I've mentioned Bette Filley's Discovering the Wonders of the Wonderland Trail encircling Mount Rainer and Rick Curtis' Backpackers' Field Manual, but long before I got those books, I had another book that started it all. It's hard to remember, but I believe that it started out when Gail and I were browsing some National Park bookstore, and I saw this book I couldn't resist: Allen and Mike's Really Cook Backpackin' Book: Traveling and camping sklls for a wilderness environment! by Allen O'Bannon and illustrations by Mike Clelland. I've had it so long, I've just found it again. In the bookshelf, of all places!
The name kind of gives you an idea of the flavor of this book. Part tongue in cheek, part lessons learned, part redneck backpacking, this book is short and sweet and gives you a whole lot of info crammed into 155 pages. Along with a few laughs.
For instance, the section about packing your backpack basically says to eschew the fancy packing sacks and compression bags, they just add weight. Treat your backpack like a big bag and shove stuff into it. No one cares about wrinkles on the trail. So, my task is to compare all the different advice and figure out what I want to do for myself.
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