[andrew e]

Just got word this morning that Harvey Manning passed away this weekend. He did so much for hikers in this state--such a strong voice will definitely be missed. http://www.wta.org/~wta/cgi-bin/wtaweb.pl?4+blog+thread+ed+208

[greg]

It's terribly sad for me. He was a kindred spirit, although we disagreed on a lot of wilderness issues. Funny thing is, I got an email about his passing this morning, and 10 minutes later walked over to my mail bin and there was a letter from him, typically cryptic, just copies of two hiking stories he must have thought I would like to read. His Footsore series opened a lot of doors for me. Bless his soul.

[silence]

This is very sad news. I hope everyone who ventures out will always remember his conservation efforts.

[solohiker]

Harvey has passed away but his passion has been passed on - and on and on - and will never ever go away. Thanks Harv.

[dacker]

The range of different people's legacies is enormous. Lots of folks go through the motions, live out their lives, and are never noticed outside their immediate circle. At the other end of the spectrum are those who make a really significant, wide-ranging difference that will last for generations. I don't have to tell you which category Harvey Manning belonged to. The man may be gone, but the legacy will endure long after the rest of us have joined him.

[More Cowbell]

Oh Man...I just picked up a pristine first edition of his Backpacking One Step at a Time at the Goodwill this morning. Happy Trails Harvey

[Backpacker Joe]

Yes thank you Harvey. God bless you and may your soul rest peacefully. That is when you're not hiking up there!

[Karen]

There will never be anyone else like him. Not only is this the passing of a great man, it is the passing of a way of life and a way of experiencing the outdoors that many would consider obsolete. To my knowledge there are no guidebook writers out there (including me) who could even begin to fill his hiking boots. Karen

[BarbE]

Harvey, all the places you inspired me to see. Occasionally you might have called me a "cream skimmer" but many I know you would have called "respectable". Thank you Harvey - You are the best.

[hikermike]

Terribly sad, and all those things they said about him were true, met him on the trail once a long time ago. A man of many words and also of few words. Gives me inspiration, as he frequently hiked solo and did so well into "old age". Also, he seemed to have hiked the hikes he wrote about, although some needed an update, unlike some more recent authors where their errors are such that it makes me wonder if they really hiked the routes they wrote about. Was abrassive, but at his time, maybe less would have given us much less. How old was he?

[lookout bob]

I met Harvey on the PCT near Snowgrass Flats about 12 years ago....we compared notes as we both had a Jansport pack on. He taught me how to adjust it so it didn't squeak. A soft spoken and wonderfully caring man. I am still entranced by his book, "Walking the Beach to Bellingham" and quote certain sections of it when I walk the beach.... He was an inspiration to us all and will be sorely missed. I'm sure, however, that his spirit will continue to infuse the trails of the Cascades and Olympics that he loved and his work to 'sanctify' the trails will go on. Harvey rules!!!

[Scrooge]

My idol and inspiration. When I first started hiking out here, I bored Larch to tears with quotes from Harvey Manning. It took quite a few years of hiking before I realized that Harvey was both a great reporter ....... and totally full of it. He often downplayed the good trails, and then wrote glowing encomiums on the grossest sorts of brush-bash (including my all time least favorite hike, Wallace Basin). Good or bad, though, he was my role model. He's the "curmudgeon" who inspired my adoption of Scrooge; it was his invective that shaped my own angry soliloquies on pet peeves; and it was his wry humor that I tried to emulate in my reports. Thanks, Harvey. I doubt if there's anyone I didn't know who's made as much difference in my life. David

[Damian]

"There are still hikers who cast off the chains of comfort for the liberation of risk and not all are doddering anachronisms; some are matured flower children who know they have not truly escaped the city as long as they haul with them its high-energy high-chemical high price technology. The pendulum swings. The ball bounces." --Harvy Manning

[andrew e]

Harvey Manning, Northwest Environmentalist, Hiking Icon, and Author, Helped Preserve Washington's Wild Areas Bellevue, Wash. - Washington conservation activist Harvey Manning passed away on Sunday, November 12, 2006. He was 81 years old. Over more than four decades, Manning edited and wrote dozens of influential hiking guidebooks and nature narratives, many of which are still in print. He was the frequent writing partner of Ira Spring, who died in 2003. Together, the authors' were considered the godfathers of Washington's outdoor community. Manning was a Seattle native, and graduate of the University of Washington. A passion for wilderness infected him at an early age, according to his wife, Betty, and he spent his career writing about it, except for a ten-year period when he worked in communications for the University of Washington. Manning joined the Mountaineers Club of Washington in 1948. By 1957, he and the Club were ardent advocates for the establishment of a national park in the North Cascades, primarily to preserve the area from logging and mining. He was a founding member of the North Cascades Conservation Council and the editor of its publication. He was also the editor of the Mountaineers Club's seminal climbing text, Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills, published in 1960. Money from the sale of that title, helped fund Manning's influential book, The North Cascades, which exposed this corner of the lower 48 to people across the country for the first time. The effort to preserve the area was successful, and in 1968, North Cascades National Park was established by an act of Congress. Creation of the new park has been called one of the greatest accomplishments of the modern environmental movement. On the heels of that success, Manning edited The Alpine Lakes, by Brock Evans, founding member of the Washington Environmental Council. The Mountaineers distributed a copy to every member of the Senate committee considering the Alpine Lakes wilderness status. Again, Manning's cause was successful, and today Alpine Lakes region is one of the most-used backcountry destinations in the state. Another Manning book, Washington Wilderness: The Unfinished Work, was instrumental as a lobbying tool in passing the Washington State Wilderness Act of 1984. This legislation effectively stopped efforts by business interests to halt the tide of wilderness designations. It also caused millions of additional acres of wild areas to become protected under those designations. Manning's talent for books was first put to use in l955, when the Mountaineers Club made him chairman of their editorial committee. The all-volunteer committee became the basis for the creation of the Seattle-based Mountaineers Books, which today is one of the nation's leading publishers of outdoor recreation and conservation books. Manning was a driving force in the nonprofit publishing company's development for 18 years, and went on to become ones of its best-selling authors. "The early hiking guidebooks that Harvey helped publish-and then later wrote many of-were visionary in their advocacy," said Helen Cherullo, Mountaineers Books publisher. "Harvey, Ira Spring and Louise Marshall knew, early on, that getting people into wild areas was the best way to make people love those places. They saw that when people were passionate about the backcountry, they were moved to preserve it. That was the main reason they wrote and published guidebooks." Among Manning's popular guidebooks still in print, 100 Classic Hikes in Washington, is one of the best-selling trail guides for the state. A number of the other Manning-Spring titles in the 100 Hikes Series, however, will be going out of print beginning next year. Ill and unable any longer to hike in recent years, Manning agreed prior to his death that new authors would be needed to continue the spirit of the work he had begun. That work was commissioned and Mountaineers Books will begin publishing the next generation of hiking guides-the Day Hiking Series-in 2007. These new books will include the conservation legacy of Mountaineers Books' founding authors, promised Cherullo. "The mission of our company that Harvey helped establish will continue to live in the new series," she said. "The work that he began is in large part the reason that our state continues to have wonderful wild places to enjoy today." Chris Bell, Operations Director with Washington Trails Association, agreed. "Harvey was a legend in the hiking community," Bell said. "His contribution to wilderness and hiking trails was enormous. Many locations throughout Washington's backcountry have Harvey to thank for their protection-from the Issaquah Alps to North Cascades National Park." Manning remained an outspoken advocate for Northwest wilderness causes throughout his life. In addition to being an active member of the Mountaineers and the North Cascades Conservation Council, he was a founding member of the Issaquah Alps Trail Club (IATC), and a member of the Middle Fork Outdoor Recreation Coalition. The IATC was instrumental in preserving the Cougar Mountain Regional Wildland Park and the West Tiger Mountain Natural Resources Conservation Area. "[Harvey] will really be missed," said outdoor author and friend, Rick McGuire, Seattle. "It was a revelation to me as a teenager to discover Harvey's writing in the Everett library where I read his columns in the Wild Cascades newsletter, and found someone who wasn't going to allow our mountains to be logged away. "He could be abrasive and wasn't politically correct in any way, but in a time where everything is made for the media and shaped by focus-groups, Harvey said what he believed and didn't worry about his image. He left the Cascades a much better place than he found them," McGuire said. Manning is survived by his wife, Betty, Bellevue, Wash., and their four children: Penelope Manning, Bellevue; Rebecca Oliver, Portland, Ore.; Claudia Manning, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada; and Harvey Paul Manning, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. In lieu of a memorial service, the family asks that donations be sent to the North Cascades Conservation Council, P.O. Box 95980, Seattle, WA 98145-2980; www. northcascades.org.

[Quark]

Ira Spring, Louise Marshall, now Harvey Manning: the end of an era. These tireless people broke trail for everyone that followed and still follows; not only in hiking books, but advocacy and teaching. Nowadays there's a recipe for advocacy. But they pioneered it. No one showed them how; they had to punt and figure it out.