Book of the Month – One Foot Forward: Walks in Upstate New York

Reviewing the book One Foot Forward: Walks In Upstate New York by Dr. Richard Frost

by Chris Clemens

Wintertime walks are just fine for me, but I admit my walking is less frequent during our colder months. While I still adventure plenty with snow on the ground, I’m just as happy to hang inside and read of others’ Upstate pursuits.

That’s why I was particularly excited to get a copy of One Foot Forward: Walks In Upstate New York by Dr. Richard Frost. During the month of February, that’s the title that has been on my nightstand.

About The Author

Rich was born in Glens Falls, so Upstate New York is one strand of his DNA. If you’ve been reading about New York for a while, you may actually recognize his name, especially if you’ve been reading up in the North Country.

For decades, he’s wrote for Plattsburgh’s Press-Republican newspaper in a weekly column called “A Day Away”. In that written account, he hits the road for a day somewhere in the Adirondack region and shares the tale with readers. He also writes for the Lake Champlain Weekly in a column cleverly nicknamed “Rich in History”–a feature about the region’s past.

He’s been practicing medicine in Plattsburgh for much of his life, and he and his wife and dogs spend as much time as they can exploring. To rack up even more cool points, he sports a beard that is a bazillion times cooler than mine.

About the Book

In a 265-page paperback volume, Rich walks everywhere in Upstate from Bald Mountain in the Adirondacks, to the Mohonk Preserve in the Catskills, to Rock City Park in the Southern Tier. Much like this website, he breaks the book into sections by splitting Upstate into geographic regions.

From there, he quite literally walks historical sites, parks and nature preserves, and towns to step foot in the places that make Upstate so important. While walking himself, Rich walks readers through important sights they should also take note of while visiting, and the relevant history that took place there.

As any reader of this blog will recognize, One Foot Forward is similar in that it’s a personal account of experiencing a sense of place, while also offering some education. Rich’s writing style is simple and easy to digest, but offers an in-depth first person account of walking through Upstate.

While it’s easy to want to read through, each chapter is separate from the others. That way, it’s easy to sit down and read for five minutes, or a few hours. Or, if you’ve read enough about the Hudson Valley, you can skip around to the Finger Lakes. The whole book is set up for easy reading.

In each chapter, he even provides location addresses, contact information, and anything else someone might need to go walk in his footsteps.

Purchase

To grab a copy of One Foot Forward: Walks in Upstate New York, you can purchase directly for $20.00 (plus tax and shipping) from Bloated Toe Publishers in Peru, New York. Here’s a link to the title on their website. While you’re at it, they have a lot of other great local interest titles, too!

Chris Clemens is the Founder/Publisher of Exploring Upstate. From his hometown in Rochester, he spends as much time as possible connecting with the history, culture, and places that make Upstate New York a land of discovery. Follow him on Twitter at @cpclemens