Forest and Crag: A History of Hiking, Trail Blazing, and Adventure in the Northeast Mountains, Thirtieth Anniversary Edition

Shortly after starting to hike as a past time I became curious about the history of hiking. There were very few books on the subject and this seemed like a good one to start with. It has answered many of my questions as well as provided hours of entertaining stories about people and places in the Northeast US. The book is big, well researched and interesting....

It looks big, scholarly, and intimidating. It is big, scholarly, lively, fascinating, and fun. (I had it on the shelf for several years, afraid to bring it down because it was so thick. But once I started reading it -- short chapters, lively prose, cogent discussions -- I wished it were longer because I didn't want it to end.) Although obstensibly a history of trail-building in America's northeast, it is just as much a story of humanity's relation with the environment -- and in this role it is far more trenchant and closely reasoned than Simon Schama's "Landscape and Memory". When I started, I thought I would like only those chapters about mountain regions where I had already hiked, but in fact I found the chapters on regions I hadn't yet hiked to be even more fascinating.

A friend turned me on to this book. I had passed on it a few times due in part to it's huge size. However I found that it was everything I ever wanted to know about the mountains and forests of New England. It's written in a very accesible manner that never leaves the reader without a smile for long. It's very obvious that the text contained in this book was researched with an artists attention to detail. And it shows in the nearly 200 pages of appendix!To those in the North East the name Guy Waterman and his wife Laura have long been synonymis with hiking and climbing in the the region. A lot of hulabaloo was made over his death and the poetic yet puzzling statement it makes. In any case, after reading this book it becomes easy to see why he was so well loved, respected, and admired by so many of his peers. If this book was $100.00 it would still be worth it. The amount of labor that went into this book is priceless. It was very obviously a labor of love. Buy it and read it.

This book is a great indepth look at mountainiering in the northeastern United States. It has to be the most complete history of the northeast mountains. It starts back when Darby Fields and many others started to explore the area, and runs through the nineteen eighties. Laura and Guy Waterman researched for ten years in order to put this book together. They are both acomplished writers and have a way of making a history exciting and humorous. It is a great tribute to the early settlers of the area and how hearty they were. I recomend this book to anyone who has done some hiking in the northeastern United States or are just interested in the history of the land. This is a must buy for all serious northeastern mountainiers.