There’s truly very few timeless books, but Author Bill Bryson’s hilarious writing style is like no other and—although the AT is surely a bit different today—it’s certainly not more enjoyable than through this author’s eyes with the infamous Katz. I absolutely loved this dynamic duo, and enjoyed reading an update on them all these years later. I loved Bryson challenging himself to do the AT then choosing he’s had enough of hiking the entire thing only to find ultimate comfort in Katz convincing him “hey, we did it!” We don’t have to do something exactly like all the others to get the experience—we can define our own happiness as we see fit. Bill, thanks again for the literally humiliating laughing out loud scene after scene and for keeping life real. Can’t wait to devour your other books. And hello to “Katz” too.

Facing savage weather, merciless insects, unreliable maps and a fickle companion whose profoundest wish was to go to a motel and watch The X-Files, Bryson gamely struggled through the wilderness of the Appalachian Trail to achieve a lifetime's ambition - not to die outdoors.

I'll just get some hiking equipment
I ended up with enough equipment to bring ful employment to a vale of sherpas--a three-season tent, self-inflating sleeping pad, nested pots and pans, collapsible eating utensils, plastic dish and cup, complicated pump-action water purifier, stuff sacks in a rainbow of colors, seam sealer, patching kit, sleeping bag, bungee cords, water bottles, waterproof poncho, waterproof matches, pack cover, a rather nifty compass/thermometer keyring, a little collapsible stove that looked frankly like trouble, gas bottle and spare gas bottle, a hands-free flashlight that you wore on your head like a miner's lamp (this I liked very much), a big knife for killing bears and hillbillies, insulated long Johns and undershirts, four bandannas, and lots of other stuff, for some of which I had to go back again and ask what it was for exactly.

Asking for a travel companion
Then one day in late February, with departure nigh, I got a call. It was from an old school friend named Stephen Katz.
"Are you sure you're up for this?" I asked.

"Absolutely."

"What kind of shape are you in?"

"Real good. I walk everywhere these days."

"Really?" This is most unusual in America.

"Well, they repossessed my car, you see."

My last words to him were, "So, how are you with bears?"

"Hey, they haven't got me yet!"

Bill's wife is not sure that Katz is the best companion.
"You have nothing in common," she said.

"We have everything in common. We're forty-four years old. We'll talk about hemorrhoids and lower back pain and how we can't remember where we put anything, and the next night I'll say, 'Hey, did I tell you about my back problems?' and he'll say, 'No, I don't think so,' and we'll do it al over again. It'll be great."

Long underwear for wolves
The man at the check-in desk looked at our tickets to Atlanta and our packs and said--quite alertly, I thought, for a person wearing a shortsleeve shirt in winter--"You fellows hiking the Appalachian Trail?"

"Sure are," said Katz proudly.

"Lot of trouble with wolves down in Georgia, you know."

"Really?" Katz was all ears.

"Oh, yeah. Coupla people been attacked recently. Pretty savagely, too, from what I hear." He messed around with tickets and luggage tags for a minute. "Hope you brought some long underwear."

Katz screwed up his face. "For wolves?"

"No, for the weather. There's gonna be record cold down there over the next four or five days. Gonna be wel below zero in Atlanta tonight."

"Oh, great," Katz said and gave a ruptured, disconsolate sigh. He looked challengingly at the man. "Any other news for us? Hospital call to say we got cancer or anything?"

The beginning of the Trail
Ahead of me spread a vast, stark world of winter-dead trees. I stepped portentously on to the path, a fragment of the original Appalachian Trail from the days when it passed here en route from Mount Oglethorpe to Springer.
The date was March 9, 1996. We were on our way.

The route led down into a wooded val ey with a chuckling stream edged with brittle ice, which the path followed for perhaps half a mile before taking us steeply up into denser woods. This was, it quickly became evident, the base of the first big hill, Frosty Mountain, and it was immediately taxing. The sun was shining and the sky was a hearty blue, but everything at ground level was brown--brown trees, brown earth, frozen brown leaves--and the cold was unyielding. I trudged perhaps a hundred feet up the hill, then stopped, bug-eyed, breathing hard, heart kabooming alarmingly. Katz was already falling behind and panting even harder. I pressed on.

Katz is lost and found
"It was a miracle, I swear to God. Just when I was about to lie down and give myself to the wolves and bobcats, I look up and there's a white blaze on a tree and I look down and I'm standing on the AT. At the mudslick, as a matter of fact. I sat down and had three smokes one after the other, just to calm myself down, and then I thought, 'Shit, I bet Bryson's walked by here while I've been blundering around in the woods, and he'll never come back because he's already checked this section of trail.' And then I began to worry that I never would see you again. So I really was glad when you turned up. To tell you the truth, I've never been so glad to see another person in my whole life, and that includes some naked women."

It is a long trail and every bit has some history. I'm not going to describe each footstep, river crossed, mountain climbed etc as Bill Bryson does this in great definition mixed with fear and humor. Just watch out for; bears, moose, deer, mosquitoes, angry guards, dubious hill billies, drunk drivers, flooded rivers, snowstorms and weird hikers.

Enjoy!

This was fun. Bill Bryson is always two things; funny and interesting, and this was no different. I have now read two accounts of walking the AT, Grandma Gatewood's famous walk being the other one. Neither convinced me to actually attempt this myself,being a proud armchair adventurer as I am. I'm addicted to comfort.

Some years ago Mark Sanford, the SC governor at the time, disappeared for a couple of weeks and when he reappeared he claimed he had been hiking the Appalachian Trail. In actuality, he had gone to Venezuela to hook up with his mistress. His wife divorced him, wrote her own book and was such a vocal b***h that it was easy to see why he needed a mistress. Since then, at least in this state, it has become common to say you were hiking the AT if you don't want to say where you've really been.

One of my most hilarious encounters at B&N was the day Jennie Sanford came in the store and asked for a copy of A Walk In The Woods. She obviously didn't think I recognized her, so I led her to the section and pulled the book off the shelf to give her. It was the week before Father's Day so we were all pretty sure this would be her cruel and petty gift. We laughed and every time she would come in the store afterward ( she lived at a near-by beach), someone would be sure to recommend this book to her. Hey, in retail you get your jollies where you can.

But I digress. As always with Bill Bryson, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Perhaps because I have dreamed of hiking the Appalachian Trail for many years, I grew quite weary of Bryson's complaints, whining, and thoroughly crummy attitudes. His humor does not appeal to me and I struggled to complete the book. Wearying read! Much rather be hiking!!

As I slowly make my way through 1000+ pages of The Wise Man's Fear, I'm simultaneously burning through audiobooks. The latest was the marvelous Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods. It was a wonderful tale about two grown men hiking the Appalachian Trail, and I burst out laughing in multiple places. My biggest complaint is I would've liked to highlight all of my favorite parts, as I've done with past Bryson books. Most of the hilarity escapes me now. I do remember one part, featuring Bryson's walking companion, the curmudgeonly, out-of-shape, loose cannon Steven Katz (who pretty much made the book):

As Bill and Steven settle down for the night, a group of hikers straight out of an Eddie Bauer catalogue come upon them and proceed to make camp in their same area, jostling them, and pretty much breaking every camping etiquette rule there is. Bill makes the best of it, as is his way, and as he drifts off to sleep, he's wakened by Katz kneeling over him: "One of those guys just called me ‘sport.’ I'm getting the fuck out of here."

I don't do it justice; I probably just ruined one of the funniest parts of the book. Just trust me that Steven Katz is unforgettable. You learn tons of other useful things along the way; one of the most interesting to me was a section on Centralia in Pennsylvania, a town where a fire, started in 1962, still burns underground. But the information is never encyclopedic; it's always told in a conversational way, with Bryson's often laugh-out-loud take on it.

I'm no city mouse. I'm a country mouse who lives in jeans and who often has a thick layer of soil under her nails from gardening. But, when compared to my brother, I feel like Beyoncé.

