Chris Townsend Read online

  the backpacker’s HANDBOOK

  third edition

  CHRIS TOWNSEND

  DEDICATION

  To Denise Thorn for her patience,

  love, and companionship.

  Copyright © 2005 by Chris Townsend. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN: 978-0-07-146013-2

  MHID: 0-07-146013-6

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  CONTENTS

  Preface to the Third Edition

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction: Into the Wilderness

  1. Preparing for the Trail

  Fitness

  The Art of Walking

  Going Alone

  Slackpacking and Fastpacking

  Planning

  2. The Load on Your Back: Choosing and Using Equipment

  Weight

  Checklists

  Choosing and Buying

  Final Thoughts

  3. Footwear and Wilderness Travel

  About Footwear

  Footwear Types

  Fitting Boots and Shoes

  Footwear Materials and Construction

  Footwear Models and Choices

  Care of Footwear

  Foot Care

  Socks

  Gaiters

  Overboots

  Campwear

  Trekking Poles and Staffs

  Ice Axes

  Crampons

  Skis and Snowshoes

  4. Carrying the Load: The Pack

  Types of Packs

  Suspension Systems

  Fitting the Pack

  Packbags

  Materials

  Durability

  Packing

  Putting on the Pack

  Pack Care

  Pack Accessories

  5. Keeping Warm and Dry: Dressing for the Wilderness

  Heat Loss and Heat Production

  The Layer System

  The Vapor-Barrier Theory

  Legwear

  Headgear

  Gloves and Mittens

  Bandannas

  Carrying Clothes

  Fabric Treatment and Care

  6. Shelter: Camping in the Wilderness

  Bivouac Bags

  Tarps

  Groundsheets

  Tents

  Pitches and Pitching: Minimum-Impact Camping

  Tent Care

  Wilderness Shelters

  Snow Caves

  Sleeping Bags

  Sleeping Pads

  Other Comforts

  7. The Wilderness Kitchen

  Food and Drink

  Water

  The Campfire

  Stoves

  Utensils

  Siting the Kitchen

  8. Comfort and Safety in Camp and on the Trail

  Light

  Health and Body Care

  Equipment Maintenance and Repair

  In Case of Emergency

  Office

  Binoculars and Monoculars

  Photography

  Entertainment

  9. On the Move: Skills and Hazards

  Finding the Way

  Coping with Terrain

  Minimizing Impact

  Wilderness Hazards

  Dealing with Animals

  Hunters

  10. Adventure Travel: Backpacking Abroad

  Information and Planning

  Organized Trips

  Immunizations and Health

  Food and Supplies

  Insurance

  Different Cultures

  Getting There

  A Final Word

  Appendixes

  1. Equipment Checklist

  2. Further Reading

  3. Resources

  4. Metric Conversions

  Index

  PREFACE

  to the third edition

  Seven years have passed since I wrote the previous edition of this book, years in which I’ve learned much more about backpacking and the wilderness—modifying some techniques, adopting new ones, and abandoning others. I’ve spent more time in the desert Southwest and also in the cold Far North. Much new equipment has appeared. The ultralight movement has boomed, LED lights have appeared, and electronic devices have become the norm. A new and better way of fitting boots is available. This new edition incorporates all these advances and much more.

  As with the previous edition, I found more material I wanted to rewrite or change than I expected. Much of the book is new. My choices in gear have changed in many cases, and there are new kit lists showing what I carry on trips now. As before, this is a subjective book: I give my thoughts and describe how I operate. But the reasons for going into the wilderness haven’t changed, nor has the simple activity of hiking. My memories of wilderness trips aren’t about tents or boots or the weight of my load. They are about watching moose browse out in a shallow timberline lake below a dark forest topped by red rock cliffs; of striding along a rocky mountain ridge above a v
ast panorama of peaks and canyons dotted with blue lakes and deep green groves; of waking at dawn to watch the sun slice through the mist and light up a cliff-shadowed lake; of lying under the desert sky listening to the call of night birds and staring at the bright stars stretching into the infinite; of hearing the welcome sound of a trickling creek after a hot, dry climb. They are about, at heart, feeling part of nature. This is constant. This is what backpacking is.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Far too many people have added to my store of knowledge and assisted on my walks to thank them all individually here, but some I must single out. As each edition of this book appears, the numbers grow. Although I travel solo more often than not, I’ve shared trails and campsites with many companions over the years, and I have many valued memories of these times. I’ve also spent many hours discussing backpacking with individuals and at hikers’ gatherings. Many readers have written to me by e-mail and letter—a great encouragement—and I’ve had many discussions with other outdoor writers.

