It's time to take a hike! No more excuses like "there's nowhere to go around here," "the woods are too far from the city," or "I don't have time to wander the trails." With 60 Hikes within 60 Miles: Portland as your guide, you have dozens of places to hike to your heart's content, and all within an hour's drive or less. Trailblazers scour the earth for the best places to explore, and yet they often overlook their own backyards. 60 Hikes within 60 Miles: Portland blows the lid off the myth that you can't have a great hike close to home. The Portland area may be an ever-expanding metropolis, but there are still plenty of super hiking options, including short hikes, long hikes, hikes for kids, urban hikes, rural hikes, wildlife hikes, historic hikes, and many others. Whether you live in Portland or the surrounding area,, 60 Hikes within 60 Miles: Portland provides you with the information you need to choose the perfect day hike, including maps, directions, trail lengths, hiking times, and a wealth of detail about the trail itself. So lace up those boots, sling that pack, and hit the trail! (6 X 9, 240 pages, b&w photos, maps)
Paul Gerald grew up in Memphis and went to school at SMU in the middle of the football scandal there. His writing career began in the sports department of the much-missed Dallas Times Herald. He later worked for the Memphis Commercial Appeal and the Memphis Flyer before setting out as a freelancer. Since then, he has written some 300 travel articles for the Flyer, and along the way his work has also appeared in Northwest Airlines' WorldTraveler, as well as Portland's Willamette Week and The Oregonian.
He's also worked in and around landscaping, restaurants, public relations, social work, an amusement park, Alaskan fishing boats, the YMCA, corporate marketing, and as a package handler for FedEx. Such is the life of a writer who really, really wants to avoid having a regular job.
Paul's hiking life started at age 12, when he went to a summer camp in the Absoraka Mountains of Wyoming. He became a trail and road hound at that point, and his hometown of Memphis never looked the same. He's hiked in the Rocky Mountains from New Mexico to Montana, as well as in Appalachia, Alaska, Nepal, and Argentina. In 1996 he moved to Portland to be close to the ocean, the mountains, the big trees, and the coffee shops.
His first book was 60 Hikes Within 60 Miles of Portland; the first edition came out in 2001 and the Fourth in 2010. His second was Day and Overnight Hikes: Oregon's Pacific Crest Trail, also published by Menasha Ridge Press in 2007. And in 2009 he revised Best Tent Camping: Oregon for Menasha Ridge.
He's even become his own publisher, putting out Breakfast in Bridgetown: The Definitive Guide to Portland's Favorite Meal in 2008, under the name Bacon and Eggs Press. The "Second Serving" of that book came out in 2010.
He has greatly enjoyed meeting people using his books out on the trails; he's also grateful that none of them appeared to be lost or angry. He does hope, however, that any feedback will be directed to him at www.paulgerald.com. And he hopes people will continue to enjoy and benefit from the fruits of his labor -- that is, if hiking, eating and writing can truly be called labor.
