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"Let's get lost together . . . " Lost in My Own Backyard brings acclaimed author Tim Cahill together with one of his--and America's--favorite destinations: Yellowstone, the world's first national park. Cahill has been "puttering around in the park" for a quarter of a century, slowly covering its vast scope and exploring its remote backwoods. So does this mean that he knows what he's doing? Hardly. "I live fifty miles from the park," says Cahill, "but proximity does not guarantee competence. I've spent entire afternoons not knowing exactly where I was, which is to say, I was lost in my own backyard." Cahill stumbles from glacier to geyser, encounters wildlife (some of it, like bisons, weighing in the neighborhood of a ton), muses on the microbiology of thermal pools, gets spooked in the mysterious Hoodoos, sees moonbows arcing across waterfalls at midnight, and generally has a fine old time walking several hundred miles while contemplating the concept and value of wilderness. Mostly, Cahill says, "I have resisted the urge to commit philosophy. This is difficult to do when you're alone, twenty miles from the nearest road, and you've just found a grizzly bear track the size of a pizza." Divided into three parts--"The Trails," which offers a variety of favorite day hikes; "In the Backcountry," which explores three great backcountry trails very much off the beaten track; and "A Selected Yellowstone Bookshelf," an annotated bibliography of his favorite books on the park--this is a hilarious, informative, and perfect guide for Yellowstone veterans and first-timers alike. Lost in My Own Backyard is adventure writing at its very best.… (more)
User reviews
It is a fun, quick read about both the wonderment and the danger of the first United States National Park
Cahill takes us with him as he hikes in the well
He captures the essence of the park while admitting there truly are no words to describe the majesty.
Author Tim Cahill lives 50 miles north of Yellowstone National Park and considers this his backyard. And what a backyard! One can spend a lifetime discovering the 2.22 million acres of mountains and valleys filled with geysers, mud pots, and thermal springs. In the past 25 years, Cahill has done just that.
Cahill’s book, Lost In My Own Backyard, isn’t a guide book, but rather an answer to frequent Yellowstone questions. For instance, “How close is too close to a bison?” Um, silly question, but Cahill claims common sense lacking in some tourist. He has a special name for those who edge closer and closer to a bison for that amazing, once-in-a-lifetime shot, “instamatic injury.” He adds, “If the tail goes up it means either charge or discharge.”
I feel in love with Cahill’s style of writing. He talks to the reader such as an actor, who faces the camera, might tell a plot twist. In the first section of the book titled, “Trails,” he employs his mini-me as a discussion partner on the trail. On the Mt. Washburn trail we overhear older Cahill telling younger, know-it-all self, how not to be a “dumb butt” as they view the “embarrassment of wonders” which is the park.
In the second section titled, “In the Backcountry,” the reader visits the park few have ever seen. Cahill says out of a billion visitors a year, 99.2% never venture into the backcountry for an overnight stay. Could it be all those “Beware of Bear” signs? Cahill is one of the few who have seen rare moonbows, petrified forests and odd faces in the hoodoo formations while walking the outback.
To my librarian’s delight, his last section is titled, “A Selected Yellowstone Bookshelf.” His shelves contain guidebooks, trail maps, and educational books associated with the park, such as biology, history, and geology. The first book mentioned, Lonely Planet Yellowstone & Grand Teton National Parks, just happens to include his written forward.
I highly recommend this humorous book to anyone about to explore America’s first backyard, Yellowstone National Park.
“Then they were gone, and I was alone with the mud pots for over an hour, thinking about artists and hotspots as well as flatulence and the end of civilization as we know it.” (p. 51)
I thought this book would be a great
After reading the book, I have a couple of places in mind that I definitely want to visit while I'm out there. This book served its purpose for me. I plan on rereading it after I come back from Yellowstone, not only to compare my experiences, but also to re-imagine his with pictures in my mind of what the places actually look like.
As such, I really enjoyed
Glad I read this little book, but it didn't make me want to read others in the series.
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Interesting.