Maia Dery remembers playing in the woods behind her Durham home in the early 1970s and thinking her family lived in the middle of nowhere. She was understandably bummed one fateful day when she was 7 or 8 and decided to probe deeper into those woods -- only to discover her family actually lived in the "middle of somewhere."

"I was a little crestfallen," she concedes of her end of innocence.

But it spurred her desire to explore, a desire that, after eight years of field work, has finally yielded "Adventure Guide to the Triangle," a 432-page guidebook from Winston-Salem's John F. Blair, Publisher. Its focus is on hiking and mountain biking trails, road biking routes and paddle destinations.

"I kept adding and adding stuff and at one point the publisher said, you have to start working on [deadline] now," says Dery, who lives in Efland and teaches photography at Guilford College in Greensboro.

As well as she thought she knew the Triangle's adventure scene, researching the book proved to be like peeling an onion: Additional exploration revealed layer upon layer.

"I tend to be drawn more to secluded, more demanding adventures," says Dery. "I hadn't appreciated the local bike rides, like the Museum of Art trail."

These finer appreciations, from the 0.9-mile THANKS (Trail for Health, Art and Nature for Kids to Seniors) trail in Pittsboro to Carrboro's 0.4-mile Libba Cotton Bikeway are what Dery says helped push a 2 1/2- to 3-year project into an 8-year endeavor. But they're also what Dery wants the book to be about.

"People think you have to be hard-core or extreme to paddle a canoe, to hike or to ride a mountain bike," she says. "In the Triangle, you can have breakfast, then do a hike or bike ride that's not death-defying.

"That was my primary motivation."

For a sense of where Dery is coming from, she describes herself as a "whitewater wimp." She adds, "My approach to mountain biking is the same."

After noodling around in those Durham woods, Dery worked on degrees from UNC and Duke, all the while working first at the old Eno Traders in Durham and then at Carrboro's Townsend Bertram & Co. The seed for an adventure book was planted when she kept jotting directions to various outdoor venues on the backs of envelopes for customers. She got particularly motivated after spending the summer of 1995 in Seattle and seeing the urban trails there, then returning and noticing things were beginning to take off here as well.

A couple of spots surprised her during her research.

"One of the real delights in this area is the Deep River," she says of the sleepy waterway that borders Lee and Chatham counties.

Another surprise: "I'm not sure how many people are aware that we have a section of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail that runs through here," she says of a segment of the emerging 900-mile statewide trail known locally as the Falls Lake South Shore Trail. "We have a 27-mile trail that's within a few minutes drive."

Comprehensive as "Adventure Guide to the Triangle" may seem, certain sacrifices had to be made.

"At first, I was going to put in equestrian opportunities, but there were only a few," she says. "And rock climbing basically consisted of gyms, since all the outdoor spots are illegal."

Besides, Blair told her she already was running long. So long she had to whack Alamance County from the book.

Does that suggest a sequel?

"I'm not sure I want to do another," says Dery, the last eight years still fresh in mind.

"My passion is photography."