  I can’t mention everybody I’ve hiked with, talked to, or corresponded with, but I would like to thank Chris and Janet Ainsworth; Brad Allen; Judy Armstrong; Karen Berger; Brad, Karen, and Mark Buckhout; Georgina Collins; Mark Edgington; Ron Ellis; Lou Ann Fellows; Wayne Fuiten; Mick Furey; Franjo Goluza; Kris Gravette; Brice Hammack; Andrew Helliwell; Dave Hewitt; Pete Hickey; Andy Hicks; the late John Hinde; Tony Hobbs; Graham Huntington; Ray and Jenny Jardine; Jörgen Johansson; Alain Kahan; Dave Key; Larry Lake; Alex Lawrence; Paul Leech; Peter and Pat Lennon; David Lynch; Duncan MacDonald; John Manning; Cameron McNeish; the late Al Micklethwaite; Colin Mortlock; Eugene Miya; Tony Morfe; Joris Naiman; Tom Phillips; Dave Rehbehn; Jake Schas; Gary D. Schwartz; Todd Seniff; Pat Silver; Jane and Andy Smith; Clyde Soles; Wallace Spaulding; Scott Steiner; Douglas K. Stream; Ron Strickland; Lesya Struz; Graham Thompson; Fran Townsend; John Traynor; Steve Twaites; Stan Walker; Bill Watson; and Scott Williamson.

  I’d also like to thank all those I’ve met at the annual gatherings of the American Long Distance Hiking Association–West and the Appalachian Long Distance Hikers Association and at meetings of the Backpackers Club (UK), plus all those I’ve guided on wilderness ski tours. I’ve had much-appreciated help and assistance from the Appalachian Mountain Club, the Arizona Trail Association, and the staffs of many national parks and national forests, especially Yosemite National Park.

  Many equipment makers and designers have been generous with information and equipment. My thanks in particular to the late Chris Brasher of Brasher Boots; Nick Brown of Nikwax and Páramo; Allen Buckner of MSR; Rab Carrington of Rab; Gordon Conyers of Tor Outdoor Products; Demetri “Coup” and Kim Coupounas of GoLite; Coral Darby; Andrew Denton of Mountain Equipment (UK); Brian Frankle of ULA; Gordon Fraser of Anatom; Jeff Gray of Superfeet; Bo and Rolf Hilleberg and Peter Carati of Hilleberg; Ed Hueser of Grand Shelters (IceBox); Noeleen Keane of Nikwax; Steve Laycock of Pertex; Julian Miles of Kathmandu Trekking; Phil Oren; R. Randall of Granger’s International; Barry Robertson; Staffan Ronn of Optimus; Bob Rose, boot expert; Aaron Rosenbloom of Brasslite stoves; Christer Svensson of Silva Sweden; Aarn Tate of Aarn Designs; Glen Van Peski of Gossamer Gear; and Energizer, Lowe Alpine, Marmot, Montane, Mountain Hardwear, Nextec, Suunto, Tilley, and ZZ Manufacturing. Demetri Coupounas also kindly read through the first draft of the book and made many valuable comments.

  The views expressed in this book are my own, of course. None of those mentioned above are assumed to agree with any of them.

  Many thanks, too, to Jonathan Eaton, Tristram Coburn, Molly Mulhern, Janet Robbins, and Margaret Cook at Ragged Mountain Press, and to Alice Bennett, copyeditor, who have worked hard to make this book what it is.

  Finally, I would like to thank my family, Denise and Hazel Thorn, for their love and their patience in listening to me rambling on about bootfitting, GPS, and more. Denise also read through the manuscript and made many valuable suggestions. Both of them posed for photographs and Hazel also took some of the photos of me.

  introduction

  into the wilderness

  THE CLEAREST WAY INTO THE UNIVERSE IS THROUGH A FOREST WILDERNESS.

  —John Muir

  This is a how-to book, an instructional manual on how to hike and camp in wild country safely and in comfort. Much of the book concerns techniques and equipment—factual stuff leavened with a little bias and opinion, but down to earth and functional nonetheless. The scope, theoretically, is worldwide, though you won’t find much about tropical travel; my own experience has been mostly in the wild areas of North America and Western Europe, ranging from the hot deserts of the Southwest to the Arctic wastes of Greenland.

