Almost Somewhere: Twenty-Eight Days on the John Muir Trail (Outdoor Lives)
While wilderness memoirs have been coming fast and furious lately, Roberts dares to combine a hiking adventure with a healthy dose of humor and female bonding in all its complicated and turbulent best. Nearly 20 years ago she joined two girlfriends on a monthlong postcollegiate hike of the John Muir Trail. From the traditional blister analysis to weighty discussions about food, stranger-danger, and inclement weather, they alternately engaged in episodes of bickering and heartfelt conversation, and, in retrospect, offer relatable representation of young female adulthood. Relying on the carefully written diary she maintained during the trip, Roberts makes it clear that the hike meant so much at the time because they needed it to mean more than a short-term adventure. With wit, laughter, and longing, she writes of the trip not as an attempt at wilderness salvation but rather a desire to do something, anything, that proved the future would not be so daunting. An utterly refreshing outdoors memoir free of the seemingly manufactured drama so many similar titles contain. A delightful and quite literary diversion. --Colleen Mondor