A Blistered Kind of Love - One couple's Trial by Trail

By Angela & Duffy Ballard

The 20-something Ballards alternate chapters to detail their 2,655-mile backpacking trek along the Pacific Crest Trail, starting at the U.S./Mexico border and ending in Canada.

List Price: $16.95 Price: $11.87

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Mountaineers Books; (September 2003)
• ISBN: 0898869021
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: 1,995,066

Book Description

WINNER OF THE 2003 BARBARA SAVAGE MILES FROM NOWHERE MEMORIAL AWARD

They're not sure which came first—falling in love with each other, or falling in love with the idea of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (Mexico to the Canadian border). At the trailhead, they were warned that there would be tears, that each would have to find their own separate pace, and that at times the tent would seem awfully small for the two of them. They were told that their biggest obstacles to success would be…each other.

Their first surprise: freeze-dried meals do funny things to your GI tract. Their first fight: when Angela noticed that Duffy's long legs propel him along the trail faster than she can muster. But on they pressed— encountering snakes, bears, and fellow thru-hikers with trail names like Crazy Legs and Catch 23. They baked in the deserts of Southern California, gazed awestruck at the snowy, serrated peaks of the High Sierra, and attempted to hide from Northern Washington's seemingly incessant rain. 132 days later, they made it—blisters and all.

From the Publisher

ABOUT THE BARBARA SAVAGE MILES FROM NOWHERE MEMORIAL AWARD

Initiated in 1990, this ongoing biennial award is presented for an unpublished work of non-fiction written as a personal narrative. The program commemorates the late Barbara Savage, author of the book, Miles from Nowhere, published by The Mountaineers Books in 1983.

Barbara was killed in a cycling accident shortly before the book's publication; the story of Barbara and Larry Savage's two-year, 23,000-mile, round-the-world bicycle adventure continues, however, to embrace a wide readership and to generate letters from readers who have come to know Barbara through her book. The author's husband, Larry Savage, created this award in cooperation with The Mountaineers Books by donating royalties to encourage adventure writing in the genre of Miles from Nowhere.

The winning manuscript will be a compelling non-fiction account of a personal, muscle-powered outdoor adventure. It will vividly convey a sense of the risks, joys, hardships, disappointments, triumphs, moments of humor, and accidents of fate that are inevitably a part of such a journey. It will recognize the fact that we are all, like it or not, unwitting adventurers in a strange landscape.

About the Author

ANGELA BALLARD'S articles on culture and lifestyle, sports, health, and technology have appeared in Men's Health, on GORP.com, and in other publications. DUFFY BALLARD is a resident in Emergency Medicine at University of California, Davis, Medical Center. His writing credits include contributing to Hoops Nation. They live in Sacramento, California.