A Walk in the Woods

Title: A Walk in the Woods
Author: Bill Bryson
Publisher: DoubleDay, 1997 (First)
ISBN: 9780385408165
Pages: 320

This book is an interesting addition to the Bill Bryson collection of an avid reader as he is one of the greatest travel writers of the world. He and his friend Stephen Katz hiked through portions of the Appalachian Trail in the US in the spring of 1996 and this book is a humorous account of that memorable trek through the wilderness. The Appalachian Trail (AT) is an iconic, 2200-mile public footpath spanning 14 US states between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine. It is managed by a robust public-private partnership and is the longest continuous, hiking only footpath globally. It attracts three million visitors annually. There are three types of hikes in the trail: Thru-Hiking attempts to hike the entire trail in a single continuous journey; Section-Hiking attempts the trail in smaller, separate chunks over multiple years or decades; and Day-Hiking which explores short, easily accessible segments for a few hours or a single day. Bryson and his friend aspired for a Thru-Hike and started from Georgia on that note. The tough conditions on the trail and extreme weather due to a slowly-retreating winter prompted them to break the journey and attempt a sectional-hike near the end of the trail. Unfortunately, they stopped after two days probably because the hardships of the trek greatly outweighed their expectations of the possible benefits. In the meantime, Bryson did several Day-Hikes while the other was busy with work. In that sense, the duo attempted all three kinds of the trekking and in a single year. The book is eminently readable and a thoroughly enjoyable one. On the final count, the team walked 870 miles in total or just over a third of the entire trail.

A trekking route of this mind-boggling scale is a tribute to the vastness of the US since it could earmark such an expansive piece of real estate for a purely non-commercial activity. An expert hiker would take nearly five months to complete the entire trail. Bryson makes fun of similar trekking circuits in England for its shortness. It is possible to reach a comfortable inn at the end of each day's trek in England whereas the AT requires the enthusiasts to stay in the forest for many days at a stretch and even up to several weeks. The trail in the Appalachians was conceived in the 1920s by a visionary called Benton MacKaye as a hiking trail connecting a network of mountain camps where urban workers could come and refresh themselves. Myron Avery mapped it out and personally superintended the construction of hundreds of miles of path by voluntary labour. He extended its planned length from 1200 miles to well over 2000. The trail was formally completed in 1937. The path had no historical basis. It did not follow any Red Indian trails or colonial post roads and is a genuine product of twentieth century innovation. It's the largest volunteer-run undertaking on earth.

Bryson periodically snipes at the management of the trail and the surrounding woodlands by the government and there are elements which shock the readers. About 240 million acres of forests are owned by the government and its prime activity is to build roads through them! These are to allow private timber companies to get to previously inaccessible stands of trees. This was written in 1996 and the author mentions that 49 million acres are available for logging. Public infrastructure such as national parks are developed along the route, but these entities are severely deficient of funds even though visitor numbers soared. Camp sites and information centres have been shut, warden numbers slashed and essential maintenance is deferred to pitiable outcomes. Environmental hazards of the indirect, organic type also abound in the American wilderness. Extinction of tree and animal species is a grave concern. The widely prevalent American chestnut trees became a memory in a few decades due to an Asian fungus that made its way to the continent for which the tree was not evolutionarily prepared. The mortality rate was 100 percent. It infected a tree and spread its spores to nearby ones through breeze or woodpeckers. The trail is also infested with wild beasts such as the bear, moose or python. Bryson also suggests that microbes carrying a whole lot of infectious vectors such as the hantavirus are there, waiting for the trekkers. To cap it all, there are human murderers who attack the trekkers for no reason, often fatally.

Bryson's humorous take of his experience during travel is what makes his literary work a treasure for the readers. And there are lots and lots of it in this book. He observes that time loses its meaning during the trek which is expected to last several months. When it is dark, one goes to his sleeping bag and when it is light, he gets up and everything in between is just in between. You exist in a kind of mobile Zen mode, with your brain like a balloon tethered with string - accompanying, but not actually part of the body below. When a person is on the Appalachian Trail, the forest is his universe - infinite and entire. It is all he experiences day after day. Eventually it is about all he can imagine. He is aware, of course, that somewhere over the horizon there are mighty cities, busy factories, crowded freeways, but there in that part of the country, where woods drape the landscape for as far as the eye can see, the forest rules (p. 138). Even small pleasures away from the toil of hiking brings a flavour of paradise. The author quips that the greatest reason for being grateful to live in the twentieth century is the joy of stepping from outside on a really hot day into the crisp, clean, surgical chill of an air-conditioned establishment. This is a fact we Indians would readily acknowledge and agree to! Several people carry high-tech equipment to the trail to monitor the weather and all but Bryson admonishes this tendency by claiming that the mountains are not for them and they perhaps shouldn't have ventured to the trail. He also takes stock of what he and his fellow trekker gained for their arduous journey of several weeks. Though it didn't change their lives, he gained an appreciation and respect for woods and wilderness and the colossal scale of America. He lost a lot of weight as well and was remarkably fit for a time afterwards.

There are some interesting aspects related to the trail. Every 20 minutes on the AT, a trekker walked further than the average American walks in a week. The near-total dependence of American life on the automobile is seen here. Since the trek begins in early-spring, dangers of very cold weather predominates in the early phase whereas heat is the main concern towards the final stages. This book discusses about hypothermia (death due to low temperature). It tells the story of 16 Danish seamen who were rescued from the North Sea after only 90 minutes following a shipwreck, suddenly dropping dead on the rescue vessel due to earlier exposure to severe cold. This is just an urban myth and there are no official records of it. Bryson estimates in 1996 that about four million people visit the trail every year. But given its immense length it is never crowded, but the shelters sometimes are because they are few as compared to the number of hikers. The Appalachian is a geologically distinct feature in that these mountains are really very old, in fact one of the oldest landscape features on earth. When simple plants colonized the earth and first creatures crawled out of the sea, it was there at a height of three times its present figure. Most of it had withered away by erosion in the meantime. This is not so surprising. A typical mountain stream will carry away about 1000 cu.ft of mountain in a year in the form of sand granules and suspended particles. That's equivalent to the capacity of an oversized dump truck, but over millions of years, the mountain would grind down to a hill. Bryson cites several instances where the American authorities allows the degradation of its environment either by lack of resources or by wilful negligence. He remarks that the attitude of America to nature is peculiar. Either it is ruthlessly subjugated for commercial profit or is deified as something one drives to. Seldom it occurs to anyone that people and nature could coexist to their mutual benefit. The AT need not be all wilderness; it could be routed through rural villages with grazing cows and tilled fields.

Bryson did this trip with a friend whom he had not met for a long time. There were moments of friction, but he manages the situation without descending to ill feelings. The rest-shelters are unattended and in the middle of the forest. You can't reserve them for yourself as it is planned to be occupied on first-come-first-served basis. This necessitates meeting and cooperating with strangers every evening. There were all kinds of people and our duo both saw the heights of magnanimity and the depths of selfishness. Bryson had discontinued the trail a few days after the start and visited portions of it in his car. During this time, he generally substitutes his travel adventures with historical and geological snippets just to keep the readers amused.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 4 Star