The Life Of A Mountain Hut

The biography of Four Mile Hut in Kosciuszko National Park, written from the point of view of the hut.

This book is a celebration of mountain huts, showcasing the the sheer variety and sometimes quirky nature of these buildings that allow walkers, trekkers and climbers to access remote corners of the mountains. Packed with entertaining stories that bring the places and people to life, it contains descriptions of the author's favourite huts in the Alps, along with suggestions for hut-to-hut tours of 3-13 days duration, including the Tour of Mont Blanc. It also traces the history of huts and how they have evolved from the most primitive of shelters to the often purpose-built, eco-friendly buildings of today. For the uninitiated, it unravels some of the mystery of huts and explains how to use them and what facilities to expect. Above all, it illustrates the way in which mountain huts can be truly sociable places, where like-minded people can spend a night or two in the most magical of locations and share a love of wild places.

"'As a boy in the late 1930s, young Boden's life is changed for ever the day his neighbour Dudley drives him over the mountains into the vast snow-covered plains of the Mackenzie Country. He realises he will never be the same again. Years later, the 20-year-old Boden, now a university student, helps build an alpine hut high up on the eastern slopes of Mount Cook. Living in snow caves while the hut is built, Boden forms important relationships with members of his working party, most notably with Walter, a conscientious objector from the Second World War" --Back cover.

For every woman who has ever been called outdoorsy comes a collection of stories that inspires unforgettable adventure. Beautiful, empowering, and exhilarating, She Explores is a spirited celebration of female bravery and courage, and an inspirational companion for any woman who wants to travel the world on her own terms. Combining breathtaking travel photography with compelling personal narratives, She Explores shares the stories of 40 diverse women on unforgettable journeys in nature: women who live out of vans, trucks, and vintage trailers, hiking the wild, cooking meals over campfires, and sleeping under the stars. Women biking through the countryside, embarking on an unknown road trip, or backpacking through the outdoors with their young children in tow. Complementing the narratives are practical tips and advice for women planning their own trips, including: • Preparing for a solo hike • Must-haves for a road-trip kitchen • Planning ahead for unknown territory • Telling your own story A visually stunning and emotionally satisfying collection for any woman craving new landscapes and adventure.

A groundbreaking monograph on Yuan dynasty Buddhism, Illusory Abiding offers a cultural history of Buddhism through a case study of the eminent Chan master Zhongfeng Mingben. Natasha Heller demonstrates that Mingben, and other monks of his stature, developed a range of cultural competencies through which they navigated social and intellectual relationships. They mastered repertoires internal to their tradition—for example, guidelines for monastic life—as well as those that allowed them to interact with broader elite audiences, such as the ability to compose verses on plum blossoms. These cultural exchanges took place within local, religious, and social networks—and at the same time, they comprised some of the very forces that formed these networks in the first place. This monograph contributes to a more robust account of Chinese Buddhism in late imperial China, and demonstrates the importance of situating monks as actors within broader sociocultural fields of practice and exchange.

‘Gamle Norge and Nineteenth-Century British Women Travellers in Norway’ presents an account of the development of tourism in nineteenth-century Norway and considers the ways in which women travellers depicted their travels to the region. Tracing the motivations of various groups of women travellers, such as sportswomen, tourists and aristocrats, this book argues that in their writing, Norway forms a counterpoint to Victorian Britain: a place of freedom and possibility.

In 1928 New York native Muriel Earley Sheppard moved with her mining engineer husband to the Toe River Valley -- an isolated pocket in North Carolina between the Blue Ridge and Iron Mountains. Sheppard began visiting her neighbors and forming friendships in remote coves and rocky clearings, and in 1935 her account of life in the mountains -- Cabins in the Laurel -- was published. The book included 128 striking photographs by the well-known Chapel Hill photographer, Bayard Wootten, a frequent visitor to the area. The early reviews of Cabins in the Laurel were overwhelmingly positive, but the mountain people -- Sheppard's friends and subjects -- initially felt that she had portrayed them as too old-fashioned, even backward. As novelist John Ehle shows in his foreword, though, fifty years have made a huge difference, and the people of the Toe River Valley have been among its most affectionate readers. This new large-format edition, which makes use of many of Wootten's original negatives, will introduce Sheppard's words and Wootten's photography to a whole new generation of readers -- in the Valley and beyond.

The second edition of this classic guidebook by Kev Reynolds on walking and trekking in the Alps. This book is a definitive guide to the many thousands of possible routes, with a geographical span that ranges from the Maritime Alps of southern France to the Julians of Slovenia, from Italy's Gran Paradiso to the little-known Türnitzer Alps of eastern Austria, and from the ice-bound giants of the Bernese Oberland to the green rolling Kitzbüheler Alps and the bizarre towers of the Dolomites of South Tirol, showing the amazing diversity of this wonderful mountain chain. There are walks to suit every taste: gentle and undemanding, long and tough, and everything in between. Written by Britain's most respected authority on the Alps, this is a fully updated edition of this important book.