Shawangunk: Adventure, Exploration, History and Epiphany from a Mountain Wilderness by Marc Fried. Published by author, 1998. ISBN 0966335104

The Shawangunks have long been the poor cousins of the New York area's mountains; not as storied as the Catskills, numerous or high as the Adirondacks, or dramatic as the White or Green Mountains. Mark Fried tries to redress this imbalance in Shawangunk: Adventure, Exploration, History, and Epiphany from a Mountain Wilderness, based on his 30+ years of exploration of the region.

Fried entertains us with his tales of mountain blazes, huckleberry pickers, mountain lion sightings, and enthusiastic descriptions of exotic and mundane plants, birds, animals, and insects. The author built a temporary domicile to be used as a base camp in the Shawangunk badlands and he affably describes his cabin's quirks in a way reminiscent of John Burroughs. Hikers will appreciate his description of the mountains' charms. Fried prefers winter to summer camping (he actually hiked into the mountains in 1993 just to experience a predicted "winter cyclone of near-hurricane intensity"), and his excerpts from journal entries make for fascinating reading.

Unfortunately, several dubious editing decisions undermine the book. The first chapter, describing the Shawangunks from numerous vantage points, is by far the book's dullest, and the inclusion of the author's own poetry seems superfluous. By trying to cram too much into a first-person narrative (adventure, exploration, history and epiphany), Fried leaves the reader unfulfilled on all counts. Fried's earlier works-Tales From the Shawangunk Mountains (Adirondack Mountain Club, 1982) and The Huckleberry Pickers (Black Dome, 1995)-cover much the same ground and are preferable in both style and content.

Reviewed by Jon Sterngass