Nature Travel

When it was first published in 1998, The Backpacker's Field Manual set the standard for comprehensive backpacking books. Now exhaustively updated to offer a more complete view of backpacking today, it covers the latest developments in gear - such as Global Positioning Systems and ultralight hiking equipment - first aid, and Leave No Trace comping, and includes a chapter devoted to outdoor leadership resources and basics. Beginners and experienced hikers alike will find this book indispensable for trip planning strategies.

The bestselling author of No Shortcuts to the Top and K2 chronicles his three attempts to climb the world's tenth-highest and statistically deadliest peak, Annapurna in the Himalaya, while exploring the dramatic and tragic history of others who have made -- or attempted – the ascent, and what these exploits teach us about facing life's greatest challenges.

Did you know that listening to a story engages the mind twice as much as watching the the TV? Stories are known to improve mental cognition, improve memory, and keep the mind stimulated. Perhaps you (or your parents) are looking for some inspiring stories from the last century? Our audiobook is exactly that! A handful of 22 short-stories (each around 10 minutes) that will bring joy, entertainment & knowledge to those who have lived through the 1950's, 1960's, 1970's and all the way to the present day.

Back again with even more "mostly true" tales from the trail, Lawton Grinter's new book I Hike Again is sure to find a place in every adventurer's library! I Hike Again imparts hard-earned wisdom from trails both in the United States (Arizona Trail, Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, Continental Divide Trail, Grand Enchantment Trail, Wind River High Route) and abroad (Spain's GR11 and New Zealand's Te Araroa).

Different Natures takes you on three journeys. Each gives an honest and passionate insight into the evolution of a compulsive traveler. Looking for direction with the wrong eyes spawned Graham’s lust for wandering. The miles cleared his vision, and the hunger for longer distance grows with an insatiable appetite for new experiences.

Forty years ago, the park ranger Jon Waterman took his first journey into the Alaskan Arctic, to the Noatak headwaters. He was astonished by the abundant wildlife, the strange landscape, and its otherworldly light—how the “frequent rain showers glow like lemonade poured out of the sky.” Taken with a new sense of wonder, he began to explore the North on several trips in the 1980s.

Banff is one of the most renowned tourist destinations in Canada and the most popular in the Canadian Rockies. It is the oldest national park in Canada, the second in North America (following Yellowstone in Wyoming) and the third oldest park in the world (following Royal in Australia). It encompasses 6,641 square kilometres (2,564 square miles) including the Lake Louise area and part of the Icefields Parkway.

Tales of Tahitian Waters describes Grey's fishing expeditions to the Tahitian Islands during 1928, 1929, and 1930, in which he claims to be the first big-game fisherman to fish these waters. He came to the area after having passed nearby on other fishing trips. Hearing accounts of there being marlin that were 30 feet long and sharks that measured 50 feet in length, he became determined to pursue these fish and add to his many fishing records. It was here where he describes catching a marlin weighing 1,040 pounds. The catch was recorded as the first 1,000-pound fish ever caught.

Survive the unexpected. Statistically, you're more likely to die from a vending machine than a shark. But, Rob Nelson knows many shark survivors. His college girlfriend was attacked by a crocodile and his roommate, a grizzly bear. His wife was sucked by a wave down a blowhole, he was left stranded at sea after a storm sank his sailboat, and the list goes on and on. To Rob, these "improbable" altercations are "random acts of nature," and he's learned how to survive them.

For the '70s child, summer holidays didn't mean the joy of CentreParcs or the sophistication of a Tuscan villa. They meant being crammed into a car with Grandma and heading to the coast. With just a tent for a home and a bucket for the necessities, we would set off on new adventures each year stoically resolving to enjoy ourselves. For Emma Kennedy, and her mum and dad, disaster always came along for the ride no matter where they went.

In this collection of his finest work from such magazines as Outside and Smithsonian, Krakauer explores the subject from the unique and memorable perspective of one who has himself battled peaks like K2, Denali, Everest, and, of course, Eiger.

