A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson

 

Hikers and others on the trail	History
Bill Bryson – started March 9, 1996 Stephen Katz   First part of trip – walked 500 miles and 1,250,000 steps   Total miles for Bryson – 870 miles, 39.5% of trail   Mary Ellen   Donna and Darren   Bob – wanted to “talk equipment”   Chicken John – always getting lost   Emma “Grandma” Gatewood – twice walked trail in late 60s, most famous thru hiker   Woodrow Murphy – walking fat man	1921 – Benton MacKaye – initial idea Charles Harris Whitaker – published idea   1925 – Appalachian Train Conference founded   1930 – Myron Avery – organized construction of trail   1948 – Earl V. Shaffer – first person to hike the trail from end to end, average 17 miles per day   1968 – National Trail System Act - under Stewart Udall, secretary of the interior,
Facts
2100+ miles, Georgia to Maine Five months and 5 million steps to walk entire trail Maintained by volunteers 10% of those who start actually finish Thru-hikers and section-hikers

 

For Discussion:

NOTE: Page numbers are from the First Anchor Books Edition, January 2007.

1.       Would you have put up with Katz?  At least at the beginning, Bryson was always either waiting for him or going back to find him. 

2.       Discuss Katz and Bryson’s friendship.  It seemed they really did not know each other that well and Katz did not have to be there.  On the other hand, Bryson wrote in chapter 4 that, “We seemed to be looking out for each other.  It was very nice.  I can put it no other way” (page 71).

3.       Katz’s view of the hike was much different from Bryson’s.  To Katz, “hiking was a tiring, dirty, pointless slog between distantly spaced comfort zones” (page 123).  Why didn’t he quit?

 

 

4.       Have you ever been in a very dense woods with no one else around?  On the one hand, Bryson wrote that “woods are spooky” (page 62) and “you are jumpier than Don Knotts with pistol drawn” (page 63).  He also wrote, “the woods are great providers of solitude, and I encountered long periods of perfect aloneness” (page 71).   How do you think you would feel alone in a dense forest?

5.       The author was very critical of both the National Park Service and the Forest Service.  Of the National Park Service, he wrote that it “has something of a tradition of making things extinct” (page 131) and it has a “more casual approach to endangering wildlife: neglect” (page 132).  Of the Forest Service, he said that what it mostly does is “build roads…for private timber companies” (page 66).  Were you surprised by these thoughts?

6.       Two hundred thirty miles of the AT are in Pennsylvania.  Our state did not get a very pleasant review in the book!  Did you know about all of the anthracite coal and oil in our state?  Did you think Pennsylvania received a fair assessment?

7.       When he and Katz were in Gatlinburg, he saw a four-foot-tall map of the trail and realized they had only covered two inches.  At that point they realized there were not going to make it to Maine.  They both found this fact liberating – “If we couldn’t walk the whole trail, we also didn’t have to...We could enjoy ourselves.” (page 150).  Did you understand why they were not disappointed but found it a positive realization?  Have you ever experienced giving up a goal only to find it a positive thing? 

8.       Did you like the mix of personal experiences on the hike with U. S. history and geography of the trail?  For example, the author wrote about Harper’s Ferry and Stonewall Jackson in chapter 13.

9.       Given that this book was written in 1998, Bryson reported that “every twenty minutes on the Appalachian Trail, Katz and I walked farther than the average American walks in a week” (page 183).  Do you think this is still true today?

10.   At the end of the novel, Bryson listed what he had gained from the venture.  Besides personal accomplishments (slept under the stars, for example), he said, “I understand now, in a way I never did before, the colossal scale of the world…I discovered an America that millions of people scarcely know exists” (page 393).  Did he convey these revelations well during the novel?   Did you gain any of that understanding through reading his account?

11.   Would you take on such a project or goal?