Adventure-ish

 Image credit: Author    National Parks in the eastern U.S. differ quite a bit from those in the western ones, due largely to how populated different parts of the country were at the time National Parks were being established.   The eastern parks are more patchwork, with park areas surrounded by and including developed areas, as opposed to the wide-open, vast expanses more characteristic of the western parks. The eastern parks are also generally more accessible to heavily populated areas, with Shenandoah NP in particular being located within a day's drive for 2/3 of the U.S. population. Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and Baltimore in particular are a short distance from this park.    Image credit: Author This results in different usage patterns, with the western parks containing some nearby residents out for a day trip, the vast majority of users have come from other states and nations. Trail design is also different in the eastern parks. Many of...

Image credit: Outside Online   Outside magazine's podcast features a wide range of entertaining topics from conversations with and profiles on high level athletes, examinations of science behind outdoor adventure, and my favorite, dramatic survival stories. The stories go roughly like this: They were out of food and water, trapped in a tree by a jaguar, and he was bleeding heavily from his broken arm. And that's when things took a turn for the worse. A recent episode entitled Being Hunted by Lions with Max Djenohan featured the survivalist/reality tv star discussing his experiences on a number of shows, Naked and Afraid in particular. I'm not entirely clear on the desire to participate in these manufactured survival scenarios, but they are fun to watch. It's difficult to see an actual connection between this "survivalism with a safety net" and real-life survival scenarios. From a psychological standpoint, there is a Grand Canyon-sized gap between being forc...

  Photo credit: Mariner Books The Explorer's Gene is a 2025 book by Alex Hutchinson, known for his previous book Endure . The book examines why humans seek novelty, the uncharted, accomplishing difficult things simply because they are difficult. A combination of descriptions of scientific research on the topic along with examples of explorers from throughout history, the book attempts to answer the question of "why?" people sought out these challenges. Was there a practical purpose for the exploration? Or simply a desire to see something new, learn about what is out there? One example in the book is the people who settled the Polynesian islands, who kept moving east along the island chain. The book examines whether there was a rationale for this or whether they wanted to discover what other lands existed. For many decades, the commonly held belief was that the Polynesians wandered aimlessly and discovered land by accident, that navigation by sea was impossible without ins...

  Photo Credit: Chicago Review Press A 2014 book by Ben Montgomery, Grandma Gatewood's Walk  starts in 1955 when Emma "Grandma" Gatewood went from Ohio to Jasper, Georgia via train, plane, and bus with basically the supplies one would take on a day hike. Or even less than what many people would take on a day hike. At the time, she was a mother of 11, grandmother of 23, and 67 years old.  Grandma Gatewood then proceeded to walk the entire Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine, becoming the first woman and one of the first people overall to hike the entire trail as a through hike. She had a different kind of approach and different kind of experience than the modern through hikes I have read about. And definitely only read about. While I find the stories inspiring, does not invoke a sense of "let me try that!" I enjoy observing others' adventures from afar, in the Adventurish spirit.   Born in the late 1800s in Ohio, Gatewood's story shows not only her p...

  Image Credit: Crown Publishing A 2025 update of a book first published in 2006, describes the crash of a plane carrying the Uruguay national rugby team and the aftermath of the crash as the survivors struggles to stay alive high in the Andes Mountains. Written by one of the survivors, Nando Parrado, the book is a close examination of the mindset and desperation they faced while attempting to stay alive against great odds.   "Life is an anomaly here, and the mountains will tolerate that anomaly for only so long." - Parrado. In the adventurish spirit, I tend to avoid places where life is an anomaly, the path more traveled is generally sufficient for me. So let's see how I'd do in this situation! Obstacle 1: The Plane Crash Their plane hit a mountain in the Andes, severing the wings.  Verdict: I'm probably dead.  Rationale: The plane hit a mountain. The wings came off. Whether I tucked my knees, had my tray table in the upright position, secured my laptop - just ...

The recent book   Nature and the mind: The science of how nature improves cognitive, physical, and social well-being by Marc Berman does not really require a review since the title is already basically a 3 paragraph synopsis of the book, but I will provide one anyway as there is a wealth of information in this book. T he author studies environmental neuroscience, a term he came up with. Trained as an environmental psychologist, his research looks at how our environments impact our behavior. Berman does an excellent job describing the interplay between nature and nurture in an approachable manner, and explaining in detail the impact of the environment. Image credit: Simon and Schuster The key focus of the book, in a finding that is likely surprising to exactly no one, is that our collective attention spans have been decreasing. Berman explains how time in nature, or even viewing nature, can help to restore our attention spans if the natural environment feels comfortable and saf...

  Photo Credit: Metropolitan Books Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Caroline Fraser is a biography of the author of the beloved children's Little House series. It is also largely a biography of her only child, Rose Wilder Lane, who appears in the final book of the main Little House series.  Wilder Lane is featured in the biography because of the unique and often combative working relationship she had with her mother. Prairie Fires documents how Wilder Lane wrote portions of the Little House books, with the two collaborating on editing each other's work to the point it was unclear who had written portions of works published under their name. In some circumstances, the author of Prairie Fires found it difficult to document which Wilder had written specific works, including portions of the Little House series.  This biography reviews the actual events in Ingalls Wilder's life that parallel the Little House series and discusses how the books have...