A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail Tapa dura - 1998

A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail is a 1998 book by travel writer Bill Bryson describing his attempt to walk the Appalachian Trail with his friend Stephen Katz. Ahead lay almost 2,200 miles of remote mountain wilderness filled with bears, moose, bobcats, rattlesnakes, poisonous plants, disease-bearing ticks, the occasional chuckling murderer, and - perhaps most alarming of all - people whose favorite pastime is discussing the relative merits of the external frame backpack. 

Facing savage weather, merciless insects, unreliable maps, and a fickle companion whose profoundest wish was to go to a motel and watch The X-Files, Bryson gamely struggled through the wilderness to achieve a lifetime's ambition - not to die outdoors. The book is written in a humorous style, interspersed with more serious discussions of matters relating to the trail's history, and the surrounding sociology, ecology, trees, plants, animals, and people.