Laura Waterman – författare

In the summer of 1881, when the ship that dropped off the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition sailed for home, these twenty-five men could not have known that only a handful would survive their three-year assignment. Commanded by Lt. A. W. Greely, this was the first attempt of the United States to engage in scientific study of the Arctic. Support of promised re-supply never reached them, leaving the men abandoned by the very government that had sent them up. Beset by gelid cold, scurvy, and the madness of starvation the men start to die. Sgt. Brainard, a man of energy and integrity, alone possesses the ability to hold off their utter moral degeneration, yet cannibalism takes place. The author has used letters and journal entries to ensure immediacy to an Arctic story that really happened, that pits men, in their fight to stay alive, against their better selves and the consequences of becoming bestial.

First published in 1993 and hailed as a classic, Yankee Rock & Ice is now reissued in a new edition with four new chapters covering the 1990s through today to bring the book up to date. This comprehensive and entertaining history of roped rock and ice climbing in the Northeast traces the growth of this popular sport in New England and New York and covers the first trailblazers of the eighteenth century through today’s events and personalities. Well-known mountaineers and preservationists, Guy and Laura Waterman have explored every corner of the mountains of New England and New York and done solid historical research on first ascents of classic routes and the climbers who have made them legendary. Climber Michael Wejchert joins Laura for the work on the second edition.

When Backwood Ethics was first published in 1979, the Watermans' "new ethic" was enthusiastically received by environmentalists, hikers, and wilderness managers. This expanded edition brings the basics of low-impact hiking, camping and cooking, and alpine management into the 21st century. Here the authors take a fresh look at ways to protect the physical environment of our mountains and backcountry.

A compelling story of our ever-evolving relationship with mountains and wilderness.Thirty years after its initial publication, this beloved classic is back in print. Superbly researched and written, Forest and Crag is the definitive history of our love affair with the mountains of the Northeastern United States, from the Catskills and the Adirondacks of New York to the Green Mountains of Vermont, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and the mountains of Maine. It's all here in one comprehensive volume: the struggles of early pioneers in America's first frontier wilderness; the first ascent of every major peak in the Northeast; the building of the trail networks, including the Appalachian Trail; the golden era of the summit resort hotels; and the unforeseen consequences of the backpacking boom of the 1970s and 80s. Laura and Guy Waterman spent a decade researching and writing Forest and Crag, and in it they draw together widely scattered sources. What emerges is a compelling story of our ever-evolving relationship with the mountains and wilderness, a story that will fascinate historians, outdoor enthusiasts, and armchair adventurers alike.

Poignant and vulnerable essays that weave together seemingly disparate themes of wild places and mountain stewardship, books and reading, and building a new life after loss."This is some of the finest writing in Laura Waterman's long and distinguished career. Anyone who values the history of conservation, or the gnarled wilds of the Northeast, or the complexities of the human spirit will find nourishment in these pages." - Bill McKibben, author of Wandering Home"In this new book, Laura Waterman tells the full story of her unique life. It began on the campus of a boy's school and took her to mountains, growing her own food, and writing. In these pages, readers find what it's like to grow up the daughter of the scholar who put the dashes back into Emily Dickinson's poetry; how Waterman coped with that brilliant father's alcoholism; her development as a groundbreaking climber; and her homesteading life for almost three decades. In these pages she reveals how she kept her strong sense of self while living with a dynamic, lovable, and often challenging man, her late husband, Guy Waterman. She examines closely her role in his suicide on Mount Lafayette in 2000." - Christine Woodside, editor of Appalachia and the author of Libertarians on the Prairie: Laura Ingalls Wilder, Rose Wilder Lane, and the Making of the Little House Books

A portrait of an intense and unusual marriage, and an affirmation of life after suicide.In 1971, Laura and Guy Waterman left New York City for thirty-seven acres in Vermont, where they would live in a hand-built cabin without running water or electricity for the next thirty years. It was a life based largely in the nineteenth century, a life of hauling their own water and growing their own food, of lighting candles in the evening and heating their cabin with wood from the surrounding forest. Combined with the trail tending they did in the alpine zone of the White Mountains and the books they wrote about environmental stewardship, it made for a rewarding, healthy, and fruitful existence. But that was only part of their story. Guy's depression was another part, and his ultimate decision to take his own life on the wintry summit of Mount Lafayette-a decision he made with Laura's support-was the crux, a term climbers use to describe the hardest move on the climb. Being a climber herself, Laura had to confront the crux. This meant taking a close look at Guy's suicide and asking herself a hard question: How, or why, had she come to support the decision of the man she loved? In Losing the Garden, Laura Waterman comes to terms with her husband's long depression and the complex nature of a gifted, humorous man who was driven by obsession, self-absorption, and a strange lack of confidence. Her account of her own marriage, idyllic from the outside but riddled from within, is nonetheless a love story, a portrait of an intense and unusual marriage, and an affirmation of life after loss.

2014 marks the 50th anniversary of the passing of the Wilderness Act—the landmark piece of legislation to set aside and protect pristine parts of the American landscape. This anniversary edition of Wilderness Ethics should help put the many issues surrounding wilderness in focus.