My brother is like. . . Inman, from Cold Mountain. A man who walks and walks, all over Appalachia.

He knows how to forage for food and how to identify what is good and what is bad, out in nature. I can point to anything within the plant kingdom, and he knows its name. He composts all of his own waste and leaves a very faint footprint on our planet.

He's also. . . you know, a little crazy, when it comes to the whole walking thing.

My brother has thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail once, in its entirety, and has section-hiked more than 900+ miles of favorite parts of it, at other times. He walks or hikes 5-25 miles a day, and he's currently on the Pacific Crest Trail, somewhere in Northern California, at the time of this writing.

He's a walker, and even though I ALSO walk and hike, my habits apparently look like small potatoes to him. When he was here in May, at our house, preparing to head out to hike the PCT, he was nudging me, emphatically, to hike the Appalachian Trail soon.

He was doing this nudging as all three of my kids were in the kitchen with me, and one of them was literally hanging on to my leg. Both dogs were starving, staring at me as we talked, our cats were walking in and out of the house, yowling for food, and my husband was outside, pulling weeds.

I must have looked at him like he was an idiot. I sputtered out something in annoyance, like, “I have responsibilities. Maybe someday, like, when we're retired??” (And, maybe not then, either?)

The compromise we reached was that, instead of starting the AT on that day, I would commit to reading Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods while he was out on the PCT. Fair enough. I finished it today.

Here's what I have to say:

I love Bill Bryson when he's funny, like when he's making social observations, or, in the case of this story, out hiking with his friend, Stephen Katz, and the hilarious commentary that ensues.

I don't love Bill Bryson when he bores me to bits, breaking off from the funny story to describe geological phenomenons or maps or the National Park system in the United States. Be humorous OR be didactic, Bill, but please don't be both.

I would never hike one of these trails without an entourage, bear spray, a billy club and/or a baseball bat and an INCREDIBLE SENSE OF HUMOR.

After reading Bryson's book, I would like to hike at least part of the Appalachian Trail someday, if only to write about it. I believe that my desire to pepper spray any strange looking man on the trail, without a moment's hesitation, may make for some interesting writing. Plus, I'd be sure to scream at every snake, and I'd probably be stupid enough to play with a bear cub. They're so cute!

Personally, I wanted to know a LOT more about these freaks in the shelter at night, and way more details on where and how they all went to the bathroom (shudder), and I felt completely let-down that Bryson and his companion hiked so little of the actual trail.

Honestly, the book was so boring in the middle (when they gave up on the trail the first time), that I could barely summon the interest to read it again.

I think I need to stop thinking of Bryson as a humorist, like Dave Barry. He does make me laugh, but he does drone on, too, about things that interest me not. I've reached a weird point with him, where I'm not sure I want to continue reading more.

Four stars for some memorable descriptions of a few of the hikers and several hearty laughs. . .

And fingers crossed for the safe return home of my brother!

Bryson in qualche modo recluta il vecchio amico Katz e insieme decidono di affrontare l'Appalachian Trail, un percorso immenso e assurdo che attraversa l'America e ben quattordici stati, dalla Georgia al Maine.

Due quarantenni non in grandissima forma e privi di esperienza in questo campo, contro il re dei percorsi, il più duro e difficile (ma appagante, in certe situazioni) di tutti.

Le difficoltà iniziali, il lento adattarsi al percorso, i compromessi da raggiungere, le difficoltà da superare.
Le persone che incontrano sul percorso e al suo esterno.

E naturalmente una bella dose di informazioni sulla storia del percorso e dei suoi promotori, descrizioni della natura circostante, aneddoti legati ai luoghi che visitano be alle persone che vi si possono trovare.

