Sports Travel

In early May 2006, a young British climber named David Sharp lay dying near the top of Mount Everest while forty other climbers walked past him on their way to the summit. A week later, Lincoln Hall, a seasoned Australian climber, was left for dead near the same spot. Hall's death was reported around the world, but the next day he was found alive after spending the night on the upper mountain with no food and no shelter.

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.

In Journeys North, legendary trail angel, thru hiker, and former PCTA board member Barney Scout Mann spins a compelling tale of six hikers on the Pacific Crest Trail in 2007 as they walk from Mexico to Canada. This ensemble story unfolds as these half-dozen hikers - including Barney and his wife, Sandy - trod north, slowly forming relationships and revealing their deepest secrets and aspirations. They face a once-in-a-generation drought and early severe winter storms that test their will in this bare-knuckled adventure.

Despite her success setting a self-supported Fastest Known Time record on the Pacific Crest Trail in 2013, Heather “Anish” Anderson still had such deep-seated insecurities that she became convinced her feat had been a fluke. So two years later she set out again, this time hiking through mud, rocks, and mountain blazes to crush her constant self-doubt and seek the true source of her strength and purpose. The 2,189 miles of the Appalachian Trail, from Maine to Georgia, did not make it easy.

In No Shortage of Good Days John Gierach takes listeners from the Smokies in Tennessee to his home waters in Colorado, from the Canadian Maritimes to Mexico - saltwater or fresh, it's all fishing and all irresistible. As always he writes perceptively about a wide range of subjects: the charm of familiar waters, the etiquette of working with new fishing guides, night fishing when the trout and the mosquitoes are both biting, and fishing snobbery, a pitfall he seems to have largely avoided.

By age 25, Heather Anderson had hiked what is known as the "Triple Crown" of backpacking: the Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, and Continental Divide Trail - a combined distance of 7,900 miles with a vertical gain of more than one million feet. A few years later, she left her job, her marriage, and a dissatisfied life and walked back into those mountains. In her new memoir, Heather shares her distinct message of courage - her willingness to turn away from the predictability of a more traditional life in an effort to seek out what most fulfills her.

Erik and Emily skillfully reveal that it is possible to live big on a shoestring budget while giving their family an astonishing education in adventure, creativity, purpose, and grit. Told alternately by Erik and Emily, Seven at Sea is a portrait of a captivating and resilient family and a celebration of the courage it takes to head for something over the horizon.

Carrying only basic camping equipment and a collection of the world's great spiritual writings, Belden C. Lane embarks on solitary spiritual treks through the Ozarks and across the American Southwest. For companions, he has only such teachers as Rumi, John of the Cross, Hildegard of Bingen, Dag Hammarskjöld, and Thomas Merton, and as he walks, he engages their writings with the natural wonders he encounters, demonstrating how being alone in the wild opens a rare view onto one's interior landscape, and how the saints' writings reveal the divine in nature.

In this collection of original stories, highly acclaimed novelist and outdoor writer William Tapply shares his finest stories of bird hunting in the Northeast country. Every season for over 30 years, Tapply has hunted the fields and backcountry of New England. Tapply’s warmth and knack for evoking the subtle, telling details of the places and hunts that he loves will stir a new appreciation and excitement in every listener. With his dog Burt, Tapply takes the listener out to his best spots.

John Gierach demonstrates once again that fishing, when done right, is as much a philosophical pursuit as a sport. Gierach travels to Wyoming and Maine and points in between, searching out new fly-fishing adventures and savoring familiar waters with old friends. Along the way he meditates on the importance of good guides, the challenge of salmon fishing, and the zen of fishing alone. On a more serious note, he ponders the damaging effects of disasters both natural and man-made.

Erik Weihenmayer was born with retinoscheses, a degenerative eye disorder that would leave him blind by the age of 13. But Erik was determined to rise above this devastating disability and lead a fulfilling and exciting life. In this poignant and inspiring memoir, he shares his struggle to push past the limits imposed on him by his visual impairment - and by a seeing world.

