On Trails: An Exploration

                                

Title: On Trails: An Exploration

Author: Robert Moor

Published: Simon & Schuster Audio, August 27, 2024

Length: 11 hours 53 minutes

Genre: Anthropology

While thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail, Robert Moor began to wonder about the paths that lie beneath our feet: How do they form? Why do some improve over time while others fade? What makes us follow or strike off on our own? Over the course of seven years, Moor traveled the globe, exploring trails of all kinds, from the miniscule to the massive. He learned the tricks of master trail-builders, hunted down long-lost Cherokee trails, and traced the origins of our road networks and the Internet. In each chapter, Moor interweaves his adventures with findings from science, history, philosophy, and nature writing.

Throughout, Moor reveals how this single topic—the oft-overlooked trail—sheds new light on a wealth of age-old questions: How does order emerge out of chaos? How did animals first crawl forth from the seas and spread across continents? How has humanity’s relationship with nature and technology shaped world around us? And, ultimately, how does each of us pick a path through life?

Moor has the essayist’s gift for making new connections, the adventurer’s love for paths untaken, and the philosopher’s knack for asking big questions. With a breathtaking arc that spans from the dawn of animal life to the digital era, On Trails is a book that makes us see our world, our history, our species, and our ways of life anew.

This was very interesting. If Something Wild and Wonderful by Anita Kelly made me want to hike the PCT, this book made me desperate to hike the IAT-SIA! Will I do it? In no way. I am not a thru-hiker. Even reading this book and hearing about all of the physical, mental, and emotional clarity you can gain from thru-hiking, I have no desire to do that. But could I see myself looking for a 10-er next time I'm in the right region?! Absolutely. That sounds like a glorious use of a day! 

This book brought us along trails laid by everything from ants to goats to elephants to humans. It explored the difference between various ways to lay a trail and how trails remain in use or go defunct. It was a cool look at the ebb and flow of nature and civilization. Sometimes trails grow out of need, and sometimes out of desire. It was really neat to see how similar these trail blazing techniques could be. 

I think my favorite little nugget from this book has to do with desire lines and switchbacks. There's a bit about making trails. Well quite a few bits, really. But there was a bit about the engineering choices that go into human-made trails. And it talks about how important it is, in certain areas, to be sure that hikers can't see where the trail is going. Because if they can see the trail, they will inevitably search for shorter routes to get to it. Whether that's good for the landscape around the trail or not. And that little insight is going to stick with me for a while. 

Ratings

Stars: 4/5