Outdoor Recreation Audiobooks | Sports & Recreation

The Philosophy of an Explorer: 16 Life-lessons from Surviving the Extreme

Brought to you by Penguin. Surviving extreme conditions can teach us to lead a fulfilled life. No one knows this better than Erling Kagge, who was the first man in history to reach all of the Earth's poles by foot - the North, the South, and the summit of Everest. In The Philosophy of an Explorer, he brings together the wisdom and expertise he has gained from the expeditions that have taken him to the limits of the earth, and of human endurance. In sixteen meditative but practical lessons - from cultivating an optimistic outlook, to getting up at the right time, to learning to take pleasure in the small things and comfort in solitude - Erling Kagge reveals what survival in the most extreme conditions can teach us about how to lead a meaningful life. Wherever we may be headed. 'Erling Kagge transforms and consoles us' Alain de Botton 'His wisdom will soothe and awaken' Fearne Cotton 'A delightful book that explores the strange land between getting out of bed in the morning and reaching for the moon Tristan Gooley 'A wonderfully deft Swiss army knife of a book' Dan Richards 'As an explorer Erling Kagge is world class; as a writer he is equally gifted' Sir Ranulph Fiennes 'Erling Kagge is a philosophical adventurer - or perhaps an adventurous philosopher' The New York Times 'An author for our noisy times, full of a rare and deeply redemptive languor and perspective' Alain de Botton © Erling Kagge 2019 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Erling Kagge (Author), Atli Gunnarsson (Narrator)

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The Outdoor Citizen: Get Out, Give Back, Get Active

A groundbreaking volume from the president and CEO of the Appalachian Mountain Club makes the profound argument that to preserve the environment, a revolution must take place in which every person becomes a champion for nature and the outdoors. In The Outdoor Citizen, John Judge coins the term 'the outdoor citizen' delivering his remarkably persuasive argument that we must all become citizens of the natural world, owning and instilling in the next generation a keen interest in the outdoors and reconnecting with life's most essential foundation: nature. Over the next quarter century more than three billion people will join the middle class in the developing world at a rate of 140 to 170 million annually. This new group of consumers will demand more goods and services and use prodigious amounts of energy. This could lead to a ten-fold increase in carbon emissions and devastating, irreversible effects on the earth. Through The Outdoor Citizen, there is, at last, an easy-to-follow plan for all people to contribute to the cause of preserving the environment. It is also a call to action to commit to an active outdoor lifestyle and make the outdoors an epicenter for our communities. It is a game-changer for saving our environment and an entry point into a world of healthier and happier people.

John Judge (Author), Adam Lofbomm (Narrator)

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The Optimist: A Case for the Fly Fishing Life

A modern tribute to an ageless pastime, and a practical guide to the art, philosophy, and rituals of fly fishing, by an expert, lifelong angler. In The Optimist, David Coggins makes a case for the skills and sensibility of an enduring sport and shares the secrets, frustrations, and triumphs of the great tradition of fly fishing, which has captivated anglers worldwide. Written in witty, keenly observed prose, each chapter focuses on a specific place, fish, and skill. Few individuals, for example, have the visual acuity required to catch the nearly invisible bonefish of the Bahamas flats. Or the patience to land the elusive Atlantic salmon, "the fish of a thousand casts," in eastern Canada. Pursuing these challenges, Coggins, "a confirmed obsessive," travels to one fishing paradise after another, including the great rivers of Patagonia, private chalk streams in England, remote ponds in Maine, and New York City's Jamaica Bay. In each setting, he chronicles his fortunes and misfortunes with honesty and humor while meditating on how fishing teaches focus, inner stillness, and a connection to the natural world. Perfect for the novice, the enthusiastic amateur, and the devoted angler alike, The Optimist offers a practical path toward enlightenment while providing a welcome escape into one of the world's ancient pastimes.

David Coggins (Author), Stephen Graybill (Narrator)

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The Only Blasphemy

John Long (Author), Gary Telles (Narrator)

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The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot

The unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Robert MacFarlane's The Old Ways, a major new book from one of Britain's finest nature writers about landscape and the human heart. Read by Roy McMillan. In The Old Ways Robert Macfarlane sets off from his Cambridge home to follow the ancient tracks, holloways, drove-roads and sea paths that form part of a vast network of routes criss-crossing the British landscape and its waters, and connecting them to the continents beyond. The result is an immersive, enthralling exploration of the ghosts and voices that haunt old paths, of the stories our tracks keep and tell, of pilgrimage and ritual, and of songlines and their singers. Above all this is a book about people and place: about walking as a reconnoitre inwards, and the subtle ways in which we are shaped by the landscapes through which we move. Told in Macfarlane's distinctive and celebrated voice, the book folds together natural history, cartography, geology, archaeology and literature. His tracks take him from the chalk downs of England to the bird-islands of the Scottish northwest, and from the disputed territories of Palestine to the sacred landscapes of Spain and the Himalayas. Along the way he walks stride for stride with a 5000-year-old man near Liverpool, follows the 'deadliest path in Britain', sails an open boat out into the Atlantic at night, and crosses paths with walkers of many kinds - wanderers, wayfarers, pilgrims, guides, shamans, poets, trespassers and devouts. He discovers that paths offer not just means of traversing space, but also of feeling, knowing and thinking. The old ways lead us unexpectedly to the new, and the voyage out is always a voyage inwards.

Robert MacFarlane (Author), Roy McMillan (Narrator)

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The Ogre: Biography of a mountain and the dramatic story of the first ascent

'One of the greatest mountaineering survival stories never told.' – The Sunday Times Some mountains are high; some mountains are hard. Few are both. On the afternoon of 13 July 1977, having become the first climbers to reach the summit of the Ogre, Doug Scott and Chris Bonington began their long descent. In the minutes that followed, any feeling of success from their achievement would be overwhelmed by the start of a desperate fight for survival. And things would only get worse. Rising to over 7,000 meters in the center of the Karakoram, the Ogre – Baintha Brakk – is notorious in mountaineering circles as one of the most difficult mountains to climb. First summited by Scott and Bonington in 1977 – on expedition with Paul ‘Tut’ Braithwaite, Nick Estcourt, Clive Rowland and Mo Anthoine – it waited almost twenty-four years for a second ascent, and a further eleven years for a third. The Ogre, by legendary mountaineer Doug Scott, is a two-part biography of this enigmatic peak: in the first part, Scott has painstakingly researched the geography and history of the mountain; part two is the long overdue and very personal account of his and Bonington’s first ascent and their dramatic week-long descent on which Scott suffered two broken legs and Bonington smashed ribs. Using newly discovered diaries, letters, and audiotapes, it tells of the heroic and selfless roles played by Clive Rowland and Mo Anthoine. When the desperate climbers finally made it back to base camp, they were to find it abandoned – and themselves still a long way from safety. The Ogre is undoubtedly one of the greatest adventure stories of all time.

Doug Scott (Author), Saethon Williams (Narrator)

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The Official Guide to Randonautica: Everything You Need to Know about Creating Your Random Adventure

Break free from your usual routine and find adventure in your own neighborhood with this official field guide to the popular Randonautica app. Randonauts everywhere are exploring the world outside of their usual daily routes and expanding their previous understandings of the mind-matter connection. They are finding that once they arrive, there is often an eerily spot-on connection to the intention they set before generating the coordinates. Or they simply discover a place they haven't been before. In The Official Guide to Randonautica, the creators of the popular app explain how the intentions from the user translate to randomly generated coordinates, and all the theories about why users' set intentions can be so closely related to what they find at the given location. This book gives you the opportunity to log your experiences so you can make the most of what you discover on these journeys. Whether you're a new randonaut or a seasoned expert, this book is the perfect field guide for your next adventure.

Auburn Salcedo, Joshua Lengfelder (Author), Nikki Massoud (Narrator)

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The Next Everest: Surviving the Mountain's Deadliest Day and Finding the Resilience to Climb Again

This program includes excerpts read by the author. One of Atlas & Boots' Top 10 Adventure Travel Books of 2021 A dramatic account of the deadly earthquake on Everest—and a return to reach the summit. On April 25, 2015, Jim Davidson was climbing Mount Everest when a 7.8 magnitude earthquake released avalanches all around him and his team, destroying their only escape route and trapping them at nearly 20,000 feet. It was the largest earthquake in Nepal in eighty-one years and killed about 8,900 people. That day also became the deadliest in the history of Everest, with eighteen people losing their lives on the mountain. After spending two unsettling days stranded on Everest, Davidson's team was rescued by helicopter. The experience left him shaken, and despite his thirty-three years of climbing and serving as an expedition leader, he wasn’t sure that he would ever go back. But in the face of risk and uncertainty, he returned in 2017 and finally achieved his dream of reaching the summit. Suspenseful and engrossing, The Next Everest portrays the experience of living through the biggest disaster to ever hit the mountain. Davidson's background in geology and environmental science makes him uniquely qualified to explain how this natural disaster unfolded and why the seismic threats lurking beneath Nepal are even greater today. But this story is not about “conquering” the world’s highest peak. Instead, it reveals how embracing change, challenge, and uncertainty prepares anyone to face their “next Everest” in life. A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press 'Among all outdoor pursuits, climbing mountains offers the purest, most direct challenge. Jim Davidson weaves his experiences with avalanches, crevasse falls, earthquakes, altitude, frostbite, and other Himalayan hazards into an exciting, sometimes somber introspective narrative, describing not just how he survives climbing the highest mountains in the world, but more importantly, why he must go again and again.'--Roman Dial, author of The Adventurer’s Son

Jim Davidson (Author), Jim Davidson, Tim Campbell (Narrator)

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The Mountain: My Time on Everest

In The Mountain, veteran world-class climber and bestselling author Ed Viesturs-the only American to have climbed all fourteen of the world's 8,000-meter peaks-trains his sights on Mount Everest in richly detailed accounts of expeditions that are by turns personal, harrowing, deadly, and inspiring. The highest mountain on earth, Everest remains the ultimate goal for serious high-altitude climbers. Viesturs has gone on eleven expeditions to Everest, spending more than two years of his life on the mountain and reaching the summit seven times. No climber today is better poised to survey Everest's various ascents-both personal and historic. Viesturs sheds light on the fate of Mallory and Irvine, whose 1924 disappearance just 800 feet from the summit remains one of mountaineering's greatest mysteries, as well as the multiply tragic last days of Rob Hall and Scott Fischer in 1996, the stuff of which Into Thin Air was made. Informed by the experience of one who has truly been there, The Mountain affords a rare glimpse into that place on earth where Heraclitus's maxim-'Character is destiny'-is proved time and again.

Ed Viesturs (Author), Tom Beyer (Narrator)

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The Mountain of My Fear and Deborah: Two Mountaineering Classics

The publication of The Mountain of My Fear in 1968 and Deborah in 1970 changed the face of the mountaineering narrative. Now these two classic expedition narratives by acclaimed writer David Roberts are together again in one volume for a new generation of readers. Deborah is the story of Roberts's 1964 expedition with fellow Harvard Mountaineering Club member Don Jensen to the eastern side of Mount Deborah in Alaska. Their two-man attempt on the then-unclimbed ridge was a rash and heroic effort. The story tells not only what happened on the mountain, but what happened in the stark isolation to the climbers and their friendship, as each became totally dependent on the other for survival. In The Mountain of My Fear Roberts and Jensen come together again only a year after the Deborah climb. In this account, they and two other Harvard students attempt an ascent of Mount Huntington, for the first time via its treacherous west face. The summit had been reached only the year before, via one of its less dangerous ridges. The story is one of a magnificent achievement. But it is also the story of how a perfect adventure can turn into tragedy in a single instant. Mountaineers, lovers of adventure literature, David Roberts fans, and non-climbers who simply enjoy a good story will value this pairing, by a great climber and a great writer, of two dramatic and enlightening works.

David Roberts (Author), David De Vries (Narrator)

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The Mindful Walk: Steps Towards Mindfulness and Clarity

Dr Zayden Zander (Author), Lucky Lucky (Narrator)

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The Manaslu Adventure: Three hapless friends try to climb a big mountain

The mountain gods were protective of Manaslu, a two-pronged peak in the Nepal Himalaya, and one of the world’s fourteen 8,000m peaks. Many years ago, a Japanese team tried to climb it, but the gods had sent an avalanche in their wake which destroyed a monastery and set the local people against them. When they returned the next year, they were met with sticks and stones, stripped naked and sent home with red cheeks. Mark Horrell and his two friends Mark and Ian shared a dream to climb an 8,000m peak, but it seemed the gods were against them too. They had made no fewer than eight attempts without success (though they had managed to return with their clothes on). With towering ice walls, monsoon rainstorms, arm-twisting crevasses and – most dangerous of all – welcoming teahouses ready to entrap them, would it be different this time?

Mark Horrell (Author), Mark Horrell (Narrator)

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Outdoor Recreation Audiobooks in Sports & Recreation