North to Katahdin by Eric Pinder
When Thoreau stood on the flank of Maine’s Mt. Katahdin 1846, he was one of a handful of Americans who had ventured so deeply into the wilderness for the mere sake of seeing what was there. Today, hundreds of thousands of people—some with cell phones and GPS—stand where Thoreau did. For some, Katahdin is the long-awaited terminus of the Appalachian Trail, the 2,160-mile footpath from Georgia to Maine. For others, Maine’s highest peak and the state park surrounding it are the closest they can come to wilderness—the Glacier National Park of the east. In North to Katahdin, Eric Pinder uses Katahdin as his laboratory to explore what draws people to the mountains and whether hikers today are having remotely the same experience as did Thoreau. Are they even trying to? And if wilderness means "an absence of humanity," what do we call it when it’s filled with people? Pinder’s interviews with hikers and accounts of his own treks, humorous and witty, filled with knowledge about the region’s lore, geology, and weather, create a vivid portrait of wilderness and its denizens.
Pinder, Eric: - Eric Pinder first learned to love weather and mountains in his hometown of Cobleskill in upstate New York, where as a child he watched the stars and lunar eclipses with a toy telescope. After graduating from Hampshire College, Pinder began his writing career when he published a travel guide to Maine's Baxter State Park. In the spring of 1995, he started work at the Mount Washington Observatory. As a weather observer Pinder most often took the morning shift, waking at 4:30 to prepare the radio forecasts. He wrote three books during his time at the Observatory, and for two years edited Windswept, the Observatory's membership magazine. He also led Understanding Mountain Weather guided hikes for the Appalachian Mountain Club. Pinder left the Observatory in 2002 to pursue his writing more fully. He became interested in children's literature, and his book Cat in the Clouds, based on the adventures of the Observatory's cat Nin, comes out in May 2009 from History Press. Pinder continues to live in Berlin, New Hampshire, and teaches Nature Writing and Writing for Children at Chester College of New England. His previous books are a first edition of Life at the Top (Down East Books, 1997), Tying Down the Wind: Adventures in the Worst Weather on Earth (Tarcher/Putnam, 2000), North to Katahdin (Milkwood Editions, 2005), and Among the Clouds: Work, Wit and Weather at the Mount Washington Observatory (Alpine Books, 2008).
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781571312808 |
| ISBN 10 | 1571312803 |
| Title | North to Katahdin |
| Author | Eric Pinder |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Milkweed Editions |
| Year published | 2005-08-04 |
| Number of pages | 200 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |