Our headline today comes to us courtesy of wilderness preservationist John Muir, via Debbie R. White’s new self-published book Mountain Escapades. It’s one of the epigrams that lead into her 50 chapters on becoming an Adirondack Forty-Sixer and then a global mountaineer.

The unusual book also contains jokes (“What’s funnier: mountain ranges or forests? Mountains — they’re hill areas”), a couple of backcountry recipes (baked ziti), a little Russian (hot water = vada keep-it-tok, phonetically), some homespun philosophizing, paeans to family (especially her own) and, the heart of the book, numerous reflections on mountain-climbing adventures she, her husband, their children and assorted others have undertaken throughout the past 28 years.

“This is not a technical book describing which routes to take or how to hike mountains,” White says in her Introduction. She can say that again — what true guidebook, after all, features aphorisms of advice from Dr. Suess, Muhammad Ali, Princess Diana and many others; snarky comments from the kids (“Mom needs deodorant”) and a poem or two (set to the silly old song “Camp Granada”: “Hello nature, hello grandeur / Here I am on Mountain Azure …”). Indeed, we may have here a genre unto itself.

The first half of the book chronicles the family’s successful quest to become Forty-Sixers. Chapters correspond to hikes, not mountains, such that one chapter may describe the summiting of three or four peaks while the next, only a page or two long, embraces just one. Each begins with their name(s), the month and year of the climb, and their elevation, rank in height and feet of ascent from the trailhead. After that, it’s full speed ahead with anecdotal accounts of victories, defeats, moments of glory and moments of pain, the goodness of gorp, the sun and the wind, snow and rain. White’s style reminds me of a hiker sitting on somebody’s porch, boots off and cold drink in hand, chatting about her latest adventure. My only complaint is an excess of exclamation points, which, like standing ovations, lose all impact if overused.

Nor are all the mountains High Peaks. The Whites have a camp on Lake Ozonia, in the north-central Adirondacks near St. Regis Falls, and also near Azure Mt. of “channeling Camp Grenada” fame, an isolated, low but steep monadnock with a restored fire tower and an unparalleled view stretching from Mt. Marcy to Ontario. In addition to numerous family-and-friends hikes — 12 in one year — the author was a summit steward through Azure Mountain Friends, and for a decade a member of the board of that non-profit.

But what’s a climbing-dedicated family to do when they run out of Adirondacks? For the Whites, the world was their stage. The remainder of the book recounts tales of expeditions to Kilimanjaro; Russia’s Mt. Elbrus, highest point in Europe; Alaska’s rugged, snowbound 20,320-foot Denali (out of respect for its Indigenous neighbors and their ancestors, we refuse to revert to “Mt. McKinley”); the multi-day trail to Machu Picchu in Peru’s Andes. “From Our Backyard to Far, Far Away”: the book’s subtitle says it all.

“Mountain Escapades” can be purchased from the author at Dwhite46r@gmail.com for $14.99 plus $5 shipping.

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(Neal Burdick was an adviser to the author of this book, and contributed a back-cover promotional blurb.)