Our favourite books
Sometimes adventures have to wait...
But that doesn't mean we can't still have adventures in our mind!
When I can't get out into the hills and mountains (or out to sea!), the net best thing is a good book! Either to plan the next adventure, or to take inspiration from the great adventures of others. Below are some of my favourite books! All available on Amazon (click on the image).
Walking the Wainwrights: 64 walks to climbs the 214 Wainwrights of Lakeland
By Graham Uney.
I love Graham - not just because he supervised my ML assessment and passed me! He has been a member of the Lake District National Park Felltop Assessor team and one of the leading providers of Mountain Leader training in the UK. This is the 'official' blurb:
"In this book you’ll find 64 routes that, if you complete them all, by default you will also have completed the Wainwrights. A few of the summits are featured in more than one walk. That’s ok. You can do them more than once! Why do we need a guide book on the fells of the Lake District if Wainwright wrote seven of them? Well, I should say right here that this book is not intended to replace Wainwright’s Pictorial Guides. They are superb books. But, they were written in the 1950s and 60s, and yes, some things in the hills have changed in the intervening years. Another reason is that many walkers struggle to devise full-day walks using the Wainwright guide books. Yes, he has detailed pretty much every conceivable way of getting to each individual summit, but this leaves the reader having to then come up with their own plan to make a longer day of it by continuing over one or more other fells. Wainwright didn’t describe day walks in these seven guidebooks. He described individual ways up and down each one. So, please buy the Wainwright guidebooks if you haven’t got them on your bookshelves already. Just use them alongside this book."
Blokes Up North
By Kev Oliver & Tony Lancashire
This is a brilliant book of a proper adventure. Two Royal Marines attempting the legendary North West Passage in the Arctic summer in a small, largely open, sailing boat. A fantastic adventure and a fantastic read! The official blurb:
"In a post-exploration world, two relatively ordinary blokes, serving Royal Marines, decided they wanted an extraordinary 21st century adventure. In this refreshingly honest account they re-live the highs and lows of sailing and rowing a tiny open boat, completely unsupported, through one of the most iconic wilderness waterways on the planet - the Northwest Passage across the top of Canada. They describe battling with an Arctic storm miles from land and being caught in the worst sea ice for more than a decade. At one point they are forced to drag Arctic Mariner, their seventeen-foot boat, across ten miles of broken pack ice to reach open water. Their story is enriched by the Inuit people and the incredible wildlife they met along the way, including all-too-close encounters with both grizzly and polar bears. And they relate with honesty how the isolation and stresses of the high Arctic shaped the bond between their two very different personalities. This is neither an expose of global warming, nor a detailed study of Inuit culture. It is not particularly long on the historical quest for the Northwest Passage. It is quite simply the tale of two blokes, up north. b/w photographs, maps, drawings."
Higher Love: Climbing and Skiing the Seven Summits
By Kit DesLauriers
An inspiring account of ski mountaineering literally around the world. Makes you want to book a flight, pack a bag, and go! The official blurb:
"In 2006 Kit DesLauriers made history by becoming the first person to climb--and then ski--from the summit of each continent’s highest mountain, the famed Seven Summits. Centered on this quest, her book Higher Love represents a hero’s journey, rich with personal insights, life-threatening consequences, and a thrilling crescendo. Spanning seven continents in just two years, this deeply personal memoir recounts Kit’s initially secret journey that would change her life forever. From braving Antarctica’s bone-chilling temperatures to trudging through an African rainforest, from corn snow on the slopes of Australia to blue ice on Everest, Kit leads you up each mountain and gives you a heart-racing ride back down. This candid, fast-paced story shows how in¬spiration, teamwork, and honoring our true nature blazes the trail to every summit, on or off the mountain."