Lightweight Backpacking and Camping: A Field Guide to Wilderness Equipment, Technique, and Style (Backpacking Light) [Paperback]

Ryan Jordan (Author)

Book Description

Series: Backpacking Light | Publication Date: October 2005

The days of carrying monster packs into the wilderness are officially over!

New Book Completely Redefines How to Enjoy Backcountry Travel

---

"Backpacking should be comfortable, safe, and fun."

So say the backcountry experts at Backpacking Light Magazine in their new book, Lightweight Backpacking & Camping: A Field Guide to Wilderness Equipment, Technique, and Style. And they should know: Backpacking Light Magazine is recognized as the outdoor industry's leading authority in lightweight hiking and backcountry travel, and has helped thousands of outdoor enthusiasts discover the joy of going light.

"The notion that you need to carry 40 or 50 pounds of gear into the backcountry to be comfortable and safe is absolutely ridiculous," says the book’s Editor, Ryan Jordan, who is also the Publisher of Backpacking Light Magazine and the outdoor industry's chief proselytizer of today's exploding lightweight backpacking movement. "Gear manufacturers continue to contaminate the market with too much gear that is overbuilt, overdesigned, overpriced, and overweight. