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Summary: Whingeing along the Arizona Trail
Review: Like most tourists, Chris Townsend loves modern conveniences that make his life easier but detests similar amenities when they clash with what he considers should be an untouched wilderness experience.He lives in Scotland, and thus came to Arizona with the typical Brit attitude of "Look at how you colonials managed to muck everything up since we left." He's full of complaints about Americans who don't appreciate the wilderness, ignoring the fact that even the worst of Americans aren't as bad as the "horrible families" of Britain who consider it sporting to steal cars for a lark and then burn them out of pure meanness. These writers are boring, and Townsend's rants paint him as an insufferable toff. Sadly, he doesn't seem to appreciate the desert or forests in the same manner as writers such as Joseph Wood Krutch or even Zane Grey. He doesn't appreciate that we live in a messy modern world, with only a few gems of wilderness left. For example: Townsend cites efforts in the 1960s to dam the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon itself, and the noble efforts to stop it. Excellent. He ignores the alternative that was built with the connivance of the people who stopped the dam -- one of the largest coal-fired power plants in the nation which spews its pollution over tens of thousands of square miles of the Southwest. He also thinks Lake Powell should be drained. Maybe it's time to tear down the Forth Bridge as "unnatural." His arrogant rants are the equivalent of a Yankee tourist recommending Hadrian's Wall be torn down to restore the natural landscape. Of course, much of it HAS been torn down -- a look at any farmer's barns within a few miles of the wall shows how those Roman building stones were re-used. Anyone who's hiked off a trail knows there's no "untouched" landscape left. And, if you're going to stick to the trail -- this book is about hiking The Arizona Trail -- then you're in man-made country. Like all too many wilderness advocates, Townsend fails to appreciate the natural world for what now exists. It's like building a replica of a wooden ship; no matter how authentic you make it, it isn't the original. In some cases, it's better than the original. Likewise, the Arizona of today is not the Arizona of a century ago, nor five centuries ago. In some ways, it's better. Britain is filled with almost 60 million people like Townsend; all whinges, moans and complaints but never the initiative to do anything. Anyone with energy and ambition emigrates, which is why Australia is such a dynamic place. Those who stay home find fault with everything, and particularly with anyone who had the energy to leave. In brief, the book is the first of its kind so it's the finest yet available. Anyone who plans to do any extensive hiking in Arizona should read it. It contains enough Arizona details to be valuable, enough hiking information to be useful, enough rants to please the beads and Birkenstocks crowd, but far from enough cactus hugging to satisfy a desert rat. But then, how many readers are likely to be desert rats? Buy it, it's more interesting than those which haven't been published. It's not the type of book to take on a desert hike, but it's a good read before such a walk. Someday, an even better book may be written about The Arizona Trail, but if you plan on waiting that long the trail may be paved by then.
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Summary: Arizona Adventure
Review: The magnitude of what Chris Townsend`has accomplished by solo hiking the Arizona Trail in 43 days is difficult to comprehend, especially by those who never venture out of the city. As a hiker of over 600 miles of this very new trail, I can appreciate Chris' descriptions of the mountains and deserts through which one passes on travelling from Mexico tto Utah along its very remote course. Chris' writing has steadily improved through the multiple books that he has written and the recounting of this adventure is his best to date. He shares his wilderness philosophy and vision and stresses the importance of preserving what remains of the wild lands as a place for us all to reconnect to our more primal needs for space and solitude and communing with Nature. This is not a mile by mile Trail guide but it provides the flavor of the terrain that one encounters along the Trail. I have used this as one of my resources to guide me along my adventure.
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