By his count, Craig Romano travels 2,000 miles a year on foot, hiking and running.
“That’s not including the cycling,” he said between sips of coffee in his Mount Vernon kitchen.
Romano is something of a rare breed, the odd man whose hobby has turned into a career. An energetic, emerging talent among outdoors writers, Romano’s work often promotes the wilds of Washington.
The writer will visit the Everett Public Library on Sunday to discuss hiking the North Cascades.
Romano can blame his abilities on the unusual life he’s lived.
He traces his interest in the outdoors to his childhood in a small New Hampshire town.
“I basically grew up in the woods,” Romano, 47, said. “I mean, that was your entertainment. If you didn’t like being outdoors, forget it. I was a Boy Scout. I would ski and hike and canoe.”
After high school, the prospect of college sounded dull, so Romano bicycled with a friend from New Hampshire to Washington state, taking a circuitous route down the East Coast and up the West Coast.
That was just one of several larks. He also spent five years as a ski bum, worked for five seasons as a guide in the Pyrenees with his wife, Heather Romano, and cycled in every Canadian province.
“I was always an adventurer,” he said.
He occasionally returned to school, however, picking up degrees in forestry, history and education. The latter was a master’s from the University of Washington.
Drawing on his book smarts and trail expertise, Romano went full-time as a writer two years ago.
His largest ongoing project is a concise series of trail guides for Seattle’s Mountaineers Books. With a handful of other writers, he is updating the famed “100 Hikes” series by Ira Spring and Harvey Manning.
In “Day Hiking: North Cascades,” a 2008 title, Romano featured 125 trails. He hiked all of them the previous year so he could report accurate trail conditions. Romano tackled another 125 for the upcoming “Day Hiking: Central Cascades,” which is scheduled for release in early May.
“Whenever we work with him, we want his ideas and his suggestions about what he thinks is going to work, because he does have such a deep knowledge,” said Helen Cherullo, publisher of Mountaineers Books. “He’s just a very good writer.”
While he cites Henry David Thoreau as an inspiration for his writing, Romano is no transcendentalist. He promotes the outdoors in more straightforward ways than the “Walden Pond” author.
“Don’t sit there and think about it on these giant levels,” Romano said. “Just do it because it’s healthy and you feel good after.”
That said, he understands hiking has its risks. He spends about a third of the year outside and has had his close calls.
His worst nail-biter came in the early 1990s, he said. He was in California when he became separated from his hiking party during an electrical storm. He was wearing crampons and carrying an ice ax in the charged atmosphere. The electricity caused all his hair to stand up. He felt like a lightning rod.
“I made peace with my maker,” he said. “I really thought it was all over. I really did.”
Before the storm even passed, though, the experience confirmed something for him. He was doing right, spending time outdoors.
“I’m sitting there and going, ‘God, I’ve lived life just the way I want to live. I have no regrets,’ ” he recalled. “It was almost relieving.”
Andy Rathbun: 425-339-3455, arathbun@heraldnet.com.
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