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Zusammenfassung von A Walk in the Woods

Name: A Walk in the Woods
Rating: 4.2 (58 reviews)
Author: Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson

Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail

4.2 (58 Bewertungen)

28 Min.

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Plants & Trees

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What’s in it for me? Learn how every great adventure begins with a single step.

You might think embarking on a mighty adventure isn’t something you’d do on a whim. Maybe you’ve been thinking about giving yourself a new challenge for years, read about heroic adventures in the news, or perhaps a friend did something similar once and you want to outdo him.

None of these apply to Bill Bryson. One day, soon after moving to New Hampshire, he realized he was within spitting distance of one of the greatest walking routes in the world. Bryson announced to all and sundry that he was going to walk the route and needed a companion. Somewhat to his surprise, his old school friend Stephen Katz responded to the call.

Join Bryson on this unexpected adventure along the Appalachian trail as he discovers not just the beauty, nature, wildlife, culture and ecology of America, but also some less enticing aspects of the trip. Traveling always has its ups and downs, but know that all that it takes is a little will and effort and you can soon be on the journey of your life.

In these blinks you’ll learn

just how much forest the contiguous US has;
which national park contains a third of the world’s mussels; and
what tricks trees employ to fend off creatures.

The beautiful and challenging Appalachian Trail was carved out by volunteers in the twentieth century.

You don’t just step out the door not knowing what you might face. The author Bill Bryson had his mind set on walking the Appalachian Trail, but he had to be prepared.

The Appalachian Trail is perhaps the most famous hiking route in the United States. It begins in Georgia and stretches all the way to Maine, cutting through forests, mountains and plains. What’s surprising is that the trail was entirely artificially created. This isn’t a route used by generations of Native Americans or colonists as they moved across the country. Instead, it was the vision of one man – an American forester and conservationist named Benton MacKaye.

MacKaye formulated his plan back in 1921. He wanted to establish a behemoth of a trail some 1,200 miles in length. Over the years, MacKaye kept refining this vision, but it wasn’t until a passionate hiker named Myron Avery got involved that things got started.

Avery mapped out the trail and used crews of volunteers from hiking clubs to track it out on the ground. By August 1937, it was finished. Along the way, a further 1,000 miles had been added to MacKaye’s original plan. The completed trail is around 2,100 miles in total – although estimations of its length vary – with seasonal factors and road building work also affecting its length through rerouting.

Volunteers established the path, and even to this day, it’s volunteers who run it.

The Appalachian Trail is no walk in the park, however.

Even for seasoned hikers and explorers in top physical condition, the lengthy trail presents a serious physical challenge. Its landscape is varied – there are gentler stretches, but a fair few mountains too, the highest of which peaks at around 6,700 feet.

You can easily encounter unexpected challenges when walking the route. Bryson researched the dangers lurking in North American woods as he prepared himself for tackling the trail. Bears, for instance, are a present danger. There are roughly 500,000 black bears in North America, and many have been spotted along the Appalachian Trail. Thankfully, there are no grizzly bears in its vicinity. These more famous terrors are mostly found in and around the Yellowstone National Park, much further west.

Now that he knew just what sorts of adventure he could be facing, Bryson felt ready to lace up his boots.

There’s a whole lot of forest for the US Forest Service to look after, but it isn’t always so ecological.

It was early March, 1996, and the author was with his old school friend Stephen Katz. They’d both grown up in Des Moines, Iowa, and had decided to tackle the Appalachian Trail together. They began in Georgia, at Amicalola Falls State Park just below Springer Mountain – the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail.

The first part of the trail carried the two companions through a wood. They weren’t to see a public highway for four days, much less anything resembling a town.

Hiking on the Appalachian Trail means dealing with all sorts of weather and terrain.

By the time Bryson and Katz set off on the trail that March, spring still hadn’t arrived. Temperatures were yet to rise, and there was barely a chirrup to be heard. The absence of the birds and insects made for one very quiet forest.

Most of the time, Bryson walked a good way ahead of Katz, who was struggling with the pace. Each was alone in his solitude. Despite the pleasingly temperate weather, fellow hikers were nowhere to be seen, and they could go for hours without coming across anyone.

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park isn't just large – its wildlife and natural beauty are also something to behold.

It was rewarding enough to have made it through the snow, but an even greater prize was at hand. Bryson and Katz had now made it to Tennessee.