Insomma, Bryson.

i always tell people that they will either love this (and most of his other) books to death, or that they will find them utterly unamusing. i find them hilarious. i have never laughed so hard while reading a book as with Bryson's books. Give it a go--you'll know after the first few chapters whether you share his witty, tasteful sense of humor or not:)

At times, I thought my chances of finishing this book were as slim as Bryson and Katz’s of completing the Appalachian Trail. I developed a love-hate relationship with this book. I loved the first 100 or so pages. Then it lost me, in much a similar way as ‘Chicken John’ got continually lost along the Appalachian Trail.

This is one of the first time I’ve read a book following the movie adaptation. I loved the movie. I thought Redford was a hilarious Bryson; so much so, I always imagine Bryson as Redford when reading his books now. Stephen Katz is the star of this though. Chances are, when experiencing a laugh-out-loud moment while reading this, it was because of something he’d said or done.

Without the laugh-out-loud moments of Katz, Bryson would’ve been intolerable in this book. It hasn’t aged well. At first, I really enjoyed Bryson’s overwhelming use of his trademark “facts”. They soon became tedious though. I lost interest when page after page seemed to be talking about unknown and seemingly irrelevant botanists and plants from 100 years ago. Sorry Bill, but I was always bored out of my mind when Mum took us to the garden centre as a kid. I also feel like an expert on the inadequacies of the US National Parks service now! Haha

It wasn’t all unenjoyable. The history of the Appalachian Trail was fascinating. So too the bear attacks. Hell, if this book had only consisted of Bryson talking about bear attacks I would’ve been happy. Bryson’s description of the terrain and wilderness were also a highlight, as it made me feel like I was trekking alongside Katz and Bryson, albeit without the burden of a heavy pack.

The friendly, communal nature of the trail was a delight to read as well, bringing to mind the Camino de Santiago in Spain. Bryson’s visit to Centralia, the Pennsylvania ghost town was really interesting, evoking imagery similar to that of Chernobyl. I also loved the section on the ‘extinct’ eastern mountain lions, with the parallels between their sightings and continued existence being incredibly reminiscent of our Thylacines here in Tasmania.

Unfortunately, unlike Bryson’s Neither Here Nor There which made me want to google, research and visit every place mentioned – this failed to inspire and just seemed like a long ramble of complaints and discomforts which really didn’t sell the experience.

Reading this after the film is a bit like watching an extended directors’ cut of the film, with every deleted scene included (and more). There were many differences too – I didn’t expect them to break-off, go separate ways and meet back up months later on the trail. Bryson does heaps of little day-hikes by himself which were tedious to read once Katz was out of the picture. I was grateful they reunited though and loved Katz’s perspective of the experience at the end:

“We hiked the Appalachian trail, Bryson”.

At the dawn of the twentieth-century, journalists, travel writers, social workers, and adventure seekers descended on the Appalachian Mountains in droves, expecting to find a land of violent, uneducated "hillbillies" whose primary occupations were distilling illegal alcohol and killing one another. That they were mistaken in their assumptions has been demonstrated time and again, in both popular and academic literature.

Almost 100 years later, writer Bill Bryson took a walk on the Appalachian trail, and expected to find the exact same thing. That he DID NOT walk into a scene out of the movie Deliverance seems to genuinely surprise him, but not to the point that he refrains from insulting Appalachian mountain people over and over again, as if the stereotypes of the ultra-violent hillbilly are utterly true and representative of the entire Appalachian population.

The book is amusing on some levels, if only because I have hiked on the A.T. and identify with some of the hardships he faces. That and he rightly criticizes the National Park Service for its poor stewardship of the lands it forcibly seized from Appalachian farmers. Otherwise, this book is of scant value -- unless, of course, one needs paper to aid in starting a fire, or to make a nice set of paper dolls.

It's the longest armchair hike I've ever taken and I've enjoyed every minute of it. I know I will never do this for real so this is next best. I enjoyed reading about the history of the AT and all the other stories that BB included in the report of his adventures.

Undoubtedly the funniest book I have ever read. I still think of it every time I go hiking. It will never vacate my mind. Bryson's voice is incorrigible, ineradicable. The audiobook is perfect for a jaunt on the trail. Learn, laugh, be mindful. Good lessons in a superb format.