Best hikes, treks, tramps in the world.
The 2009 edition is longer available from LP. Not even as a digital version. 😦
I highly doubt it will ever be updated.
You can still find used versions on Amazon at high cost.
I searched until I found one in a used book store. I’ll hang on to it. There’s nothing better for the region, in my opinion.
A 2015 Spanish language guidebook is closest – Trekking por Chile by Compass, the map company.
If you only need to see some of the Lonely Planet guide, check the version archived on Google Books.
Uwe has authored a series of hiking guides to Iceland, the most recent in English.
This one covers the most popular hikes, Laugavegur and Fimmvörduháls trails.
Details on Unique-iceland.com/en/.
Published 2015.
At 960 pages this hard cover coffee table publication looks impressive. But it’s ultimately fairly useless for the serious hiker.
All 1000 hikes get 2-3 paragraphs whether a 10 minute climb up the Cologne Cathedral. Or the 14,000mi (23,000km) Trans-Canada Trail.
There are few links or references.
It’s grouped in these sections:
Overland
Urban
Mountain
Heritage
Coastal & Shoreline
Two index sections are valuable:
Walks by Country
Walks by Distance
The longer walks selected are good. The authors do know hiking. But with 1000 chosen, it would be difficult to miss the best of the best.
They did somehow miss a couple of our top 10:
You can give this 1001 book a miss.
Or … skim it for inspiration. Some of the photos are wonderful.
Kiwi George Spearing is a fireman who decided to hike the PCT long before the book WILD became a hit with the general public.
It’s charmingly amateurish. George is a hiker, not a writer.
Still … I feel most hikers will enjoy this lightweight read. 🙂
Pacific Crest Trail veteran John Manning:
… The element of challenge was greater simply because fewer people had managed a thru’ hike; the information available for planning wasn’t so easy available; and lightweight gear hadn’t evolved to the same extent (George hiked with a 60lb pack on some stages) as it has today. Therefore, it’s true to
say that when George hiked the PCT there was a logistical challenge that today might seem to be on the wane.Yet there’s no chest beating here. George recounts his PCT odyssey with humour, self-deprecating glee and a real feel for the camaraderie of the trail, even though he encountered only a handful of characters route (compare that to the hundreds I met in ‘04). As I read this book I was able to imagine myself back among the forests, scaling passes, crossing rivers and relishing George’s company and his sardonic Antipodean style of humour along the way.
Some of the tales herein will be familiar to many hikers – the bear encounters, the occasional “temporary displacement”, the varied battles with the weather – but in a way they’re all the richer for the matter-of-fact way they’re recounted.
Dances isn’t intended to be a blockbuster; it was written for personal reasons and George was talked into publication by friends clamouring for copies. The layout takes a little getting used to – every sentence starts on a new line but the only indentations come where a fresh paragraph would normally begin; the text therefore seems to have a stop-start nature – but persevere and you’ll be glad you did. What do you want, waymarking?
Not the West Highland Way
by Ronald Turnbull
Cicerone Press
The West Highland Way is one of the UK’s finest long distance walks, but the path runs close to a busy main road and avoids the mountain tops. NOT The West Highland Way describes alternative routes over mountains, smaller hills or high passes to all but one of the Way’s nine stages. With add-on day trips over Ben Lomond or Beinn Dorain.
___
Here at besthike we are NOT recommending the West Highland Way. There are plenty of better alternatives
Turnbull’s book details many of those alternatives close to the old trail.
Check it out for sure before deciding on the WHW.
related – Planning a West Highland Way walk
September in Leh, Ladakh I found an excellent hiking guidebook by Depi Chaudhry in a bookstore.
Collins (2009)
It includes 43 treks in Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. A quick summary of each along with good maps, altitude charts, colour photos, etc.
Depi has hiked 70% of the routes in the book; the rest put together with information collated from other trekkers. Having completed the best of the bunch already – Markha Valley – I’m finding it a good starting point for deciding where to head next.
So far I’m leaning towards hiking out of Dharmsala and Manali on my next Indian adventure. 🙂
related – Depi each season guides a section of a Trans Himalaya Trek.
Scheduled for publication October 27, 2015. I’ll be buying it immediately. 🙂
Paul Leroux is a serial killer wanted for murdering women in North Carolina. When the police start to catch up with Leroux, he panics and decides to escape to Canada on the Appalachian Trail, where thru-hikers use trail names and travel anonymously.
Leroux, who is overweight and unhealthy, struggles at first on the trail but begins to relax as he gets stronger and can utilize the physical changes he gains from his intense hiking as a disguise. His urge to kill, however, is invigorated by the nearness of female hikers, and his intention to stay away from them on his trip begins to weaken.
His life is further complicated when Desert Storm veteran Karl Bergman, who is also trying to escape his own failure, becomes suspicious of Leroux and begins to pay careful attention to his every move.
Leroux becomes increasingly panicked as he realizes that both Bergman and the police are close on his tail as he races to the border hoping to find a haven with his Canadian family. In this cat-and-mouse thriller, Ray Anderson dives inside two men’s minds as they struggle to fight their identities and confront their fears and internal turmoil.
Ray Anderson is a thru hiker who goes by the name Hamlet. He was inspired to write this book on a dark, stormy night while walking the Appalachian Trail in 2003.
… The last mile to camp is always a drag. Almost always. Or always. I could be strolling through a wonderland of gold and diamonds and chocolate fountains and unicorns, but moving like an uninspired sloth. My feet are tired. My butt is gently chafed. I need nutrients.
In camp, I immediately engage in some sort of polite battle with fellow tent-pitchers over The Best Spot. “No, you pick first.” “No, no – you pick.” I invariably choose one that seems flat and windless. Seems.
Time for water math. Do I have enough? Should I filter tonight or in the morning? How much should I grab for dinner? …
Kolby brought this excellent blog to my attention. 🙂 I’m now subscribed.
Appalachian Trail Conservancy:
Check out this exclusive behind-the-scenes interview from the film “A Walk in the Woods.” Travel writer Bill Bryson (Robert Redford) takes a long-lost old friend (Nick Nolte) for a hike along the Appalachian Trail, which stretches more than 2,000 miles from Georgia to Maine.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Official trailer for ‘A Walk in the Woods’ starring Robert Redford, Nick Nolte, Emma Thompson and Nick Offerman.
Theatrical Release Date: September 2nd, 2015
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
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