Hiking Oregon's History

A slide show presentation by

William L. Sullivan

Author William L. Sullivan’s slide show takes us on an armchair hiker’s tour of Oregon’s most scenic historic sites. Based on his outdoor guidebook, “Hiking Oregon’s History,” the presentation follows Lewis and Clark’s trail across Tillamook Head and traces Chief Joseph’s trail of tears through Hells Canyon.  Expect tips on dramatic hiking trails to fire lookouts, lighthouses, and gold mines, too, mixed in with anecdotes about trailside wildflowers and geology.  In short, it’s a glimpse into Oregon’s largest museum -- the great outdoors.

Sullivan is the author of a dozen books about Oregon.  Listening for Coyote, the journal of his 1,361-mile solo backpacking trek across Oregon in 1985, was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award in creative nonfiction.  Since then he has published Exploring Oregon’s Wild Areas, a historical novel about the pioneer Oregon entitled A Deeper Wild, and five detailed guidebooks in his popular 100 Hikes series, including 100 Hikes in Northwest Oregon.

A fifth-generation Oregonian, Sullivan grew up in Salem.  At 17 he won a scholarship to study at remote Deep Springs College in the California desert, where his duties included milking cows by hand.  He went on to earn a B.A. in English from Cornell University and an M.A. in German from the University of Oregon. He and his wife, Janell Sorensen, have bicycled 3000 miles through Europe, studied two years at Heidelberg University in Germany, and built a log cabin by hand on a roadless stretch of the lower Siletz River.  They live with their two children in Eugene.