Tomomi Hanamure, a Japanese citizen who loved exploring the rugged wilderness of the American West, was killed on her birthday May 8, 2006. She was stabbed 29 times as she hiked to Havasu Falls on the Havasupai Indian Reservation at the bottom of Grand Canyon. Her killer was a distressed 18-year old Havasupai youth. Pure Land is the story of this tragedy. But it is also the story of how McGivney's quest to understand Hanamure's life and death wound...

"An account of a record-setting thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail"--

"Annabel Abbs's Windswept: Walking the Paths of Trailblazing Women is a beautifully written meditation and memoir that reflects on that most fundamental way of connecting with the outdoors: the simple act of walking. In absorbing and transporting prose, Abbs follows in the footsteps of groundbreaking women, including Georgia O'Keeffe in the empty plains of Texas and New Mexico, Nan Shepherd in the mountains of Scotland, Gwen John following the French...

"Like most Americans at the time, Plennie Wingo was hit hard by the effects of the Great Depression. When the bank foreclosed on his small restaurant in Abilene, he found himself suddenly penniless with nowhere left to turn. After months of struggling to feed his family on wages he earned digging ditches in the Texas sun, Plennie decided it was time to do something extraordinary -- something to resurrect the spirit of adventure and optimism he felt...

"Emma Gatewood's life was far from easy. In rural Ohio, she managed a household of 11 kids alongside a less-than-supportive husband. One day, at age 67, she decided to go for a nice long walk. and ended up completing the Appalachian Trail. With just the clothes on her back and a pair of thin canvas sneakers on her feet, Grandma Gatewood hiked up ridges and down ravines. She braved angry storms and witnessed breathtaking sunrises. When things got particularly...

"A memoir of one young man's coming of age on a cross-country trek, told through the stories of the people of all ages, races, and inclinations he meets along the highways of America"--Amazon.com. Forsthoefel headed out the back door of his home in Pennsylvania with a backpack, an audio recorder, his copies of Whitman and Rilke, and a sign that read "Walking to Listen." Over the course of a year he faced an Appalachian winter and a Mojave summer....

"Just days after Raynor Winn learns that Moth, her husband of thirty-two years, is terminally ill, their house and farm are taken away, along with their livelihood. With nothing left and little time, they make the brave and impulsive decision to walk the 630 miles of the sea-swept South West Coast Path, from Somerset to Dorset, through Devon and Cornwall. Carrying only the essentials for survival on their backs, they live wild in the ancient, weathered...

Adventure on National Scenic Trails does not need to end when one is old. Not beginning long-distance hiking until age 60, Mary takes us with her on her trail journeys to experience encounters with the beauty of wilderness from the Eastern ranges of the Appalachian Trail, the challenges of desert, snow, granite and thick forests of the Pacific Crest Trail, and the rugged and the remote grandeur of the Continental Divide Trail. Along the way, she introduces...

"Raynor Winn returns with her third and most ambitious memoir, a chronicle of her journey across Great Britain. As the fracture lines between nations grow wider, how do we relate to each other, and to the land? Are we united enough to see protection of the environment as a priority? These are the questions Raynor asks herself as she embarks on her most ambitious walk to date with her husband Moth, from the dramatic beauty of north-west Scotland to...