Life Lived Wild

You might not have heard of Rick Ridgeway, but even the casual hiker will surely have heard of some of Rick’s adventure buddies: Yvon Chouinard (founder of Patagonia), Doug Tompkins (founder of The North Face and Espirit), and even Tom Brokaw (NBC Reporter)! Rick and his friends call themselves the Do Boys, because they DO things rather than just talk about doing them, and this book was full of all the stories.

Rick’s stories have a surprising amount of detail for happening decades ago, but that’s what makes them so rich. This book will take you all around the world and then some. The last quarter of this book highlights the conservation actions the Do Boys have undertaken to save what is left of the wild Earth. You might be familiar with Patagonia’s 1% for the planet — Chouinard’s commitment that Patagonia will donate 1% of its sales to the preservation and restoration of the natural environment. However, Doug Tompkins and his wife, Kris, have personally created over 14 million acres of National Parks in South America!

I highly recommend this book.

Have you ever heard of Rick Ridgeway? Neither had I, but I was pulled into this story by the title and beautiful cover. This is the autobiographical story of the many adventures Rick has had during his life, and about his close friends, the "Do boys". I'm an armchair adventurer myself, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the adventures of Rick and his friends. I'd recommend this for any lovers of nature or autobiography. Thanks so much to the publisher for providing this ARC for review.

A remarkable and memorable book on a life lived wild

"Going out into the wilds of the world at an early age," Doug added, "where nature was basically untouched, we got into our souls a sense of beauty".

I had not heard of Rick Ridgeway before this book fell into my lap. However, I had certainly heard of two of his close friends, with whom he spent countless months adventuring all over the world: Yvon Chouinard (founder of Patagonia) and Doug Tompkins (founder of The North Face and Espirit). Rick and his friends called themselves the Do Boys, as they prefer to go out and do things rather than talking about doing things. In "A life lived wild" Rick, at now seventy-two years old, looks back at his life. It is a life full of adventure. A life mostly spent outside (Rick calculated that he had spent over five years of his life sleeping in tents). A life with many lucky coincidences, a lot of travel and exploration, and a lot of love.

I felt a range of emotions reading this book. Rick made me laugh and cry, he made me feel pure happiness, love, loss and fear. He is an excellent story teller. Even now, so many years after some of these stories happened, he is able to look back and remember things so clearly, with the additional benefit of hindsight. Rick comes across as a very smart, interesting and appreciative man who never forgot how lucky he was to lead this remarkable life. I loved reading about all his adventures. About what he learned on the way from so many different people. About his appreciation of friends and family. I am afraid my words cannot truly portray how beautiful this book is. I highly recommend this book.

I am not a hardcore hiker, but I find hiking books and other adventure books to be inspiring to me in terms of how I live my life. The courage portrayed in these books motivates me in all facets of my life - business, family, fitness, and so on! This was a wonderful book that I recommend.

Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book tells of a man who lived a life that he wanted and challenged his self through out it. This was a interesting read because I will never experience what this man has so reading this book let’s me life a little through him. One thing that sticks out to me that I wanted to share while Rick and a friend were on Chang Tang Rick and his climbing partner experience many butterflies all around then at 23,000 could you imagine being that high on a glacier and having butterflies flutter all around you I found that experience to be beautiful.

I was fascinated by Rick Ridgeways life of amazing adventure.He and his friends live a life of challenge and excitement pushing themselves to astonishing daring.I am an armchair adventurer and loved following in their footsteps from the safety of my armchair.I really enjoyed getting to read about Rick Ridgeway and the Dos highly recommend his memoir.#netgalley #lifelivedwild

"Life Lived Wild" is an amazing collection of the real episodes of exploration and adventure experienced by Rick Ridgeway throughout his life. Ridgeway shares his journeys to far away places like Tibet, Patagonia, Bhutan, Africa, Antarctica, Russia, Nepal, Indonesia, and many others to climb inaccessible mountains, kayak remote waterways, sail, ski, camp, surf, explore, perform scientific observations, create documentaries, photograph, and encourage conservation over a period of 40 years. This book is very readable, enhanced with photographs, and interspersed with danger, death, romance, humor, boundless determination, entertaining anecdotes, and famous people.

This book is very likely to become a classic for people interested in the great outdoors. It is also a broad introduction to other books and experiences the author has written about in more detail. As a person who has enjoyed milder outdoor experiences camping, hiking, caving, and traveling, I recommend this book to fellow enthusiasts.

I would like to thank the author and publisher for providing an electronic review copy of this book. Thanks and Happy Trails!

Amazing story that will have you wondering why people do it. But as you get to know the people in the book you kind of get it. Wonderful retelling of adventures and a life lived.

This was an excellent tale of adventure! I loved the dynamics between people and the environment and the search for adventure!

Wonderful tales of spectacular adventures, but I felt better editing would have improved this book. It tends to jump all over the place and I found myself flipping back and forth trying to figure out what year events were happening.

This is a perfect 🎄Christmas gift for your nature lover/reader.

First, let me say that I hardly ever read memoirs. But the description of this book and my passion for hiking hooked me. So when this nook came up on NetGalley I jumped at the opportunity to read it. Thank you to NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest opinion

Rick’s accounts of his travels and accomplishments make my tiny summits seem insignificant. As an adventures that traveled all over the world, hiked K2 and lived in Tibet, I wanted to be him. What a great life lived. And I think that was the message he kept true to in this book. As she shares his experiences, he shares the conversations from the company he keeps on each trip. Whether at elevation or raising a family back at sea level, those years taught him, he writes, “to distinguish matters of consequence from matters of inconsequence.” He leaves it to his readers, though, to do the final sort of which is which.
I cannot say enough good things about this book. As a nature lover and avid hiker, I think the most relatable thing in no the story is the strength of nature and it’s power to push you, reset your mind , and create moments that strengthen you for what may come.

I asked to review this book prior to purchasing it as a present for my daughter who is a climber, hiker, and adventuror. It's an amazing compendium of tales of Rick Ridgeway's life and his various expeditions. I wound up purchasing the actual book for a Christmas present for her.

What a fantastic book! No, seriously. This is the best, most well-written, fascinating book I've read in a really long time. Who is Rick Ridgeway? I wouldn't blame you for having no idea. I read a lot of adventure/survival stories, follow people like Alex Honnold, Colin O'Brady and Jimmy Chin on social media, and am fascinated by real-life tales of adventure and daring. Yet the name Rick Ridgeway was not ringing any bells. But you crack open this book and OH BOY...you tumble right in.

This man has done EVERYTHING. He has lived a life of adventure, scaling every mountain you could possibly name (and some you can't), kayaking in the frigid waters of the Arctic, tracking the pronghorn migration on foot with a mentee, throwing everything he has into preserving these wild spaces for future adventures. Yet he has also lived a life full of love. His beloved Jennifer and their children and grandchildren, his fellow Do Boys, climbing mountains with Tom Brokaw, and meeting new people and forming relationships along the way.

All in all, an absolutely incredible book written by a man with an incredible, accessible story. I loved it.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.