Before them lay the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, a staggering 800 square miles of forest laden with animals and plant life. The trail through the Smokies – as it’s more informally known – follows the border between Tennessee and North Carolina. It's 71 miles long and requires summiting 16 mountains, each one more than 6,000 feet high. In fact, the highest point of the entire Appalachian Trail – The Clingmans Dome mountain – is situated in the Smokies, standing an impressive 6,643 feet tall.

The Appalachian Trail is full of amazing trees, but sadly they’re extremely vulnerable.

While the author was walking the trail, he had many an hour to observe the beauty that surrounded him. He found himself especially drawn to the trees and soon came to appreciate their wonder.

Trees can suck up incredible volumes of water to their uppermost branches and leaves. They do this by making use of three layers of living tissue: Phloem, cambium and xylem. These sit just beneath the bark, surrounding the dead, thick core of wood. Three thin layers of cells – that’s it. Incredibly, on warm days, large trees can lift hundreds of gallons of water.

Lethargic Americans are lucky to have Shenandoah National Park, despite its issues.

The town the two companions had spied was Waynesboro, Virginia. In many ways, it’s a typical American town, built for car users despite being situated just off the Appalachian Trail. Amazingly, the author found himself greeted with disbelief when he asked for walking directions to the local Kmart. Where was his car? He wanted to buy some insect repellant and didn’t think anything of the mile or so walk in each direction.

Maybe it’s not so surprising that Bryson was met with this reaction. People generally aren’t big walkers in the US, and it turned out there were no pedestrian sidewalks on the way to Kmart.

The trail passes through Harpers Ferry, a Civil War site of historical significance.

Bryson and Katz knew they’d had a good run of it and decided to end this particular leg of their hike in Front Royal, a small town on the northern edge of the Shenandoah. They planned to meet again in Maine a few months later and continue the trail from there. But first, Bryson wanted to try a few stretches by himself in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire. His car would get him to the starting point, and he’d plan a route accordingly to get him back to his vehicle.

His first stop was Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, a site closely associated with the American Civil War of 1861-65.

The Appalachian Mountains were formed when continents collided, but now they’re shrinking, slowly but surely.

More than a billion years ago, the continents we know today were just one single, large landmass. This supercontinent was known as Pangaea and the sea that encircled it was called Panthalassa.

Turbulence in the earth’s mantle caused Pangaea to break into several continents that slowly – very slowly – drifted and occasionally collided with one another. The continents have actually come together several times since their initial parting. On the third of these collisions, about 470 million years ago, the Appalachian Mountains began to be formed.

The White Mountains are a particularly dangerous section of the Appalachian Trail.

Driving back and forth between spots on the trail was all well and good, but the author wanted to get some real distance under his belt before he met up with Katz again, so Bryson had his kind wife drop him off near Stockbridge. He wanted to hike for three days through the wooded Berkshire hills of southwest Massachusetts.

The Berkshires comprise around 100,000 acres of forest. They teem with wildlife, despite hunting having reduced animal numbers a great deal over time.

Maine's thickly forested Hundred Mile Wilderness is well deserving of its name.

By the time August rolled around, the author was ready for the next stage of the trail. He and Katz were together once again. The plan this time was to make their way through Maine. Their goal was Mount Katahdin, the northernmost point of the Appalachian Trail.

To get there, they’d have to make their way through the Hundred Mile Wilderness – by no means an easy task. The route is just shy of 100 miles long, at 99.7 miles. Along its forested length there’s barely any civilization to speak of – no houses, stores or telephone booths – just woodland almost all the way to the summit of Katahdin.

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Worum geht es in A Walk in the Woods?

A Walk in the Woods (1997) is author Bill Bryson’s personal account of walking the Appalachian Trail – one of the longest hiking trails in the US – which stretches from Georgia in the South to Maine in the North. Partially a memoir recalling his attempt to follow its route, the book is also a tribute to the ecology, wildlife, geological history and natural environment of North America. What’s more, Bryson’s old school friend, Stephen Katz, also comes along for the ride.

Wer A Walk in the Woods lesen sollte

Hikers and travelers
Lovers of nature and the great outdoors
Anyone who likes a good adventure story

Über den Autor

Bill Bryson is an Anglo-American writer, especially famed for his witty approach to personal memoir and travel writing. His bestsellers include Notes from a Small Island (2015) and In a Sunburned Country (2000). He was born in Iowa, and, after living in the UK for many years, moved back to the US. He lives in Hanover, New Hampshire.

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