A Walk in the Woods (1998) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

show spoilers

Characters/People edit see section history

• Bill Bryson: The author, a writer and father of teens, instigator of the plot to take this particular walk
• Steve Katz: Bill's grossly unfit friend from Iowa -- did he get conned into the walk, or wangle himself an invitation?
• Stephen: Bill's hiking companion
• Mary Ellen: A very frustratingly talkative know-it-all, who doesn't actually know it all.
• Chicken John: a thru-hiker that constantly gets lost
• Jim: Add a description of this character.
• Shaffer
• Beulah: a girl Katz meets in a laundromat
• Connolly
• Monson
• Darren
• Dave
• Avery
• Springer
• Keith
• Bob
• Fraser
• Buddy

Quotes edit see section history

• “The US Forest Service is the largest builder of roads in the United States. (May not be an exact quote)”

  observation by Bill Bryson

• “"Yeah, but they flung really well."”

  Katz after Bryson asks why he flung the coffee filters, which weighed nothing, in a fit of exasperation at the weight of his pack.

• “"This is a disease for the person who wants to experience it all."”

  Bryson - in his attempt to give a bit of zing to the tick-borne Lyme disease.

• “My son had just gotten an after-school job there, so I was under strict instructions of good behavior. Specifically, I was not to say or do anything stupid, try on anything that would require me to expose by stomach, say 'Are you shitting me?' when informed of the price of a product, be conspicuously inattentive when a sales assistant was explaining the correct maintenance or aftercare of a product, and above all don anything inappropriate, like a woman's ski hat, in an attempt to amuse.”

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• If there is one thing the AT teaches, it is low-level ecstasy—something we could all do with more of in our lives.

  Highlighted by 99 Kindle customers

• 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 daresay it would even give a merry toot—and bleed to a messy death in my sleeping bag.

  Highlighted by 95 Kindle customers

• Every twenty minutes on the Appalachian Trail, Katz and I walked farther than the average American walks in a week. For 93 percent of all trips outside the home, for whatever distance or whatever purpose, Americans now get in a car. On average the total walking of an American these days—that’s walking of all types: from car to office, from office to car, around the supermarket and shopping malls—adds up to 1.4 miles a week, barely 350 yards a day. That’s ridiculous.

  Highlighted by 90 Kindle customers

• I was beginning to appreciate that the central feature of life on the Appalachian Trail is deprivation, that the whole point of the experience is to remove yourself so thoroughly from the conveniences of everyday life that the most ordinary things—processed cheese, a can of pop gorgeously beaded with condensation—fill you with wonder and gratitude.

  Highlighted by 88 Kindle customers

• Life takes on a neat simplicity, too. Time ceases to have any meaning. When it is dark, you go to bed, and when it is light again you get up, and everything in between is just in between. It’s quite wonderful, really.

  Highlighted by 80 Kindle customers

• Compared with most other places in the developed world, America is still to a remarkable extent a land of forests. One-third of the landscape of the lower forty-eight states is covered in trees—728 million acres in all. Maine alone has 10 million uninhabited acres. That’s 15,600 square miles, an area considerably bigger than Belgium, without a single permanent resident. Altogether, just 2 percent of the United States is classified as built up.

  Highlighted by 64 Kindle customers

• In fact, mostly what the Forest Service does is build roads. I am not kidding. There are 378,000 miles of roads in America’s national forests. That may seem a meaningless figure, but look at it this way—it is eight times the total mileage of America’s interstate highway system.

  Highlighted by 62 Kindle customers

• Every year between early March and late April, about 2,000 hikers set off from Springer, most of them intending to go all the way to Katahdin. No more than 10 percent actually make it. Half don’t make it past central Virginia, less than a third of the way. A quarter get no farther than North Carolina, the next state. As many as 20 percent drop out the first week.

  Highlighted by 59 Kindle customers

• For the Smokies are a very Eden. We were entering what botanists like to call “the finest mixed mesophytic forest in the world.” The Smokies harbor an astonishing range of plant life—over 1,500 types of wildflower, a thousand varieties of shrub, 530 mosses and lichen, 2,000 types of fungi. They are home to 130 native species of tree; the whole of Europe has just 85.

  Highlighted by 53 Kindle customers

• I have long known that it is part of God’s plan for me to spend a little time with each of the most stupid people on earth, and Mary Ellen was proof that even in the Appalachian woods I would not be spared. It became evident from the first moment that she was a rarity.

  Highlighted by 53 Kindle customers

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• North America
• Maine
• New England
• Georgia
• Pennsylvania
• Vermont
• United States
• White Mountains
• Virginia
• Gatlinburg
• Centralia
• Mount Washington
• Mount Katandin
• Massachusetts
• Norwich
• New York
• Europe
• Waynesboro
• Tennessee
• North Carolina
• Atlanta
• Boston
• New Jersey
• Canada
• Alaska
• Franklin
• Florida

First Sentence edit see section history

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• Nature: Describe this theme.
• The great outdoors

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Bill Bryson (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: F106 .B92 1998
• Dewey: 917.40443

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Add a note to help parents select a book for a child.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Travel › United States › Regions › South › East South Central
• Books › Travel › United States › Regions › Northeast
• Books › Travel › Reference & Tips › Essays & Travelogues
• Books › Nonfiction › Transportation
• Books › Entertainment › Humor

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• The Appalachian Trail Conservancy: Web Site of the managing body of the Appalachian Trail or AT
• The Appalachian Trail - Wikipedia Entry
• A Walk In The Woods - Wikipedia Entry

More Books Like This edit see section history