Colin Fletcher Revisited

A few years ago I heard that a hiker who had access to the late Colin Fletcher's notes and journals was planning to follow the route Fletcher took the length of Califormia back in 1958, a journey described in The Thousand-Mile Summer. That was the book that inspired me to visit the American West and hike the Pacific Crest Trail. It is still one of my favourite backpacking books and Colin Fletcher is still my favourite backpacking author so I was very interested to hear that someone was to attempt the same hike. It's 54 years since Fletcher set off up California but his story of the walk is as fresh and inspiring today as it was then.

However I'd forgotten about this plan to follow Fletcher's route until a few days ago when I was pleased to read a Tweet from @Lighthiker (Roman Ackl) that said the hiker, Andreas Cohrs, had completed the walk. Lighthiker also gave a link to Cohrs book on the walk California Serendipity – The Thousand-Mile Summer Revisited, which has just been published. Following the link I was delighted to find a site about Colin Fletcher with much biographical information and interesting information. From the site I ordered Andreas Cohr's book, which I am very much looking forward to reading.

I've written about Colin Fletcher before. For more on my thoughts here's a link to a piece I wrote for TGO magazine in 2007 and then posted on this blog the next year. Shortly after I wrote it I heard that he had died so this became my obituary for him. It's called Colin Fletcher The Man Who Walked Through Time.