This is the essential guide for modern-day walkers and hikers eager to retrace Thoreau’s routes on New England’s peaks. Insights about Thoreau’s mountain journeys, excerpts from his trip narratives, detailed topographical maps, and precise trail directions pave the way—figuratively—for hikers who want to cover the same ground that Thoreau explored in the mid-19th century. With this inventive guide in hand, history and literature buffs and outdoors enthusiasts alike can enjoy a dozen hikes and at least as many stories of what the trails were like in Thoreau’s day.

Thoreau was drawn to these high places because they are the natural world amplified, the world thrust upward. Not to go there was unthinkable. “We must go out and re-ally ourselves to Nature every day,” he wrote in 1856. “I am sensible that I am imbibing health when I open my mouth to the wind...Alone in distant woods or fields, I come to myself, I once more feel myself grandly related, and that cold and solitude are friends of mine.”

John Gibson is the author of several books, including Explorer’s Guides 50 Hikes in Coastal and Southern Maine and Weekend Walks along the New England Coast (both Countryman). He lives in Hallowell, ME.