OUTDOORS

A Walk in the Woods

Bill Bryson (Broadway Books)

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by Brad Bostian

If you're a veteran trailblazer, or an overstuffed potato with a light dusting of chives, Bill Bryson's A Walk In The Woods is for you. It's a 274-page account of the author's attempt to cover the entire length of the Appalachian Trail, by foot or by taxi cab, and the laughter it provides alone would make it worth buying.

Bryson has a gift for dropping in a punch line like a swift, silent hammer. And it's the humor at his own expense that makes this book so much fun. Sure, he's done his homework, and packed the book with fascinating facts, but he lets you know right off it's only research – he wasn't born with the knowledge, and he hasn't spent his best years acquiring it. He's out of his element walking 2,100 miles with a full pack, somewhat like George Plimpton in Paper Lion, lying on his back after attempting to play professional football.

Bryson, an Iowan who spent the last 20 years in Europe, is amazed at how big and beautiful America still is – and will be if we take care of it. He hoists his load of expensive equipment, and with one very out-of-shape boyhood friend, sets off for glory. Together, they find that the insects zum, the bears love Snickers, killers lurk in the woods, hiking is addictive, and hypothermia and exotic diseases can … well, you'll see for yourself.

Bryson can be as bawdy as an Italian comic opera, and as lyrical as a poet in the next breath: [indent"> "Twice I flushed grouse, always a terrifying experience: an instantaneous explosion from the undergrowth at your feet, like balled socks fired from a gun, followed by drifting feathers and a lingering residue of fussy, bitching noise."

"Hunters will tell you that a moose is a wily and ferocious forest creature. Nonsense. A moose is a cow drawn by a three-year-old. That's all there is to it."

"What on earth would I do if four bears came into my camp? Why, I would die, of course. Literally shit myself lifeless. I would blow my sphincter out my backside like one of those unrolling paper streamers you get at children's parties -- I dare say it would even give a merry toot -- and bleed to a messy death in my sleeping bag." [/indent"> Because he laughs at himself, Bryson makes me feel like I'm right there with him. It could be me falling down in the mud, slipping on the mossy rocks, or tackling one of the most daunting feats imaginable: a 2,100-mile hike past bears and starvation and killers and the swamps of the Hundred Mile Wilderness.

I suppose Bryson could have turned this into a great nonfiction novel, perhaps the story of his companion Katz's struggle against alcoholism, or a race against the seasons in that heroic quest to reach Maine's Mt. Katahdin. Instead it's heartwarming and probably more revealing about what it's really like to hike a wilderness trail than any fictionalized saga. It's also funny as hell. And an easy read. And you can't beat that.

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