Shawangunk: Adventure, Exploration, History and Epiphany
from a Mountain Wilderness
by Marc Fried. Published by author, 1998. ISBN 0966335104
The Shawangunks have long been the poor cousins of the New
York area's mountains; not as storied as the Catskills, numerous or high as
the Adirondacks, or dramatic as the White or Green Mountains. Mark Fried tries
to redress this imbalance in Shawangunk: Adventure, Exploration, History, and
Epiphany from a Mountain Wilderness, based on his 30+ years of exploration
of the region.
Fried entertains us with his tales of mountain blazes,
huckleberry pickers, mountain lion sightings, and enthusiastic descriptions of
exotic and mundane plants, birds, animals, and insects. The author built a
temporary domicile to be used as a base camp in the Shawangunk badlands and he
affably describes his cabin's quirks in a way reminiscent of John Burroughs.
Hikers will appreciate his description of the mountains' charms. Fried prefers
winter to summer camping (he actually hiked into the mountains in 1993 just to
experience a predicted "winter cyclone of near-hurricane intensity"),
and his excerpts from journal entries make for fascinating reading.
Unfortunately, several dubious editing decisions undermine
the book. The first chapter, describing the Shawangunks from numerous vantage
points, is by far the book's dullest, and the inclusion of the author's own
poetry seems superfluous. By trying to cram too much into a first-person
narrative (adventure, exploration, history and epiphany), Fried leaves
the reader unfulfilled on all counts. Fried's earlier works-Tales From
the Shawangunk Mountains (Adirondack Mountain Club, 1982) and The
Huckleberry Pickers (Black Dome, 1995)-cover much the same ground and are
preferable in both style and content.
Reviewed by Jon Sterngass
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