Books

Tales & Trails: Adven­tures for Every­one in the Cana­dian Rock­ies (2011)

Since mov­ing to the Rock­ies of west­ern Canada in 1984, Lynn Mar­tel has spent count­less hours and days explor­ing the moun­tain wilder­ness with her many expe­ri­enced friends as well as some of the best known and well-informed pro­fes­sional guides in the out­door adven­ture busi­ness. Wak­ing up in tents and back­coun­try huts; hik­ing and ski­ing up val­leys, over passes and across glac­i­ers; rock climb­ing; moun­tain bik­ing; cav­ing; pad­dling and horse­back rid­ing have all become inte­gral parts of Martel’s life in the Moun­tain West.

Since the mid-1990s, Mar­tel has shared the beauty and the magic of the region’s inspir­ing wilder­ness des­ti­na­tions through finely crafted tales of her own adven­tures and also those of the Rock­ies’ most colour­ful and iconic adven­ture per­son­al­i­ties. Her vast amount of expe­ri­ence and insight into the most pop­u­lar activ­i­ties avail­able to tourists, locals and the most skilled and com­pe­tent week­end war­riors infuse this col­lec­tion of 20 of her best adven­ture sto­ries. Com­plete with colour pho­tographs and maps, dif­fi­culty rat­ings, sea­sonal details and gen­eral infor­ma­tion, these sto­ries will inspire those seek­ing to expe­ri­ence adven­tures at their own level in and around Kananaskis Coun­try, Can­more, Lake Louise and Banff, Yoho and Jasper national parks.

Expe­di­tion to the Edge: Sto­ries of World­wide Adven­ture (2008)

From skilled week­end war­riors to inter­na­tion­ally rec­og­nized stars of the pro­fes­sional adven­ture game, Lynn Mar­tel has inter­viewed dozens of the most dynamic, cre­ative and accom­plished self-propelled adven­tur­ers of our time. In Expe­di­tion to the Edge: Sto­ries of World­wide Adven­ture, Mar­tel has assem­bled 59 com­pelling and enter­tain­ing sto­ries that uniquely cap­ture the exploits, the hard­ships, the fears and the per­sonal insights of a vir­tual who’s who of con­tem­po­rary adven­tur­ers as they explore remote moun­tain land­scapes from the Rock­ies to Pak­istan to Antarctica.

Through can­did and reveal­ing con­ver­sa­tions, Mar­tel cap­tures the joys, the moti­va­tions and the rev­e­la­tions of top climbers Son­nie Trot­ter, Sean Isaac, Raphael Slaw­in­ski and Steph Davis; Himalayan alpin­ists Car­los Buh­ler, Marko Prezelj and Barry Blan­chard; record-setting paraglider Will Gadd; Ever­est skier Kit Deslau­ri­ers; the con­ser­va­tion­ist duo Karsten Heuer and Leanne Alli­son as they fol­low a cari­bou herd for five months on foot across the Yukon; and Colin Angus on his two-year quest to become the first per­son to cir­cum­nav­i­gate the world by human power.

Read Westworld’s review here