Book Review: Journeys North

BOOK REVIEW JOURNEYS NORTH BY BARNEY SCOUT MANN

by Jeff Thomas

In June I picked up an advance copy of Journeys North thinking, “I’ll get it read in a week.” I couldn’t put it down. Two days later I surfaced at the end and thought, “What a great story.” Here is the bottom line on Barney Scout Mann’s book about the Pacific Crest Trail: If you like a gripping outdoor adventure with real heart, put Journeys North on your list of priorities to read. Journeys North is an ensemble memoir about the author, his wife, and two younger pairs of hikers. For two days those six hikers and the rest of Barneys’ PCT class of 2007 became a part of my life. Here is why I thought it was such a great read.

One, this author knows what he is writing about. Not only did he hike the PCT in 2007, but he’s completed the Triple Crown, hiking the Continental Divide Trail in 2015 and the Appalachian Trail in 2017. Barney is also the most knowledgeable historian I know, of both the PCT and the CDT.

Two, the author knows how to write. From the start he reels the potential story lover into a trail mystery about a hiker in trouble as winter approaches on the Washington section of the PCT— Who is Nadine? I had to find out what would happen and did not put the book down until the puzzle was solved. I was constantly entertained by passages such as Chapter 13 “John Donovan’s Final Service,” a service John performed after he died—his remains led to the rescue of two people in dire straits. “John Donovan had helped countless men and women during his time as a social worker. On the PCT it turned out he had one final service to perform: John Donovan had two lives to save.”

Another engaging passage was an observation about our own state: “‘Wow,’ exclaimed an eighty-year-old Oklahoman gazing south from the porch of Timberline Lodge. ‘If this state was pounded flat it would be bigger than Texas.’” I also loved his observations about each character in the book. In a chapter titled “The Knife’s Edge,” a fiftyish woman with the trail name “Sandals” reflects on her life and why she’s hiking the PCT: “‘I’ve completed life’s requirements—home, career, and children—and now I’ve moved to electives.’”

Third, you might think as a climber that this is “only” a hiking tale, but a long hike has challenges and fascinating personalities just as you would find on a long rock climb or a big mountaineering expedition. The potential for death may not be ratcheted up to the same level, but in starting out on the first leg from the Mexican/California border, there is just as much risk of injury or failure as on the Salathe Wall on El Capitan or the South Buttress of Mt. McKinley.

Fourth, the heart of this book is the real characters populating almost every page. In 2007 Barney estimates that about 275 to 300 people started the PCT from the southern border. For his primary six, Barney’s account includes in-depth and sometimes very private details. Many others, some fifty, feature in short intimate tales. As I became engaged in the six’s struggles, I also wondered how Barney could reveal such confidential information. In a telephone interview I asked that question. Barney said it was something he wrestled with. He even considered writing it as fiction, not a memoir. But the answer became clear when his wife and trail companion Sandy told him, “Ask them.” The first hiker he asked was Blazer, a central character of Journeys North six. “Blazer, you wouldn’t want me to write about you, would you?” Her answer was direct, “Barney, it would be okay.” The other four characters gave Barney similar positive answers. To this day Barney says that Blazer’s answer stunned him. “You could have knocked me over with a feather.”

Barney’s relationship with the Mazamas goes back more than a decade. Some of you have seen him hunched over old photos, books and files in our basement library. Many of you have seen Oregonian articles featuring the result of his searches. One in particular stands out to me. In 2010, I shared with him an entry by a Peter Parsons in the 1923 Mazama Mt. Jefferson summit register. That entry implied that Parsons had traversed the Continental Divide on foot, Mexico to Canada, in 1923. Barney spent eight years tracking down Parsons’ story. He found Parsons’ original journal from that trip and hundreds of undeveloped negatives. Parsons actually lived in Oregon in our own Mill City and Barney wrote a Backpacker magazine feature article on him. A reprint of that article is in this issue of the Bulletin. The entire Peter Parsons archive was recently donated to the Mazamas.

In our interview, Barney captured his book in a single phrase. “Journeys North is Wild meets The Breakfast Club. Journeys North embodies the best elements of both—personal struggle in the outdoors together with a group the reader truly comes to care about.