[at-l] Book review by Brett Tucker - fwded by requestboliviahike@hotmail.com

[ryan at hack.net (Ryan K. Brooks)]

Hi, I am on the pCT list but not the AT one. I don't wish to join the AT 
one, but I would like to post the following message. Can you consider 
doing this for me?

Thank you



Walking Down a Dream (Mexico to Canada on foot) is a new book out on 
hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. The book is available on Amazon.


Book Review by Brett Tucker

"Stuffy.? My computer?s dictionary offers the following definitions: 
?lacking fresh air; excessively conventional and unimaginative and hence 
dull.?

Free software as it is, the dictionary fails to provide antonyms. 
However if I were its editor, I?d offer two: ?the Pacific Crest Trail 
and ?a new book by Natasha Carver.? The PCT, with its inspiring mountain 
air and human legacy of bold, creative conservation, is America?s answer 
to the woes of stuffiness. And Britain?s latest answer? Natasha Carver?s 
new book about her 2000 through-hike.

?Walking Down a Dream? is the self-told story of a young woman?s journey 
from Mexico to Canada on foot. Presented in the style of a trail 
journal, the book is based largely on the author?s observations and 
impressions during her 5? month through-hike of the PCT. Natasha comes 
to the trail inexperienced at long-distance hiking, but with a great 
enthusiasm for wilderness adventures. Open-minded and unconventional, 
she finds herself drifting from the safe harbor of her home in England, 
finally running aground in Campo, California, at the southern terminus 
of the PCT. Walking with her is a like-minded twenty-something named Kris.

Almost from the first mile the two hikers experience friction. The hot, 
dusty trail takes its toll on their untested feet, and soon blisters and 
other troubles emerge, including snakes and skin-piercing cactus spines. 
Then, on Day 11 of the journey, Natasha writes, ?Kris has a strained 
tendon in her ankle. Heel to be precise. ?Don?t think about it and it 
will go away,? is my best advice. Shrewdly, she?s not really paying this 
much attention and is bandaging it.? A rift slowly forms between the two 
protagonists, ostensibly from the newfound discrepancy in their 
abilities; Kris? condition, though not debilitating, nonetheless demands 
a slower-than-expected pace, jeopardizing their carefully scheduled 
trip. Natasha is driven to succeed and her sharp wit and wry humor seem 
to offer Kris inadequate consolation. Ultimately Kris opts to return 
home, and following an emotional parting Natasha continues her hike.

?The last few days I have been traveling with Hobbit,? she later writes. 
?Hobbit saw me in my bug cocoon and said, ?It?s a butterfly about to 
emerge!? And hence I am now named Chrysalis.? Natasha?s new trail name 
is apt, for the author undergoes an intriguing transformation in the 
second half of her story. In many ways her separation from Kris, the 
hike?s organizer and voice of experience, allows Natasha?s true 
personality to emerge. The results are often comedic and always 
entertaining. For one Natasha now uses only Tyvec house-wrap for 
shelter, sandwiching herself into it at night, burrito-style. And, when 
she misplaces her trousers and bug-repellent, she must tackle the 
mosquito-plagued high country, sans DEET and wearing shorts, 
simultaneously running and swatting to keep sane.

Young and unattached, she finds herself on the lonely trail, ?ensconced 
in the delicate art of flirting by e-mail? with a would-be boyfriend 
from Los Angeles, when suddenly she stares up from her pocket-sized 
gadget to find a bear snuffling close by?her first ever bruin sighting. 
In turn she becomes the reluctant object of male hikers? attention. ?In 
between the pants for breath, while I speed-walk up the hill, he 
struggles to declare his undying love.? But Natasha emerges unscathed, 
eventually falling into a co-ed group called ?the Wolf Pack,? the 
members of which form an inseparable bond after finding themselves in 
the midst of a high-stakes wilderness rescue in cold, rainy Washington.

An ?actress of sorts? in her pre-trail life, Natasha is a keen 
storyteller who takes full literary advantage of her hiking naivety. She 
is a stage, acted upon by serendipitous events. She is also a historian, 
enriching her chronicle with well-researched tangents ranging from the 
plight of displaced Native cultures (victims of progress and gold) to 
the blight of a once green and fertile Owens Valley (victim of progress 
and thirst).

Whether you are a veteran PCTer or a prospective through-hiker, you will 
discover much in this book that hasn?t been written about before. And 
certainly, if you are familiar with long-distance hiking, you?ll smile 
in recognition as Chrysalis relates her rites-of-passage.

In the end, it is fitting that ?Walking Down a Dream? should come to us 
from Great Britain. Natasha Carver delivers the kind of awe, honesty, 
and pointed humor that only an outsider could muster. ?Imagine coming 
from the grime of wet cold industrial London to this paradise,? she 
writes. ?The mountain air gives you a wash of euphoria.?

Blisterfree has hiked the full length of the Appalachian and Pacific 
Crest trails, and met Natasha on the PCT in northern California during 
their respective hikes in 2000.


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