The best adventure books that are utterly entertaining

Talk about an epic adventure, much of it on foot through mountains and forests! And the destination was the Lonely Mountain, similar to several stand-alone peaks in the Adirondack Park.

The Shire, where Bilbo Baggins lives, reminds me of the peaceful fertile countryside between the Adirondacks and Lake Champlain to the east and the St. Lawrence River to the North. The dense, primeval Fangorn Forest and other Elvin woodlands are similar to the endless acres of untouched forest in the Adirondacks.

And the alpine summits atop the High Peaks can be as welcoming or as wild as the mountains in this book. The only things missing are the colorful characters, though there are arguably a few of those, too, namely the people, birds, and the occasional critter you might see along the trail.

I’m a skier as well as a hiker. This book appeals to both of these outdoor loves, but it goes much deeper.

This is a true story about a small band of Norwegians who ski and hike across the Norwegian wilderness, and nearly freeze to death and starve doing it. Their mission is to sabotage a remote, heavily guarded power plant, where the Nazis are developing heavy water for a nuclear bomb.

In addition to the perils that nature throws at them, these resourceful members of the local resistance must also evade their Gestapo hunters at every snowdrift. It’s a low-odds, high-risk adventure that altered the outcome of World War II.

It’s also engulfed me like the blizzards of the Norwegian winter and taught me how ingenuity, perseverance, and grit are the keys to survival when the odds are overwhelming.

This book is a collection of true short stories about the misadventures of 22 different climbers on New Hampshire’s iconic Presidential Range, particularly Mount Washington, between 1849 and 1994.

One of my other guidebooks cherry-picks the best routes in New Hampshire, one of my favorite places to stand atop a peak, which is why I first picked up this book. (I went to college in New Hampshire and then lived there for another 20+ years.)

The stories drive home how these exposed summits can surprise even experienced hikers in tragic ways. Nick Howe is a good writer, who has done his research. If you have an interest in climbing mountains or New England history, this is a must-read.

Mount Everest is arguably the location of the most epic adventures ever.

This is my favorite book about Everest, perhaps because the author, David Breashears, is a friend who shared many Thanksgiving dinners with me during the thick of his climbing and high-altitude film career. He is most well-known for producing the popular IMAX film, Everest.

This is Breashear’s autobiography. It includes his perspective on the 1996 Everest tragedy, which he not only miraculously survived but also saved the lives of other climbers. I also enjoyed the book, Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, which is about that same Everest episode and had much broader commercial success. Krakauer wrote the forward to this book.

However, I found this book one to be more personal, more revealing. After reading it, you’ll admire Breashears as much as Krakauer and I do.

This book is not about a specific outdoor adventure, though many outdoor experiences are included in it.

I value this groundbreaking book because it brings to light the need to get children outdoors to have adventures, even small backyard ones. Through numerous studies cited in the book, Louv links the absence of nature in children’s lives to childhood obesity, attention disorders, and depression and explains why. He calls it “Nature-Deficit Disorder” and offers solutions.

The effects of nature, or lack thereof, is true for adults, too, but it’s our children who will become the stewards of our natural world in the future. If they don’t cherish it, they won’t protect it and the chance for outdoor adventures will disappear.

If you are a parent, this book will motivate you take your kids to play in your local park, and then maybe a hike and ultimately a healthier, happier life.