  Over the years I have made several hikes lasting many months, the sort that refine your techniques and show you what equipment works. These include through-hikes of the Pacific Crest and Continental Divide Trails; 1,600 miles along the length of the Canadian Rockies; 1,000 miles south to north through Canada’s Yukon Territory; 1,300 miles through the mountains of Norway and Sweden; 1,250 miles from Land’s End to John o’Groat’s in Britain; 1,600 miles over the 517 summits of 3,000 feet in the Scottish Highlands; and the 800-mile Arizona Trail. These experiences, along with many shorter trips—more than twenty-five years of backpacking at least 20,000 miles—constitute my credentials for presuming to offer advice. Along the way I’ve made many mistakes; these are related for entertainment and with the hope that you can learn from them without having to experience them firsthand.

  But my highest qualification is my enjoyment of backpacking, and the fact that, for me, it is a way of life, a reason for existing. I want to share that by pointing others in the same direction. The result is this book—an attempt to mesh the reasons for backpacking with the ways to do it.

  Capturing the essence of backpacking in words—the joy of walking through the ever-changing, ever-constant natural world, the magic of waking to sunlight glinting on a mist-wreathed lake, the excitement of striding through a mountain storm—is difficult. At heart I suspect it is impossible to describe this experience to those not disposed to listen. How can one convey to a skeptic the liberating sense of living in the moment, free of thinking about tomorrow; the painful delight in the exquisite beauty of a fleeting cloud, a tiny flower in an ocean of rock, a butterfly’s wing; the awe engendered by a mountain vista stretching unbroken beyond the power of sight; the fragile moment of identity when you stare deeply into a wild animal’s eyes and just for a second connect? But then, it’s not for skeptics that this book was written. If you are interested in my thoughts on backpacking, you are already responsive to the real world outside our technological shells.

  Rest stop, Sallie Keyes Lake, John Muir Wilderness, High Sierra.

  Why backpack? Why forgo the comforts of home or hotel for a night under the stars or sheltered by a flimsy nylon sheet? Many people hike in the wilds but return to civilization at night. This is experiencing only part of what the wilderness has to offer; it’s like dipping your toe in the water instead of taking an invigorating swim. Only by living in the wilderness twenty-four hours a day, day after day, do you gain that indefinable feeling of rightness, of being with instead of against the earth, that gives the deepest contentment I have found.

  I’m aware that this sounds mystical, but I make no apology. We are too prone to value only what can be defined in logical terms or assigned a cash value. Yet the natural, self-regulating earth cannot be quantified, calculated, and summed up—every attempt uncovers another mystery just beyond our grasp. And this pleases me. I’m content not to fully comprehend the joy I find in the wilderness; to try would be a fruitless task, like chasing the end of a rainbow; and the goal, if ever realized, would only disappoint.

  The heart of backpacking lies in the concept of the journey itself, a true odyssey, a desire to explore a world beyond our everyday lives, and in doing so to explore ourselves. Not so long ago, all journeys were like this, because the known world extended little beyond one’s hometown. Now, with modern com
munications and mass transportation, most “journeys” consist of nothing more than the mechanized moving of bodies from one place to another, a process so sanitized, safe, controlled, and so insulated from its surroundings that it precludes any sense of freedom, adventure, or personal involvement. Only when I shoulder my pack and set out into the wilderness do I feel a journey is really beginning, even though I may have traveled halfway around the world to take that first step.

  A journey requires a beginning and an end, though what it is really about lies between those two points. Many journeys are circles, starting and finishing at the same place; others are point-to-point, linear hikes that finish far from where they start; and still others are there-and-back-again routes where you retrace your outbound steps. All three are appealing, but I especially like circles, routes that take you through new country every day yet return you to your starting point. A circle emphasizes the primacy of the experience rather than the conclusion. Closing the circle finishes the journey, returning you to the same place, enriched by the wilderness you have hiked through.

  Though being in the wilderness is what matters, and the real goal of any hike is to experience nature, a more specific purpose gives shape to a trip and provides an incentive to keep moving. Thus I always set a goal, even on day hikes—a summit, a lake, a distance to cover, a crag to visit, a vista to see. Once I’m under way, the overall goal is subordinated to the day-by-day, minute-by-minute events and impressions that are my reason for hiking.

  Walking is the only way to really see a place, to really grasp what it’s like, to experience all its aspects. This is true even for cities but applies much, much more to mountains and deserts, forests and meadows. Seen from a car, a train, or even a “scenic viewpoint,” these are only pretty pictures, postcard images for the surface of the mind, quickly forgotten. By walking through a landscape, you enter into it, experience it with every one of your senses, learn how it works and why it’s as it is. You become, for a time, a part of it. And once you stay out overnight and entrust your sleeping self to its care, a deeper bond is forged and, fleetingly and at the edge of your mind, you begin to grasp that we are not apart from but part of the earth.