As travelling companions on his 2,000-mile journey along the Oregon trail, Dylan Winter chooses Rocky, a retired rodeo horse, and Roland, a mixed up Appaloosa with a fear of bridges, bin liners and heights. Before long, however, Dylan realises that horses are not ideal companions for long distance travel; after a few days in the saddle he is talking to himself, then to the horses, and, by the time he reaches Nebraska, the horses are talking back. Human company becomes essential, so he joins forces with a wagon train.

A Hack Goes West is Dylan’s uproarious account of his quest to re-trace the ruts made by the first wagon trains 150 years earlier as they forged the Oregon Trail across Western America. It is an account of heat, sweat, dust and blisters … and blisters that have blisters.

‘Winter is a chronicler of whose company it is impossible to tire.’
The Times