What do you think?
Rate this book
A Walk in the Clouds: 50 Years Among the Mountains
A Walk in the 50 Years Among the Mountains is a heartwarming, inspirational, and evocative collection of memories and short stories from Kev Reynolds, a prolific and celebrated guidebook author who has been roaming the mountains for a half-century.
These recollections trail Reyonlds' journeys through some of his favorite and most memorable lessons learned on the mountains. The people met, experiences shared, and cultures bridged throughout Reynolds' travels make for an engaging read for hikers and non-hikers alike.
Shadowing Reynolds across the Moroccan Atlas, the Pyrenees trails, the European Alps, and even the Himalayas gives the reader the feeling not only of hiking the trails, but also of forming the relationships and connections throughout the world that Reynolds was able to create. This book motivates the common reader to undertake something they have never done before because, as the reader learns from Reynolds, that is where some of the best experiences come from.
These recollections trail Reyonlds' journeys through some of his favorite and most memorable lessons learned on the mountains. The people met, experiences shared, and cultures bridged throughout Reynolds' travels make for an engaging read for hikers and non-hikers alike.
Shadowing Reynolds across the Moroccan Atlas, the Pyrenees trails, the European Alps, and even the Himalayas gives the reader the feeling not only of hiking the trails, but also of forming the relationships and connections throughout the world that Reynolds was able to create. This book motivates the common reader to undertake something they have never done before because, as the reader learns from Reynolds, that is where some of the best experiences come from.
- GenresTravel
219 pages, Hardcover
First published November 28, 2013
10 people are currently reading
45 people want to read
About the author
Kev Reynolds
108 books4 followersA lifelong passion for the countryside in general, and mountains in particular, drives Kev Reynolds' desire to share his sense of wonder and delight in the natural world through his writing, photography and lectures. Claiming to be The Man with the World's Best Job, he has enjoyed a fruitful partnership with Cicerone since the 1970s, producing more than 50 books, including guides to major trekking regions of Nepal, and to numerous routes in the Alps and Pyrenees, as well as walking guides for Kent, Sussex and the Cotswolds. His collection of autobiographical short stories, A Walk in the Clouds, is a record of 50 years of mountain travel and adventures, while Abode of the Gods tells of eight of his many trekking expeditions in the Himalaya. The Mountain Hut Book, on the other hand, is a celebration of those alpine refuges perched in remote places, brought to life through joyful tales and exciting photographs.
Kev is an honorary life member of the Outdoor Writers' and Photographers' Guild (OWPG),and an honorary member of both SELVA (the Société d'Etudes de la Littérature de Voyage Anglophone) and the British Association of International Mountain Leaders (BAIML). When not away in the mountains, he lives with his wife in view of what he calls 'the Kentish Alps' with unrestricted walking country on his doorstep. But he also travels throughout Britain and abroad during the winter months to share his love of the places he writes about through a series of lectures.
Kev is an honorary life member of the Outdoor Writers' and Photographers' Guild (OWPG),and an honorary member of both SELVA (the Société d'Etudes de la Littérature de Voyage Anglophone) and the British Association of International Mountain Leaders (BAIML). When not away in the mountains, he lives with his wife in view of what he calls 'the Kentish Alps' with unrestricted walking country on his doorstep. But he also travels throughout Britain and abroad during the winter months to share his love of the places he writes about through a series of lectures.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 6, 2017
I thought this was a lovely book. I had it as a book on my coffee table for a month or so, dipping in and reading a story or two a day. Some inspired, some made me sad, others brought a smile, some made me think. As someone who first used one of his guidebooks in the 1980s it was good to learn something of the man behind them too, even if all you get is a series of vignettes.
Having seen the other reviews, I can see how if you read it end to end it may not be the same, but don't let that put you off.
Having seen the other reviews, I can see how if you read it end to end it may not be the same, but don't let that put you off.
August 9, 2016
Nice, this collection of very short vignettes is nice. Sadly, that is damning it with faint praise.
Go hiking, get too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, meet some people. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. The problem for me with this book is that it was too repetitious without enough stories that set them apart from one another. It seemed a little too superficial. The writing was not lyrical enough to make up for the sameness of most of the stories. Several of them have been published in various magazines and journals before this book was created. Journals – yes. These stories seem more like a did-this, saw-that journal than a glimpse into the author's life.
There were exceptions. The story about the death of an izard touched me and left me saddened. The description of accepting a host's offering of yogurt made me laugh:
Now I like yogurt. I have fresh, home-made yogurt with my breakfast cereal each morning. Straight from the fridge, my wife's yogurt has a pure creamy texture. It lies smooth in the dish; it's not yellowing, thick, lumpy, and moving. There are no goat hairs in my wife's yogurt; no livestock paddling from one side to the other. It has no alien flavors, no uninvited additions. This tin, however, held a cocktail of unwelcome mysteries.
