Backcountry bookshelf

Across the Olympic Mountains: The Press Expedition, 1889-90 and Men, Mules and Mountains: Lieutenant O'Neil's Olympic Expeditions by Robert L. Wood. Classic accounts of the first systematic explorations of the Olympic Mountains by Europeans.

For fiction, Beyond Sleep by Willem Frederik Hermans. It's about a geological expedition to northern Norway that doesn't go according to plan.
 
I second anything by Edward Abbey, but especially Desert Solitaire, Beyond the Wall, and Down the River.

Others on my list:
River of Doubt, Candice Millard
The Last Season, Eric Blehm
One Man’s Wilderness, Richard Proenneke
The Secret Knowledge of Water, Craig Child’s
Finders Keepers, Craig Childs
Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer
The Places in Between, Rory Stewart
All the Wild that Remains, David Gessner
Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs, Wallace Stegner
Travels with Charlie in Search of America, John Steinbeck
The Life and Adventures of Nat Love, Nat Love

Enjoy!
 
Here's one to add to my list. Grizzly Country by Andy Russell. He was a hunter turned wildlife photographer, and reading all of his experiences with grizzly bears was incredible. I picked it up on a whim at a used book store in Missoula, and it may be my favorite nature/outdoors book now.
 
Another book, I gave this to my wife as a christmas present and she loved it. It is on my to read stack

American Wolf - Blakeslee
 
I would like to recommend the works of David Roberts who passed away last Friday, August 20th.
Behind the Bears Ears
In Search of the Old Ones
Sandstone Spine
The Lost World of the Old Ones
Escalante's Dream
Limits of the Unknown
Finding Everett Ruess
The Mountain of My Fear and Deborah
 
I would like to recommend the works of David Roberts who passed away last Friday, August 20th.
Behind the Bears Ears
In Search of the Old Ones
Sandstone Spine
The Lost World of the Old Ones
Escalante's Dream
Limits of the Unknown
Finding Everett Ruess
The Mountain of My Fear and Deborah

I was so bummed to hear he'd passed away! He was a wonderful writer.
 
I really enjoyed "Lost City: The discovery of Machu Pichu". If you are interested in this place, and how it came to be, this is an amazing book. The author avoids the tourist trekking routes, hiring local guides, and pieces together some pieces to the puzzle.
 
Required reading: Todd Burritt's "Outside Ourselves: Landscape and Meaning in Greater Yellowstone". It isn't a book about Greater Yellowstone so much as it is a book about wildness and recreation. For those interested in some deeper thinking about wildplaces and our human interactions with them.

 
Wow, it was interesting to see so many of my favorite books listed here!

Now I have a long list of books that I have never heard of to start looking for.

A couple of suggestions of ones I didn't see.....
Richard Halliburton. ... any of his travel books, easiest to probably get is Royal Road to Romance.
Erle Stanley Gardner. ...love his Baja books
Joe Kane .... Savages and Running the Amazon
John McPhee. ... pretty much any of them
Bruce Chatwin ... while I saw The Songlines listed I think In Patagonia might be better
M. Wylie Blanchet.... The Curve of Time, an amazing book about boating the inside passage back in the 20/30's

Switching gears.....
Oliver Sacks..... Uncle Tungsten
Wilfred Thesiger .....Arabian Sands
Jimmy Buffet..... A Pirate Looks at 50
Miles Harvey .... The Island of Lost Maps
Rebecca Skloot ..... The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Vernon Silver.... The Lost Chalice
Delia Owens ..... The Cry of the Kalahari

And if you have a sense of romance in you.....
Robert Waller ..... The Bridges of Madison County

These might have been listed but good Utah area books...
Ann Zwinger .... Wind in the Rocks
Joseph Bauman Jr. .... Stone House Lands

Sorry, got a little carried away
 
Now one excellent book is the book by Osbourne Russell, which is entitled: 'Journal Of A Trapper'.

Osbourne Russell was a trapper during the fur trade era and could read and write. He kept a kept a journal and later put it into book form which years and years later was published. He was mainly in the Greater Yellowstone Region and was trapping for ten years from about 1831 to 1841. Great Book!
 
Wow, it was interesting to see so many of my favorite books listed here!

Now I have a long list of books that I have never heard of to start looking for.

A couple of suggestions of ones I didn't see.....
Richard Halliburton. ... any of his travel books, easiest to probably get is Royal Road to Romance.
Erle Stanley Gardner. ...love his Baja books
Joe Kane .... Savages and Running the Amazon
John McPhee. ... pretty much any of them
Bruce Chatwin ... while I saw The Songlines listed I think In Patagonia might be better
M. Wylie Blanchet.... The Curve of Time, an amazing book about boating the inside passage back in the 20/30's

Switching gears.....
Oliver Sacks..... Uncle Tungsten
Wilfred Thesiger .....Arabian Sands
Jimmy Buffet..... A Pirate Looks at 50
Miles Harvey .... The Island of Lost Maps
Rebecca Skloot ..... The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Vernon Silver.... The Lost Chalice
Delia Owens ..... The Cry of the Kalahari

And if you have a sense of romance in you.....
Robert Waller ..... The Bridges of Madison County

These might have been listed but good Utah area books...
Ann Zwinger .... Wind in the Rocks
Joseph Bauman Jr. .... Stone House Lands

Sorry, got a little carried away
Thanks for the suggestions!
I will second "The Curve Of Time". I grew up in that area and have re-read it several times over the years
 
Great thread! I just ordered myself a stack of new books for 2022.

Some books I've enjoyed that I don't think I saw listed yet:

grand obsession - the story of harvey butchart, a math professor who pioneered and/or rediscovered untold routes within the grand canyon, hiking more than 12,000 miles in the process.

we swam the grand canyon - they swam the grand canyon

lasso the wind - a love letter to the american west

natural born heroes - about the resistance movement on the island of crete during nazi occupation, and latent human abilities

my side of the mountain (novel) - my favorite book as a young boy. a kid runs away from NYC to the catskills and learns to live off the land.
 
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