By Paul Carrier
Why bother hiking the Appalachian Trail, with all of the discomfort and grubbiness of a slog from Georgia to Maine, when Bill Bryson has done it (or at least a chunk of it) for you?
A Walk in the Woods is Bryson’s chuckle-a-minute account of the trek he took along sections of the more than 2,100-mile AT. Accompanying him was sidekick Stephen Katz, a grumbling, unathletic, overweight buddy with an excessive fondness for any snack that bears the Little Debbie label.
Their adventures on what was, at the time of its completion, the longest footpath in the world may inspire some readers to follow in their footsteps. But many more are likely to thank Bryson for exorcising the trail-trekking demons of would-be hikers.
With characteristic wit, Bryson explains that he rationalized the excursion in several ways before setting out. It would, he writes, “get me fit after years of waddlesome sloth” and make him feel more at home in his adopted New Hampshire town.
“When guys in camouflage pants and hunting hats sat around in the Four Aces Diner talking about fearsome things done out-of-doors, I would no longer have to feel like such a cupcake,” he writes.
And so, he and Katz head off to Georgia, where the two neophyte hikers take to the woods.
I enjoyed the book so much when it first came out about a decade ago that I recently decided to reread it. A Walk in the Woods was no disappointment the second time around. In fact, it’s so funny that I irritated my wife no end by reading sections to her at all-too-frequent intervals.
Take, for example, an “awesomely unlovely” bunkhouse that Bryson and Katz get stuck in while taking shelter from a snowstorm.
“If the mattress stains were anything to go by, a previous user had not so much suffered from incontinence as rejoiced in it,” Bryson writes. “He had evidently included the pillow in his celebrations.”
But Bryson doesn’t only take aim at the funny bone. He also offers impressive helpings of ecology, biology, politics and history.
Among other things, we learn that the Appalachian Trail has been “moved around” from time to time and that partly as a result of those periodic relocations no one seems to know precisely how long the AT is.
We discover that the Great Smoky Mountains have more native species of trees than all of Europe, that so-called experts give conflicting advice on how to protect yourself from bears in the wild, that 70 percent of all eastern bird species have suffered drops in population since the 1960s and that 42 species of mammals disappeared from America’s national parks in the 20th century.
In a lighter vein (and Bryson is a master of the lighter vein), we learn that “woods are spooky” because they may conceal “armed, genetically challenged fellows named Zeke and Festus.” When Bryson visits Harpers Ferry, W. Va., we get his take on Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson, whom Bryson labels an interesting fellow for the simple reason that “few people in history have achieved greater fame in a shorter period with less useful activity in the brainbox.”
In the end, though, Bryson's greatest accomplishment here involves something more than placing his comic sensibility and professorial bent on display. He makes us appreciate the Appalachian Trail, so that even if we have no intention of hiking it, we’re still damn glad it’s out there. Just in case.
“When guys in camouflage pants and hunting hats sat around in the Four Aces Diner talking about fearsome things done out-of-doors, I would no longer have to feel like such a cupcake,” he writes.
And so, he and Katz head off to Georgia, where the two neophyte hikers take to the woods.
I enjoyed the book so much when it first came out about a decade ago that I recently decided to reread it. A Walk in the Woods was no disappointment the second time around. In fact, it’s so funny that I irritated my wife no end by reading sections to her at all-too-frequent intervals.
Take, for example, an “awesomely unlovely” bunkhouse that Bryson and Katz get stuck in while taking shelter from a snowstorm.
“If the mattress stains were anything to go by, a previous user had not so much suffered from incontinence as rejoiced in it,” Bryson writes. “He had evidently included the pillow in his celebrations.”
But Bryson doesn’t only take aim at the funny bone. He also offers impressive helpings of ecology, biology, politics and history.
Among other things, we learn that the Appalachian Trail has been “moved around” from time to time and that partly as a result of those periodic relocations no one seems to know precisely how long the AT is.
We discover that the Great Smoky Mountains have more native species of trees than all of Europe, that so-called experts give conflicting advice on how to protect yourself from bears in the wild, that 70 percent of all eastern bird species have suffered drops in population since the 1960s and that 42 species of mammals disappeared from America’s national parks in the 20th century.
In a lighter vein (and Bryson is a master of the lighter vein), we learn that “woods are spooky” because they may conceal “armed, genetically challenged fellows named Zeke and Festus.” When Bryson visits Harpers Ferry, W. Va., we get his take on Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson, whom Bryson labels an interesting fellow for the simple reason that “few people in history have achieved greater fame in a shorter period with less useful activity in the brainbox.”
In the end, though, Bryson's greatest accomplishment here involves something more than placing his comic sensibility and professorial bent on display. He makes us appreciate the Appalachian Trail, so that even if we have no intention of hiking it, we’re still damn glad it’s out there. Just in case.
