Pinder, Eric. North to Katahdin.

PINDER, Eric. North to Katahdin. Milkweed. 178p. c2005. 1-57131-280-3. $15.95. SA

This is a small gem of a book about a little-known corner of America and its deep appeal to those who are familiar with it. Most first-person mountaineering books deal with the world's truly sublime heights: Everest (of course), Annapurna, K-2, and the little-known peaks of Tierra del Fuego. This story is slightly different. Mount Katahdin is located in Maine, is all of 5,268 feet high, and has been "conquered" innumerable times. Instead of existing in sublime isolation among the primeval mountain chains of the world, Katahdin exists squarely at the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail, and is easily accessible to the generations of Maine natives who claim it as their Own. As picturesque as it is, the granite knob is probably the closest thing to raw nature that most of its visiting hordes will ever know. Thoreau himself was one of the first European visitors to Katahdin's heights, marveling at its primeval beauty in 1846. The mountain has known little peace ever since.

Even so, generations of New Englanders have bonded with Katahdin and share warm recollections about the peak and the various people who have embraced the genuine wilderness experience that it can offer. And that is pretty much the whole point of this book. Pinder would probably describe himself as a mountain bum, an outdoorsman who takes various backwoods jobs so that he can stay in his beloved countryside and write about it all. Certainly he has the right background to describe the numerous Mainers and flatlanders alike who over the years have made the peak a treasured part of their lives. It is not a tale of misty sentimentality, either. Katahdin is an ancient mountain (Pinder goes back nearly a billion years to begin his tale of rocks and people) but clearly dangerous to climb around during its frequent storms and fogs. Raymond Puffer, Ph.D., Historian, Edwards AFB, Lancaster, EA