memorial

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I recently learned that author and legendary walking man Colin Fletcher died on this date two years ago. I’ve read several of his books and feel that I’ve lost an old walking companion.

In 2001, Fletcher was struck and seriously injured by an SUV while walking to a town meeting near his home in Monterey County, California. Although he recovered and resumed his daily walks, ultimately living another six years, he died as a result of complications from a head injury sustained in that accident.

Born in Wales in 1922. Fletcher moved to the U.S. in 1956 and his book, "The Thousand-Mile Summer" is a chronicle of his first big-time walk in this country: a 1958 hike in desert and high sierra along the entire eastern edge of California. The book was published in 1964 and I discovered it over 30 years later. Sadly, I think it is now out of print. Here’s an excerpt:

“And all at once I understood how lucky I was. For the first time I saw quite clearly that what mattered in The Walk were the simple things—snow and vivid light and sharp-grained bobcat tracks. My exhilaration swelled up and overflowed. And when at last I walked on past the two juniper trees toward the far side of the plateau I found I was feeling sorry for any man who was not free to abandon whatever futility detained him and to walk away into the desert morning with a pack on his back.”

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