Description
Book SynopsisAndrea Lani explores the complexities of hiking with a family after taking her three reluctant children and grouchy husband on a 489-mile trek from Denver to Durango, determined to reset her life and confront the history of environmental damage.
Trade Review“Andrea Lani is an insightful guide as she takes readers on a fateful family hiking trip along the legendary Colorado Trail. In language both witty and lush, she vividly portrays this remarkable terrain while also sharing a personal story of self-examination and persistence.
Uphill Both Ways gripped me from its hopeful start to its jubilant finish.”—Aaron Hamburger, author of
Nirvana Is Here“Andrea Lani seamlessly weaves history, geology, and ecology in
Uphill Both Ways, a moving memoir about nature, family, and learning to live in the moment. . . . Lani’s prose is lovely, even as she is examining the environmental cost of human error, misguided forest management, and ignoring climate change. In the end, Lani accomplishes what she set out to do, and she and her family learn that ‘even sucky things can sometimes be awesome.’”—Kate Hopper, author of
Ready for Air and
Use Your Words“This lovely book manages to be a geological drama, an environmental history, a trail memoir, and a case for the protection of wild places—all while musing brilliantly on what it means to be a wife, a mother, and a person in the world. If you put Terry Tempest Williams and Cheryl Strayed and Kelly Corrigan in a room together, this is the book they would write. I loved it.”—Catherine Newman, author of
Catastrophic Happiness“Andrea Lani has crafted a true story on many levels, and her apt depictions of the journey bring the reader along with her, exposing personal peaks and valleys along with actual ups and downs. The geology of the Rockies she and her family trek across is an engaging saga told with close-up precision and sweeping landscapes, and her candid vignettes of family dynamics add humor and realism.
Uphill Both Ways weaves a complex fabric of time and place—an adventure for anyone who treks through its pages.”—Cloe Chunn, author of
Fifty Hikes in the Maine Mountains“It was with great anticipation and pleasure that I read Andrea Lani’s new book,
Uphill Both Ways. . . . In my opinion, the trail is where the family belongs, and thanks to Lani’s book, more families will become inspired to go to our country’s rich plethora of long distance wilderness trails and enjoy their gifts together. Well done, Andrea and the whole Lani family!”—Cindy Ross, author of
Scraping Heaven: A Family’s Journey along the Continental Divide TrailTable of ContentsList of Illustrations
Prologue
1. Headwaters
2. Succession
3. Backcountry
4. Disturbance
5. Bedrock
6. False Summit
7. Watershed
8. Peaks and Valleys
9. Range
10. Restoration
11. Tableland
12. Terminus
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Appendix: Equipment List
Recommended Reading
