On the Beaten Path: An Appalachian Pilgrimage
For anyone who enjoyed Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods or has a love of the outdoors in general or the Appalachian Trail in particular, here is an eloquent, wise, and witty account of how one man's six-month, end-to-end hike of the Appalachian Trail led him back home.

Every year, a couple thousand would-be "thruhikers" set out to walk the entire 2,000-mile length of the Georgia-to-Maine Appalachian Trail. About one of every ten actually makes it.

Robert Rubin's chances did not look good. Thirty-eight years old, overweight, dispirited, and burned out by a job he'd once loved, he dreamed of leaving mortgage and wife and cul-de-sac life behind for a journey that could take half a year-or maybe never end. But what awaited him on the wooded ridges was not the solo trek he'd imagined. Rubin soon found himself part of a strange vagrant culture of pilgrims and dropouts, a world with its own rules and rituals. As the miles accumulate, Rubin must survive the path's physical and spiritual grind, and, even more daunting, confront what he's running from . . . and what he's searching for.

On the Beaten Path is not only a clear-eyed, loving look at the dwindling wilderness of the Appalachian Mountains, the history and landscape of the Appalachian Trail, and the remarkable hiker subculture that exists along it; it is also one man's captivating and beautifully written exploration of the wilderness within himself.

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On the Beaten Path: An Appalachian Pilgrimage
For anyone who enjoyed Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods or has a love of the outdoors in general or the Appalachian Trail in particular, here is an eloquent, wise, and witty account of how one man's six-month, end-to-end hike of the Appalachian Trail led him back home.

Every year, a couple thousand would-be "thruhikers" set out to walk the entire 2,000-mile length of the Georgia-to-Maine Appalachian Trail. About one of every ten actually makes it.

Robert Rubin's chances did not look good. Thirty-eight years old, overweight, dispirited, and burned out by a job he'd once loved, he dreamed of leaving mortgage and wife and cul-de-sac life behind for a journey that could take half a year-or maybe never end. But what awaited him on the wooded ridges was not the solo trek he'd imagined. Rubin soon found himself part of a strange vagrant culture of pilgrims and dropouts, a world with its own rules and rituals. As the miles accumulate, Rubin must survive the path's physical and spiritual grind, and, even more daunting, confront what he's running from . . . and what he's searching for.

On the Beaten Path is not only a clear-eyed, loving look at the dwindling wilderness of the Appalachian Mountains, the history and landscape of the Appalachian Trail, and the remarkable hiker subculture that exists along it; it is also one man's captivating and beautifully written exploration of the wilderness within himself.

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On the Beaten Path: An Appalachian Pilgrimage

On the Beaten Path: An Appalachian Pilgrimage

by Robert Alden Rubin
On the Beaten Path: An Appalachian Pilgrimage

On the Beaten Path: An Appalachian Pilgrimage

by Robert Alden Rubin

eBook

$13.50 

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Overview

For anyone who enjoyed Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods or has a love of the outdoors in general or the Appalachian Trail in particular, here is an eloquent, wise, and witty account of how one man's six-month, end-to-end hike of the Appalachian Trail led him back home.

Every year, a couple thousand would-be "thruhikers" set out to walk the entire 2,000-mile length of the Georgia-to-Maine Appalachian Trail. About one of every ten actually makes it.

Robert Rubin's chances did not look good. Thirty-eight years old, overweight, dispirited, and burned out by a job he'd once loved, he dreamed of leaving mortgage and wife and cul-de-sac life behind for a journey that could take half a year-or maybe never end. But what awaited him on the wooded ridges was not the solo trek he'd imagined. Rubin soon found himself part of a strange vagrant culture of pilgrims and dropouts, a world with its own rules and rituals. As the miles accumulate, Rubin must survive the path's physical and spiritual grind, and, even more daunting, confront what he's running from . . . and what he's searching for.

On the Beaten Path is not only a clear-eyed, loving look at the dwindling wilderness of the Appalachian Mountains, the history and landscape of the Appalachian Trail, and the remarkable hiker subculture that exists along it; it is also one man's captivating and beautifully written exploration of the wilderness within himself.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781599217437
Publisher: Globe Pequot Press
Publication date: 03/03/2009
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
File size: 1 MB

About the Author

Robert Alden Rubin is a wirter and editor who lives with his wife, Catherine, in Sykesville, Maryland.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgmentsxi
Prologue: Facing Northxiii
1Pilgrims' Way1
2Blue Ridges83
3Sea Level133
4Monadnock183
Epilogue: Facing South227

What People are Saying About This

Franklin Burroughs

There are two models for Robert Reuben's book. One is pilgrim's progress, the story of the spiritually isolated and burdened traveler whose difficult outward journey is compelled by inward affliction. The other is the Canterbury tales: an account of a pilgrimage whose lofty purposes are constantly undercut by the rich, destructing variety of the human comedy. Reuben's book belongs to our historical moment, but he understands how his unique circumstances and singular fellow travelers are new expressions of old compulsions. Thruhiking requires strenuous exertion and a nearly obsessive commitment, but it also evokes, in this writer and this book, an acute and unconventional wisdom.
—(Franklin Burroughs author of Billy Watson's Croker Sack and The River Home)

David Hays

Walk with this man! Start to finish, the whole trail, is beauty from hardship—and its value to the men and women who challenge themselves to succeed. This is a beautifully written story about a man who dares set out to change his life, packing along with his humor and all the bunions of foot and soul.
—(David Hays, coauthor of My Old Man and the Sea)

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