In this compelling narrative, O'Connor seeks out neuroscientists, anthropologists and master navigators to understand how navigation ultimately gave us our humanity. Biologists have been trying to solve the mystery of how organisms have the ability to migrate and orient with such precision - especially since our own adventurous ancestors spread across the world without maps or instruments. O'Connor goes to the Arctic, the Australian bush and the South Pacific to talk to masters of their environment who seek to preserve their traditions at a time when anyone can use a GPS to navigate.

Orphan. Thief. Witch. Twelve-year-old Quicksilver lives as a thief in the sleepy town of Willow-on-the-River. Her only companions are her faithful dog and partner in crime, Fox - and Sly Boots, the shy boy who lets her live in his attic when it’s too cold to sleep on the rooftops. It’s a lonesome life, but Quicksilver is used to being alone. When you are alone, no one can hurt you. No one can abandon you. Then one day Quicksilver discovers that she can perform magic. Real magic. The kind that isn’t supposed to exist anymore.

"It’s a preposterous plan. Still, if you do get up it, it’ll be the hardest thing that’s been done in the Himalayas." Thus spoke Chris Bonington when Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker presented him with their plan to tackle the unscaled West Wall of Changabang - the Shining Mountain - in 1976. Bonington’s was one of the more positive responses; most felt the climb impossibly hard, especially for a two-man, lightweight expedition.

Warum ist es am Rhein so schön? Das fragen sich Elke Heidenreich und Tom Krausz und brechen gemeinsam zu einer Reise auf, ausgestattet mit Literatur über den Rhein, mit Notizbüchern und einem Fotoapparat. Beginnend bei den beiden Quellen des Rheins in den Alpen, gelangen sie wandernd, mit Auto und per Schiff auf eine der verkehrsreichsten Wasserstraßen der Welt: "Wir wollten selber sehen, riechen, fühlen, hören, nachdenken, erfahren." Sie finden Geschichten, Ahnungen und sehr persönliche Eindrücke, manchmal schön, manchmal unbequem und immer faszinierend.

Wilderness guide and lifelong Alaskan Bjorn Dihle weaves personal experience with historical and contemporary accounts to explore the world of brown bears - from encounters with the Lewis and Clark Expedition to frightening attacks including the famed death of Timothy Treadwell, the controversies related to bear hunting, the animal's place in native cultures, and the impacts on the species from habitat degradation and climate change.

Prior to his untimely death, in 2010, Captain Phil Harris was a star of Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch, the hit show that follows the exhilarating lives of Alaskan crab fishermen as they brave the vicious Bering Sea. He led his crew through hurricane-force winds and four-story-high waves, hauling in millions of pounds of crab and raking in millions of dollars. Phil worked hard, but he played even harder....

Joe Tasker lies, struck down by illness, in a damp, bug-infested room in the Himalaya, wondering if he will be well enough to climb Dunagiri, his first venture to the "big" mountains. One of Britain’s foremost mountaineers and a pioneer of lightweight climbing, he is about to attempt one of the first true "Alpine-style" climbs in the Greater Ranges. The Dunagiri attempt forms part of Tasker’s striking tale of adventure in the savage arena of the mountains.

Among the most beautiful and deadly mountains in the world, Mount Washington has challenged adventurers for centuries with its severe weather. From the days when gentlefolk ascended the heights in hoop skirts and wool suits to today’s high-tech assaults on wintry summits, this audiobook offers extensive and intimate profiles of people who found trouble on New Hampshire’s Presidential Range, from the 19th century through the present day.

Leaving her garden to the mercy of the slugs, award-winning writer Alys Fowler set out in an inflatable kayak to explore Birmingham's canal network, full of little-used waterways where huge pike skulk and kingfishers dart. Her book is about noticing the wild everywhere and what it means to see beauty where you least expect it. What happens when someone who has learned to observe her external world in such detail decides to examine her internal world with the same care?