{"id":4129,"date":"2007-06-19T23:04:35","date_gmt":"2007-06-19T23:04:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=4129"},"modified":"2025-09-30T02:14:27","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T02:14:27","slug":"an_outdoors_ico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=4129","title":{"rendered":"An outdoors Icon dies"},"content":{"rendered":"

About four months ago I re-read a classic book about walking, titled The Complete Walker. the author is a Welshman-turned-American by the name of Colin Fletcher. I wrote about it here   Tom Faranda’s Folly: Latest Read: The Complete Walker IV<\/strong><\/a>  and also posted the review on amazon. <\/p>\n

Today a friend of mine, Dennis Cannon, remembering I was a fan of Fletcher’s, emailed me his obituary. He died a week ago at the age of 85. Evidently he died of complications of a head injury he received in 2001, when he was hit by a car. He must have been somewhat active since then, since he revised his book, along with a co-author in 2002. He had written quite a few books on his journeys, several of which I read years ago. <\/p>\n

Fletcher was a silky writer, with a good sense of humor. He was  character, without being eccentric. The sort of guy I would have enjoyed having a couple of beers with. Here is his obituary from the LA Times, which gives a good insight to the man. <\/p>\n

Colin Fletcher, 85; hiking icon’s books inspired generations to journey into the wilderness – Los Angeles Times<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Colin Fletcher, who was considered the father of modern backpacking for his lyrical and <\/strong>practical writings on hiking, including "The Complete Walker" and "The Man Who Walked Through Time," books that inspired generations to journey into the wilderness, died Tuesday in Monterey, Calif. He was 85.<\/p>\n

Fletcher, who was hit by a car as he crossed a rural road near his house in 2001, died at Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula of complications related to old age and injuries suffered from that accident, said Chris Cassidy, a business associate.<\/p>\n

"He brought this idea that you didn’t have to be a nut case to take long solitary walks in the wilderness at a time when a lot of people were really looking for ways to create holistic lives and escape from the craziness of Vietnam and the stresses of the ’60s," said Jonathan Dorn, editor in chief of Backpacker magazine.<\/p>\n

Bruce Hamilton, deputy executive director of the Sierra Club, said Fletcher had helped start a movement by "speaking as an adventurist who would share his own exploits, then tell you to lighten your load by cutting your toothbrush in half."<\/p>\n

"The Complete Walker," first published in 1968, is an exhaustive guide to outdoors travel that is generally regarded as the backpacker’s bible. The book brims with advice on gear and frank observations, such as why someone should consider wilderness walking: It "remains a delectable madness, very good for sanity."<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About four months ago I re-read a classic book about walking, titled The Complete Walker. the author is a Welshman-turned-American by the name of Colin Fletcher. I wrote about it here   Tom Faranda’s Folly: Latest Read: The Complete Walker IV  and also posted the review on amazon. Today a friend of mine, Dennis Cannon, remembering […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4129"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5480,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4129\/revisions\/5480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}