Trespassing Across America

One Man’s Epic, Never-Done-Before (and Sort of Illegal) Hike Across the Heartland

By: Ken Ilgunas

Narrated by: Andrew Eiden

Told with sincerity, humor, and wit, Trespassing Across America is both a fascinating account of one man's remarkable journey along the Keystone XL pipeline and a meditation on climate change, the beauty of the natural world, and the extremes to which we can push ourselves - both physically and mentally.

It started as a far-fetched idea - to hike the entire length of the proposed route of the Keystone XL pipeline. But in the months that followed, it grew into something more for Ken Ilgunas.

It became an irresistible adventure - an opportunity not only to draw attention to global warming but to explore his personal limits. So in September 2012, he strapped on his backpack, stuck out his thumb on the interstate just north of Denver, Colorado, and hitchhiked 1,500 miles to the Alberta tar sands. Once there, he turned around and began his 1,900-mile trek to the XL's endpoint on the Gulf Coast of Texas, a journey he would complete entirely on foot, almost exclusively walking across private property.

Both a travel memoir and a reflection on climate change, Trespassing Across America is filled with colorful characters, harrowing physical trials, and strange encounters with the weather, terrain, and animals of America's plains. A tribute to the Great Plains and the people who live there, Ilgunas' memoir grapples with difficult questions about our place in the world: What is our personal responsibility as stewards of the land? As members of a rapidly warming planet? As mere individuals up against something as powerful as the fossil fuel industry? Ultimately, Trespassing Across America is a call to embrace the belief that a life lived not half wild is a life only half lived.

©2016 Ken Ilgunas (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Awesome book!

Loved it. It was very entertaining. I could picture it happening as I was reading.

Fantastic read!!!

Please keep writing! Perhaps a new trip to West coast!! I’m patiently waiting to read about your next journey.

All books should be this good.

I've been riveted by this book every spare moment for the past few days and am sad it's over. It's great on so many levels. The author's journey is epic, and I loved the way he shared it from the origination of the idea to the last step. He tells it in a simple and straightforward style that includes a bit of everything, as if he's telling the whole thing to a friend -- humor, pain, elaborate descriptions, reactions, fears, reflections -- from the big moments to the mundane. Nights in the tent, cow attacks, run-ins with gun-toting locals, feelings of accomplishment, self-doubt. And woven all throughout is a deep exploration not only of information about the Keystone XL pipeline, but about environmentalism, apathy, people's deeply ingrained beliefs and how/why they originate, how to stand up for something you believe in without people dismissing you as crazy -- there's just so much here. And thankfully, the narrator was so good I had to go back after the first hour and check to remind myself whether or not it was narrated by the author. It is not, but the narrator really sold it. Excellent all around, and I will be pushing it on all my friends.

what an adventure he was brave and determined

if you are a hiker, you will love his adventure even more. He had a great experience!

Hiking

Loved the explanation of challenges and benefits
of hiking trip and view of amazing people in America!