I speed-read Crossing Arizona about the time that I interviewed Chris for the Outdoors Channel podcast. Over the last few days I’ve read it again, this time more thoroughly and in a more relaxed mode of mind. This really is a book that is worth adding to your Christmas list.

The book describes a two month, eight hundred mile trek along the Arizona Trail. Actually, when the walk was done in 2000 only about 70% of the trail had been completed. This is a trail book but a superior trail book. Yes we follow the ins and outs, ups and downs, of the Chris’ walk but we also learn much more besides.

First off we learn about Arizona and the desert, about the wildlife that lives there, about the history of the place, the lives of the native people’s and of those of the first settlers. And we learn about how man has adapted the landscape in order to survive. ‘Adapt’ is probably too neutral a word. There is something of an enormous environmental cost in ensuring that a city like Phoenix can thrive and grow in the desert. Chris is fair enough and he debates the issue thoroughly but we know where he stands, indeed, look at the reviews of this book on Amazon and you can see the Phoenix folk fighting back!

I liked the way the way I experienced something of the changes – as I read the book – that Chris went through as he walked the walk. After several weeks the relationship of the walker to the terrain changes quite dramatically, something that really comes alive in the book. Anyone who’s completed a long backpack will recognise the experience of walking into small towns after nights in the wild – and this being the US the small towns are full of character. One of them – Flagstaff – seems like a really nice kind of place!

Towards the end of the walk Chris crosses the Grand Canyon and this is probably the only part of the book where, although you can read the words, you’re struggling to understand the experience that he went through. Much of the walk was solitary but there are some touching times when Chris catches up with Jake who is taking the route at the same time.

Finally, we can share that bitter/sweet time when the end of the trek is in sight and we can understand the confusion – disorientation even – when the walk comes to an end.

I always find trail books a bit hit and miss but this is the best one of the kind that I’ve read since Nick Crane’s Clear Waters Rising.

Heartily recommended. And Amazon has it in stock!