The Boomer's Guide to Lightweight Backpacking: New Gear for Old People (Paperback)

by Carol Corbridge (Author)
Key Phrases: The Boomer's Guide, Glorious Food, Gimme Shelter (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
This book will bring you up to speed on all the new products and load-lightening techniques needed to make your next trail experience a great one. With detailed recommendations and a lively visual format, this book will help you re-create your wilderness system one piece at a time making it lighter, safer, and more comfortable. There's always some new gizmo or gadget on the market; and with so much gear out there, it's easy to get confused. Corbridge takes away the guesswork with gear tables in each chapter that tell you where to buy the items discussed; the tables list the specific model, manufacturer, price, weight, and website. Carol's done all the research for you over several years of trials and many miles of trails. For Corbridge light doesn't mean skimping on the fun. For a week-long journey, she carries about 30 pounds, which includes 1.8 L water, food, camera, fishing gear, swim fins... you get the idea. Once you've cut out the unnecessary weight, you can add back the toys. Extend your years on the trail. Enjoy every step, as you walk into lightness. With The Boomer's Guide to Lightweight Backpacking you'll carry less, have more fun, and go out more often. See you on the trail!

About the Author
Carol started her backpacking career as a teenager, exploring Point Reyes National Seashore north of San Francisco. Like many people, she backpacked maybe once a summer throughout her early adult life and then became busy with other things and eventually didn't go at all. In her forties, while managing her landscape construction business, Carol rediscovered the joys of the day-hike: a shorter, easier form of wilderness experience. One thing lead to another and after a few years of weekend day-hikes, backpacking became possible again. Carol found backpacking the perfect retreat from cell phones and freeways. Being older and wanting to extend her years on the trail, as well as improving the quality of those years, she proceeded to find the lightest, most comfortable gear available. Carol now spends more than 60 nights in the wilderness under the stars each season.

Product Details

• Paperback: 102 pages
• Publisher: Frank Amato Publications; First edition (October 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1571884424
• ISBN-13: 978-1571884428
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #83,421 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars disappointed - few good tips but that's about it, April 7, 2009

By	RBMunkin (Costa Rica) - See all my reviews

I was really looking forward to a good book for older folks who want to do light weight hiking. There are some good tips in this book but over all I was disappointed. I really wanted to give it a good review, but have to be honest on how it seemed to me.

Comments - mostly negative, a few good tips:
- The photos are not very good. For most of them, I can't really get a sense of what the item looks like or how it works. The photos are clearly not done by someone with much photographic know-how. Not much thought has been put into composition and light such that you can really see the item clearly. Also, many of the photos are so dark you can hardly see the item at all. Complete waste of space. Photos in actual camping catalogs are much better, so you know it can be done.

- Even though there is a section titled "tarps, tents, and tarp tents", there is no discussion about tents. Yep, you got that right. NONE! If you want help picking out a tent, this book is worthless. Oh, it does say one thing about tents - that they are lighter than hammocks. That's it.

- Speaking of the hammocks, I personally could never sleep in a conventional hammock. The curve would be too much for me. She says "before you announce you could never sleep in a hammock, you should know that backpacking hammocks are way better than backyard lounging hammocks". First of all, the photos look the same as any conventional hammock I've seen and used. Second of all, she doesn't explain HOW these are supposedly different. They don't look different and there is no text explaining how they are different.

- And the information on "tarp tents" is very sketchy at best. And again, the photos of them do not help much. One photo of a tarp tent looks to me like a tent with it's door open. So what's the difference?

- Her backpack of choice is one you have to order from New Zealand sight unseen. Great. One would have to be crazy to commit to a backpack without trying it on for size (and other reasons) first!

