Shalako

 Looking for good books about history along the trail. I'm re-reading an old favorite, Undaunted Courage, about the Louis and Clark expedition. Fascinating, and I'm eager to walk through that country along the Idaho/Montana border!

I've only read one Louis L'Amour novel, oddly enough, it was about a fighter pilot crashing in Siberia during the cold war (Last of the Breed), so, not really a western which he is famous for. It was a rip-roaring adventure tale, I liked it very much.

But as I discovered on this site, L'Amour is all about New Mexico! Many stories are set there. I'm halfway into one now, Shalako, set in the area of the "bootheel," where the Continental Divide Trail begins. It's nearly impossible to put this book down, and I love his attention to the country and the way it shapes the men who master it (and quickly ends the dreams of those who enter it without full consciousness).

The West is not about surface details, like horses, pistols and cowboy boots. It is instead the answer to a question: "what would you do if you came to consciousness in a hard world where death is quick, whose aching beauty stirred your soul?"

If you decide to enter that world and pay homage to it, then you must master it. There is a reason for everything.

This is the meaning of the West, in my opinion. 

Short, 5 mile walk yesterday with 10.5 kg pack. Mostly busy with my boys.