a modest number, considering how few people go into the North American woods? And how foolish must one be to be reassured by the information that no bear has killed a human in Vermont or New Hampshire in 200 years? That’s not because the bears have signed a treaty, you know. I laughed – screeched, really – at the way he phrased his fears, but then I started to worry myself. After reading too many books about bear attacks, he describes in detail exactly how badly he would react in such an encounter, fantasizing horrors before he even sets out on his hike. Some of the funniest moments in A Walk In The Woods come straight out of Bryson’s imagination. Upsetting too, sometimes, because nature is seriously suffering from mankind’s meddlesome ways. His research into the Trail’s historical idiosyncrasies manages to make even the dispute of mileage or the preservation of mollusks fascinating. How does one prepare for the woodsy unknown? Bill Bryson starts out with cautious optimism and a wonderfully dry sense of humor about his own limitations. He would have to brave disorienting extremes in temperature, wild animals, and awkward encounters with his fellow hikers. He would have to camp out, carrying an enormous pack with his stove and tent and food supply up mountains and through the snow. When Bill Bryson decided to venture into America’s barely tamed mountains for “a walk in the woods,” he was headed into at least 2,000 miles of mostly pub-less wilderness.

After the cliffs and the wind and the muck and the moss, though, there was always a warm pub and a spartan youth hostel to be found at the end of a day’s hike. Like Bryson, before he set off on this big adventure, the majority of my wilderness walking experience took place in the UK and Ireland, where you wander damply past glorious cliffs and get battered by the wind. I have hiked exactly none of the Appalachian Trail.

I got A Walk In The Woods out of the library on a recommendation of a friend who has hiked parts of the Appalachian Trail.

A walk in the woods book review