Product Description

The inspiring story of a 4300km solo hike from Mexico to Canada along the Pacific Crest Trail.
Despite never having hiked before, George Spearing decides to take 'leave of absence' from his job as a firefighter in the New Zealand Fire Service and walk the length of America.
Travelling entirely on foot and off road, George's five month journey takes him through the desert areas and High Sierra Nevada of California, the Cascade ranges of Oregon and Washington, and finally emerges in the Okanogan Forest of British Columbia, Canada.
The diverse mix of dry Mojave desert, High Sierra snows and the characters and wildlife met along the way, provide an often humorous look at the US and its wilderness through the eyes of a New Zealander.
The lively and easily read style, including illustrations, will appeal to both adventurer and armchair adventurer alike.

Follow the adventure from its inception on an Auckland, New Zealand Fire Station, to its culmination in British Columbia, Canada. Traversing 40 Wilderness areas, 24 National Forests, 7 National Parks, 3 State Parks, 19 major canyons and climbing 57 mountain passes, the epic journey takes the reader from near sea level at the Mexican border to 13,200 ft at Forester Pass in the snowbound High Sierra. An entertaining and inspiring read for anyone contemplating hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, or for anyone who just enjoys a good adventure story.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #77034 in Books
• Published on: 2005-11-10
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 263 pages

About the Author
George Spearing was born and educated in the UK, spending two years as a cadet at the shore based naval training school HMS Conway before going to sea at age sixteen.
Emigrating to New Zealand six years later, he worked at a variety of jobs before joining the New Zealand Fire Service in which he served for twenty seven years in the Auckland Brigade, retiring with the rank of Station Officer. He now lives in Oamaru, South Island, NZ. 'Dances With Marmots' is his first full length book. He has had several outdoor magazine articles published plus a fictional short story published in Air New Zealand's flight magazine.

George continues his adventures and has since crewed on a 40ft yacht to New Caledonia and Australia, hiked the length of New Zealand's North Island and has also recently walked the length of Great Britain.

Customer Reviews

A bit disappointing
Although I commend the author for his courage and humor, some things about the book distracted from reading pleasure. This read like a self-published book (maybe it is) that had not been edited at all. There were no paragraph indents, and many sentences were run-on (strung together with commas when there sould have been a period). I'm not a stickler about grammar, but this was distracting and made it hard to read. There was also a problem with tense and scenes suddenly switching. For example, in a camping scene, the author would suddenly mention that he saw 3 bears while camping, but it turned out that this was referring to something that would happen several chapters later, so that during the present scene I would wonder, "Where are the bears?" Often I would hope for an interesting scene only to be disappointed by a blow by blow of each day and night on the trail (including the days where nothing really happened). If you can deal with the amateur style, you may enjoy this book.

A Must For Any PCT Dreamer
My favorite aspect of this book is how the reader sees America (and the PCT) through the eyes of a humorous New Zealander. George's writing is a pleasure to read. I especially enjoyed the passage where he describes exactly why he hiked the PCT. He had obviously done a lot of thinking over the many miles he walked and had come up with a beautiful way to express the exact reasons as to why he would walk 20+ miles a day for five months.

The only aspect of the book I didn't like was that, towards the end, Spearing seems to be a bit tired of writing a book and resigns to simply listing the names of the wilderness areas he visits. This is in stark contrast to the excited, witty and funny tone taken earlier in the book.

Regardless of this, I thoroughly enjoyed Spearing's book. If you are at all interested in hiking the PCT, I'm sure you will like his book too.

Best PCT Book I've Read
Read this story several times before it was available in book form and was thrilled to find it had been published. I've read dozens of books and journals on hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, and Dances With Marmots is by far the best!

Spearing's gift for description and humor make this a fun read. The author has a gift for putting the reader on the trail beside him and his anecdotes of trail buddies, town stops, and dealing with customs at both ends of the trail are a delight.

Dances With Marmots makes you want to strap on a pack and hit the trail. A must for anyone who loves the outdoors and needs a chuckle.

Blessings,

Perry P. Perkins
Author
"Just Past Oysterville"