- Sleeping bags - she mentions that down is the only way to go and that it has to get really badly wet for it to lose its loft. This was good information for me. I was always paranoid about it getting wet so I always wondered if I should use the heavier synthetics. So this was a good tidbit.
But she goes on to say that you can't count on the temperature rating and should go by top layer loft measurement. But then doesn't say what kind of loft you would want for what kind of camping! Two inches? Three? Four? What's good for summer? Winter? She says nothing about this. Just to rate the temperature rating of a bag by it's loft. How can you if you don't know what loft is good for what temperatures?

- A bear-proof fabric bag was mentioned, and I was interested in this, but it's not on her "what works for me list". No name of the item, no manufacturer, or where to get it.

- Many items on the "what works for me" lists are not mentioned in the text and there is no indication of what the heck it is! For these items the only thing you can do, if you are curious what it is (you often can't tell from the name alone) is to go to the web site, just to see what it is.

- I liked the tidbit on water pumps vs. drops for purifying water. I didn't know the drops made the water turbid and taste strange. Good to know.

- I was really hoping to get some good information on clothing. Particularly what kind of fabric to use. There are so many types out there, it's hard to know which ones dry the fastest, are light weight, and wick moisture the best. So since this book says it did the research for me, I was hopeful. No help here. What type of fabric to use? Synthetic, not cotton. That's it. Duh! Also, she doesn't use underwear. THAT I did not need to know! Ugh!

- Hiking boots - they should be comfortable. Um, ok, thanks. Nothing about what types or brands are good or bad.

I guess I could go on but then the review will get too long and you won't read it.

Definitely an amateurish production.

So, a few tidbits, but that's about all I got out of the book. If a new edition came out with the above problems fixed, now we'd have a good book! : )

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars comprehensive, useful, illustrated guide/consumer reference, March 9, 2009

By	Henry Berry "Henry Berry" (Southport, CT) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Corbridge's manual is aimed at persons aged, say, mid thirties or forties and older who enjoy somewhat strenuous and challenging backpacking--i. e., ones who want to be careful about not injuring themselves while enjoying the outdoors. Corbridge herself is 57, and describes herself as "nonathletic." Backpacking since a teenager, only in the past 10 years has she been "hitting the trail pretty hard." Over the past year, she's spent about 60 nights on the trail in camping trips of five or six nights.

The equipment Corbridge recommends will help the backpacker enjoy an outdoors venture of a few days. It's not for someone going off to mountain climb or trek in extreme terrains such as Arctic or jungle areas. It is though for camping excursions where one will be on one's own in the wilderness. Thus Corbridge takes a comprehensive approach including first aid items, food, and dependable and proven gear considering exposure to the elements. Her standard is the best gear from her own experience and outdoor lore from other experienced backpackers, not cost. She's not telling you how to save money or cut corners, but how to enjoy backpacking--which depends on proper, reliable equipment--and be safe at the same time. Where she simply names particular basic equipment for ones wanting to avoid the earlier chapters explaining the gear and reasons for recommending it, she gives the cost of this at about $1,000.00. Fully equipping oneself with all the basic, specialized, and optional gear she covers by categories such as shelter, cooking, and food would cost a good deal more.

The guidebook is good to read not only for its discussions of gear along with identifications of the quality gear but also for tips one can pick up in passing. Discussing cooking and eating supplies for instance, she mentions she likes a "long-handled titanium spoon" for use in cooking oatmeal carried in plastic containers because these have some give for packing in a full backpack. She prefers tall plastic cups to insulated ones because they give off a better feeling of warmth. Socks are stuffed into the cups when they are in the pack.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A very good book but not the best out there, January 3, 2009

By	J. Hopkins "Baja James" - See all my reviews

While this is a good effort on lightweight backpacking it is not the best, THe illustrations were a bit of a distraction and could be better. In general the information is good but there are some things such as the use in trekking pole wrist staps is a bit risky. I did find the photos of the writer "embracing the wilderness" funny I am not sure I would want to round the bend on a trail and see a naked writer.....

OK I reread the book and am trying to bump it to 4 stars. There are some really good tips. Like the mutiple uses of 180 proof rum... And there are great equipment contacts so it is a 4 star book.