With his inimitable combination of wit and wisdom, John Gierach once again celebrates the fly-fishing life in Standing in a River Waving a Stick and notes its benefits as a sport, philosophical pursuit, even therapy: "The solution to any problem-work, love, money, whatever-is to go fishing, and the worse the problem, the longer the trip should be." After all, fly-fishing does teach important life lessons, says Gierach-about solitude, patience, perspective, humor, and the sublime coffee break.

Prêt(e)s à vous lancer dans l'aventure ? Depuis plus de 30 ans, Mike Horn explore les régions les plus sauvages et reculées de la planète. Tour du monde au niveau de l'équateur sans assistance, descente de l'Amazone à la nage, traversée de l'Antarctique en solitaire, expédition au Pôle Nord de nuit... Aujourd'hui, il vous partage sa philosophie de vie et son savoir à travers une série audio inédite.

During his remarkable lifetime, Harold Gatty became one of the world's great navigators (in 1931, he and Wiley Post flew around the world in a record-breaking eight days) and, to the benefit of posterity, recorded in this book much of his accumulated knowledge about pathfinding both on land and at sea. Applying methods used by primitive peoples and early explorers, the author reveals how to determine location, study wind directions and reflections in the sky, even how to use the senses of smell and hearing to find your way in the wilderness, in a desert, in snow-covered areas, and on the ocean.

Running offers much more than road racing! After a decade of writing about running, sports columnist Susan Lacke found herself in a serious running rut. The runners around her seemed to be thriving, setting goals, and having fun, but her own interest in running was lackluster. Seeking to reengage with the sport she once loved, Lacke spent a year exploring running in its many shapes and forms, taking on running challenges that scared her, pushed her, and downright embarrassed her.

Fly fishermen everywhere will enjoy these varied, witty, and engaging adventures by one of America’s finest outdoor writers. There is a long section on trout fishing called "Brookies, Browns, and Bows", and another on the challenges and excitement of saltwater fly fishing, and an exciting group of memoirs about fishing near home and in far-flung and often exotic places - like the Minipi, Bighorn, and Norfolk rivers, where the trout can beggar the imagination, and where frustration can be the occupational hazard.

Growing up a 90-pound weakling tormented by bullies in the schoolyards of Kansas, young Matthew Polly dreamed of one day journeying to the Shaolin Temple in China to become the toughest fighter in the world, like Caine in his favorite 1970s TV series, Kung Fu. While in college, Matthew decided the time had come to pursue this quixotic dream before it was too late. Much to the dismay of his parents, he dropped out of Princeton to spend two years training with the legendary sect of monks who invented kung fu and Zen Buddhism.

In this gripping first-hand account, four seasoned adventurers navigate a sophisticated, high-tech rowboat across the Northwest Passage. One of the "last firsts" remaining in the adventure world, this journey is only possible because of the dramatic impacts of global warming in the high Arctic, which provide an ironic opportunity to draw attention to the growing urgency of climate change. Along the way, the team repeatedly face life-threatening danger from storms unparalleled in their ferocity and unpredictability and bears witness to unprecedented changes in the Arctic habitat and inhabitants.

The most accomplished mountain runner of all time contemplates his record-breaking climbs of Mount Everest in this profound memoir - an intellectual and spiritual journey that moves from the earth’s highest peak to the soul’s deepest reaches.

Zane Grey, known and loved primarily for his Western novels, was an avid fisherman. When his writing started paying off, he managed to spend as many as three hundred days a year enjoying the sport. And while he is remembered for his record-breaking catches, such as the 464-pound marlin caught off the coast of Tahiti, Zane Grey also enjoyed freshwater fishing for bass, trout, steelhead, and salmon. In Tales of Freshwater Fishing, Grey recounts his expeditions on the Delaware River, off the West Coast of the United States, and in British Columbia.