Backpacking Light

The all-trails version of Jardine's "PCT Hiker's Handbook--a more complete explanation of what's becoming known as The Ray Way in hiking circles.

The notion that you need to carry 40 or 50 pounds of gear into the backcountry to be comfortable and safe is absolutely ridiculous. So say the backcountry experts at Backpacking Light magazine in a new book that redefines modern day backpacking as safe, comfortable, and fun?but with a much lighter pack. This is the most comprehensive and rigorous text ever published on lightweight backpacking. In addition to chapters about gear and basic skills, Lightweight Backpacking & Camping covers advanced topics, and has the latest information about the best lightweight gear and apparel, including the manufacturers that make it and the retailers that carry it.

This cookbook includes fifty trail tested recipes created by a registered dietitian. This unique cookbook contains dry ingredients based recipes, complete nutrition information, dry weight measurements, easily identifiable graphics for dietary and meal preparation preferences and downloadable food label templates. It's truly one of a kind.

Short, to-the-point, and humorously illustrated by famed outdoor illustrator Mike Clelland, this book presents everything hikers and backpackers need to be safe, comfortable, and well fed while carrying a very small and lightweight pack.

Backpacking Light is for both beginner and advanced backpackers who want to pack more efficiently, carry less weight, still be fully prepared for contingencies, and have more fun in the backcountry. It will benefit instructors and guides by giving them methods to teach their clients, and it will help them refine their risk assessment and trip planning techniques. This book presents field-tested, proven methodologies including gear organization, modular packing systems, and creating gear lists that work. Assessing conventional gear currently owned and understanding the mindsets of both conventional and ultralight backpacking. Navigating the mindset shift required to seriously lighten up and redefining each gear system to meet your needs. Dealing with winter conditions and packing to minimize frustration. Assessing risk, effective trip planning and much more.

For the first time since 1984, we have a new edition of the classic book that Field & Stream called “the Hiker’s Bible.” For this version, the celebrated writer and hiker Colin Fletcher has taken on a coauthor, Chip Rawlins, himself an avid outdoorsman and a poet from Wyoming. Together, they have made this fourth edition of The Complete Walker the most informative, entertaining, and thorough version yet. The eighteen years since the publication of The Complete Walker III have seen revolutionary changes in hiking and camping equipment: developments in waterproofing technology, smaller and more durable stoves, lighter boots, more manageable tents, and a wider array of food options. The equipment recommendations are therefore not merely revised and tweaked, but completely revamped. During these two decades we have also seen a deepening of environmental consciousness. Not only has backpacking become more popular, but a whole ethic of responsible outdoorsmanship has emerged. In this book the authors confidently lead us through these technological, ethical, and spiritual changes. Fletcher and Rawlins’s thorough appraisal and recommendation of equipment begins with a “Ground Plan,” a discussion of general hiking preparedness. How much to bring? What are the ideal clothes, food, boots, and tents for your trip? They evaluate each of these variables in detail—including open, honest critiques and endorsements of brand-name equipment. Their equipment searches are exhaustive; they talk in detail about everything from socks to freeze-dried trail curries. They end as they began, with a philosophical and literary disquisition on the reasons to walk, capped off with a delightful collection of quotes about walking and the outdoor life. After a thoughtful and painstaking analysis of hiking gear from hats to boots, from longjohns to tent flaps, they remind us that ultimately hiking is about the experience of being outdoors and seeing the green world anew. Like its predecessors, The Complete Walker IV is an essential purchase for anyone captivated by the outdoor life.

Walking into the wilderness with a pack on your back is an empowering experience—all the more so when that pack on your back isn’t weighing you down. That’s where this book comes in. Outdoors expert and celebrated illustrator Mike Clelland offers advanced techniques on how to pack light without sacrificing the essentials or your safety yet staying well fed and comfortable. Written in the tradition of the successful Allen & Mike’s Really Cool Telemark Tips, with 153 trail-tested tips full of solid advice, as well as more than 100 humorous and helpful illustrations, Ultralight Backpackin' Tips is the ultimate guide for backpackers serious about traveling ultralight. Just a few of the top ten tips expounded upon in the book: * Use a scale. * Comfortable and safe are vital! * Make your own stuff, and making it out of trash is always the best! * It’s okay to be nerdy. * Try something new each and every time you go camping. * Know the difference between wants and needs.