I’M THRILLED TO announce that High Summer: Backpacking the Canadian Rockies, by backpacker and author Chris Townsend, will be available for purchase on Amazon from November 1st 2024. This new and updated second edition of High Summer is being released through my independent publishing imprint, the Enchanted Rock Press.
For those who missed my blogs about High Summer earlier in the year, here’s a recap: High Summer tells the story of the first continuous walk along the entire length of the Canadian Rockies. This trek, walked by Chris in 1988, was truly an adventurous wilderness journey, notably different in character from most thru-hikes undertaken and written about these days. High Summer is not an account of someone following a well-trodden path. For long stretches of this walk there was no path at all!
Just imagine walking alone through grizzly country for days… for weeks on end. Just imagine doing it off trail – as many long sections during the second half of this journey were. Imagine doing it before GPS technology and smart phones, when one genuinely could be alone in the wild, entirely cut off from the rest of the world with no means of calling for help. And imagine spending some of it not even knowing where you are! There’s an especially gripping week-long stretch in the middle of the walk where Chris found himself utterly ‘off the map’ – a stretch made all the more powerful by the unassuming way Chris describes it. Some authors over-embellish, indulge in excessive hyperbole. But Chris’ writing is honest and up front throughout the book, and it is so much more inspiring because of it. As The Great Outdoors magazine observed: “High Summer is humble, heartwarming, often witty and filled with trail wisdom. Townsend is one of a kind”.
High Summer was first published in 1989, but it’s been out of print for far too long – a crying shame. Both the book and the journey are still relevant today and offer thought-provoking insights into what wilderness and long journeys on foot can still offer.
This new edition packs in many more photos than appeared in the first edition: ninety-eight black and white photos in the paperback, 105 colour photos in the ebook. Chris took over 3,000 slides during his walk, and he spent time this summer choosing which to include in this new edition. Most of those he selected have never been seen by anyone else! The new edition also features a new introduction by Chris, as well as new footnotes – a fascinating extra perspective into his remarkable pioneering journey thirty-six years after it actually took place.
From my perspective, I can’t overstate how much of an honour it is to have worked with Chris to help him bring High Summer to a new audience. I first came across Chris in 1988 when I was a novice backpacker heading by train for a weekend walk in the Pennines. I picked up a backpacking magazine to read on the train, and within its pages discovered a report by Chris from the journey he was then on, the one described in High Summer!
Back then, I hadn’t been anywhere one could really call wild, and the furthest I’d walked in a single trip was a mere forty miles. To read about someone walking 1,600 miles along the entire length of a wilderness mountain range in a far-away continent made quite the impression to a teenager fresh from the suburbs of London! A couple of weeks later, I began reading the first of his twenty-nine books – The Great Backpacking Adventure – and, arguably, it changed my life. Walking the entire length of complete mountain ranges was possible? Living in wild nature for months at a time was what some people did? Could I, perhaps, do that too?
Little did I imagine back then that one day I would. Or, that I’d one day actually meet Chris, and discover that he is as down-to-earth, as relatable, and as knowledgeable in person as he appears in his books. And, of course, little did I imagine that fate would eventually lead full circle, and that I’d be involved in re-launching the story of his pioneering Canadian walk. Life is a fascinating journey isn’t it? Full of unexpected plot twists!
And here we now are, with High Summer available once again in only two weeks. I’m hoping that Chris’ journey will now reach and inspire a whole new audience, exactly as it first inspired me, and as I know for a fact it has inspired many others.
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High Summer will be available on Amazon from November 1st, 2024 as a paperback and an ebook, and from other online book retailers shortly after.
Ebook pre-orders can now be made on Amazon.
For UK readers HERE
US readers HERE
Canadian readers HERE
