Resources

The Wild West Route is one heck of a great ride from Canada to Mexico, but what’s equally exciting about its development is that Kurt Refsnider and Bikepacking Roots have plotted east-west connectors bridging it to the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, which dramatically expands the options. Full maps, route guide, and other resources will be available in spring 2019, but in the meantime you can visit bikepackingroots.com for all your WWR beta.

Of course, being a greedy, trail-hungry rider, you will no doubt be thrilled to know that the group is also supporting the development of the Eastern Divide Project, an all-dirt, 4,500-mile route from Florida to Newfoundland, as well as the Grand Canyon Loop, which will run 500 miles from the Phoenix, Arizona, airport to the canyon and back.

Photos: Kurt Refsnider, @kurtrefsnider

New Jersey’s Pine Barrens have served as refuge and hideout at least as far back as the Revolutionary War, when Quakers who were expelled from their meetings for fighting in the conflict rubbed elbows with Tory loyalists who marauded in packs and robbed innocents. In 1913, a report called “The Pineys” documented debauchery, livestock quartered in children’s bedrooms, inbreeding, and incest. The governor of the state demanded the area be isolated. “They have inbred, and led lawless and scandalous lives, till they have become a race of imbeciles, criminals, and defectives,” said James Fielder. Sound like just the place to backpack? Start with the Batona Trail, which meanders 50 miles through the pines and takes its name from Back to Nature.

Author Craig Childs is a contributing editor to Adventure Journal. His most recent book, Atlas of a Lost World, was published in 2018. houseofrain.com

Photographer Jim Herrington has slept solo in some of the wildest mountains in the world, but was totally creeped out at the thought of camping in the Barrens. An excerpt from his book The Climbers appeared in AJ07. jimherrington.com, @jimherrington

Among other luminaries, author Evelyn C. White has interviewed Rosa Parks and Oprah Winfrey, and she is the author of Alice Walker: A Life, the official biography of the first Black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. As we were wrapping up this issue, she emailed us a photo from Iceland of herself standing on black sand, holding a chunk of glacial ice, with a huge smile on her face. “Uplifted by the number of Black folk in Reykjavik,” she wrote. “I see at least 9–10 everyday. Today I was wearing the Muhammad Ali t-shirt that I wore when Chelle took my photo. Received lots of affirming nods.”

Photos: Chelle Wooten is based in Halifax. That’s a city in Nova Scotia. Which is a province in Canada. But you knew all that. chellewooten.com, @chellewootenphoto

Brendan Leonard is a contributing editor to Adventure Journal. His last piece for AJ, “Forward on the Fumes of Ambition,” was about that time he ran 100 miles and lived. It appeared in AJ08.

Forest Woodward, who also shot this issue’s cover, is a senior contributing photographer to Adventure Journal. forestwoodward.com, @forestwoodward

Some books need to be purchased in the appropriate environs. The Little Prince in Paris, say. Or Desert Solitaire in Moab. Back of Beyond Books is the place to go—check out the rare first edition of DS while you’re there. backofbeyondbooks.com

Doug Peacock is the author of Grizzly Years, In the Shadow of the Sabretooth, Walking It Off, and other books. dougpeacock.net

Can a much-hyped book really live up to much hype? The one and only Pico Iyer said of Lands of Lost Borders, “Kate Harris packs more exuberant spirit, intrepid charm, wit, poetry, and beauty into her every paragraph than most of us can manage in a lifetime.” C’mon, now, really?

Really. Kate Harris’s Lands is an extraordinary piece of work, and our excerpt here only hints at the treasures within. We strongly recommend you read it. kateharris.ca, @kateonmars, @kateoffmars

Jeff Moag is a regular contributor to Adventure Journal. The former editor of Canoe & Kayak, he last wrote about alpinist Tomasz Mackiewicz in AJ09. @jeffmoag

The Antarctic Heritage Trust has a ton of history, photos, and other information on Robert Falcon Scott’s Cape Evans hut, as well as the other structures it’s conserving and protecting. nzaht.org

Google’s Street View technology lets you snoop around the interior of Scott’s hut without the pesky hassle of going to Antarctica (though if you do go, we want in). adv-jour.nl/scottshut

Artist John Fellows can be followed—in a socially acceptable manner, of course—at johnfellowsart.com and @jfellows56.

Menus are produced, written, and photographed by Megan McDuffie and Michael van Vliet, who after living full time on the road for several years have settled in Bend, Oregon. freshoffthegrid.com, @freshoffthegrid

See more of Jen Buck’s photography: @jenbuckphoto