The best bits of this book where the parts telling of interactions with other people. You can only read about so many sunsets and storms before you get bored. Or maybe that's just me. The author notes that the stories can be read in any order, there is no reason to read them sequentially. However, to me, it seemed these was no reason to read them non-sequentially.
While I love to read about travel and about hiking and climbing adventures, this one didn't have enough depth and flavor for me.
I was given an advance copy of the book for review, and the quote may have changed in the published edition.
Go hiking, get too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, meet some people. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. The problem for me with this book is that it was too repetitious without enough stories that set them apart from one another. It seemed a little too superficial. The writing was not lyrical enough to make up for the sameness of most of the stories. Several of them have been published in various magazines and journals before this book was created. Journals – yes. These stories seem more like a did-this, saw-that journal than a glimpse into the author's life.
There were exceptions. The story about the death of an izard touched me and left me saddened. The description of accepting a host's offering of yogurt made me laugh:
Now I like yogurt. I have fresh, home-made yogurt with my breakfast cereal each morning. Straight from the fridge, my wife's yogurt has a pure creamy texture. It lies smooth in the dish; it's not yellowing, thick, lumpy, and moving. There are no goat hairs in my wife's yogurt; no livestock paddling from one side to the other. It has no alien flavors, no uninvited additions. This tin, however, held a cocktail of unwelcome mysteries.
The best bits of this book where the parts telling of interactions with other people. You can only read about so many sunsets and storms before you get bored. Or maybe that's just me. The author notes that the stories can be read in any order, there is no reason to read them sequentially. However, to me, it seemed these was no reason to read them non-sequentially.
While I love to read about travel and about hiking and climbing adventures, this one didn't have enough depth and flavor for me.
I was given an advance copy of the book for review, and the quote may have changed in the published edition.
May 7, 2014
A WALK IN THE CLOUDS is not a bad book --as you can see by the number of 5- and 4-Star reviews over at Amazon-- but I'm fairly certain it's not going to be a book for everyone, thus my review.
A WALK IN THE CLOUDS is a collection of very short recollections drawn from years of experience climbing and hiking in mountains all over the world. Though I'm a couch-potato I've found that I love reading books about K2 and Everest, about hiking the Rockies or Appalachian trail. It wasn't until this book though that I realized that an important part about what I enjoyed about Viesturs' and Curran's, Grylls' and Krakauer's books was the personal interactions and the personal determination it took to overcome the obstacles.
***SMALL SPOILERS ** ** SMALL SPOILERS**
Kev Reynolds writes about little vignettes, special moments that sparkle brilliantly in his mind after the passage of years and even decades, but they aren't the sort of moments that are satisfying for someone looking for the in-depth portrayal of human interactions and determination. There's a story about a woman who overcame her fear of the vertical ladders at the Ceilon glacier, but the story ends with her farting. There's another story of a woman who needed prompting to cross an avalanche area... but it ended with getting a shot of snaps.
***END OF SPOILERS***
These are sweet vignettes, but very personal and something I just didn't connect with.
Like I said. Not a bad book, just not what I was looking for.
--review copy
June 13, 2014
I absolutely love trekking and mountains, but unfortunately have not had the opportunity to spend much of my free time on such pursuits. Spending your whole adult life walking in the mountains, and actually making a career out of it, seems like a dream way of life. Thus I was really intrigued by this little book. It looked like a great opportunity to experience the joy of mountaineering vicariously. The book did indeed provide some interesting insights about some amazingly beautiful mountains, but in the end it fell flat of my expectations.
The book consists of a string of short stories and vignettes, most of them just a couple of pages long. In each one of them you get a feel for the particular mountain or a trail, but none of them really take you deeper in its exploration. The prose is well crafted, but ultimately uninspiring. There are very few really moving moments in any of them. Many stories have a fun little anecdote or a vignette in them, but unfortunately all of these almost always come at the very end, and are devoted but a paragraph or two. After reading this book I don’t feel like I have been sufficiently enriched by the experiences described in it, and certainly don’t feel I have any better appreciation of the mountains and the trekking. It’s a nice enough read, but ultimately not that worthwhile.
The book consists of a string of short stories and vignettes, most of them just a couple of pages long. In each one of them you get a feel for the particular mountain or a trail, but none of them really take you deeper in its exploration. The prose is well crafted, but ultimately uninspiring. There are very few really moving moments in any of them. Many stories have a fun little anecdote or a vignette in them, but unfortunately all of these almost always come at the very end, and are devoted but a paragraph or two. After reading this book I don’t feel like I have been sufficiently enriched by the experiences described in it, and certainly don’t feel I have any better appreciation of the mountains and the trekking. It’s a nice enough read, but ultimately not that worthwhile.
June 20, 2015
Don't try to sit down to read this. There is no storyline to follow. The stories are so short that you can't get into it.
Picking it up and flipping to a random story (which takes about a minute to read) is the way to go.
Picking it up and flipping to a random story (which takes about a minute to read) is the way to go.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews