NORWICH – It's his love for the outdoors and draw toward mountaintops and unique landscapes that led adventurer, author and photographer Bryan Snyder on the many years worth of journeys that allowed his new book, “Off the Map: Fifty-five Weeks of Adventuring the Great American Wilderness and Beyond” to come to fruition. Snyder will lead a presentation beginning at 2 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 28, at the Guernsey Memorial Library to discuss the book, his adventures, and the stories that inspired his writings.
Snyder resides in California where he is employed in the field of outdoor education. He takes children hiking and educates them on topics including botany and geology. His field allows him the freedom to spend his summers traveling to various locations. The traveling and exploring led to writing about his journeys.
“The writings first led to a column (in The Evening Sun) and then to this book,” said Snyder. The book contains years worth of documentation of his travels.
With experiences including bear encounters, lightning strikes, cliffs, heat exhaustion, and hypothermia – the book covers many facets of an avid outdoorsman.
A portion of the book deals with locations in the American West, said Snyder. His affinity for intriguing landscapes and mountains drew him to the Rocky Mountains.
Additionally, “Off the Map” contains chapters of more local areas he has traveled, as well as some adventures from Norway and Iceland.
“The presentation at the library will offer the public a chance to see some of the visuals that go with the articles I write,” said Snyder. “Our country has a wealth of diversity and landscape, and it's great to be able to share.”
The book is a composition of numerous hiking trips, and utilizes vivid language to paint a picture of the areas he's visited.
“Sometimes, though, it's not so easy to capture in words these unique places out there,” he said. “With this presentation it will be nice to let the photos do some of the talking.”
Snyder added Saturday's presentation will allow him to show a lot more photos he took while visiting places he wasn't able to write about.
He will also share some stories of his travels that are not in the book.
According to Snyder, it took approximately three years for his work to evolve into book form. He polished his writing to make the stories more vivid and picturesque, to capture the essence of areas visited and documented.
The presentation will last approximately one hour, with a question and answer period for those interested in learning more information.
“Off the Map” is available for purchase on Amazon.
The special presentation Saturday is free and open to the public. For further information, interested individuals can also visit Facebook.com/offthemaponline.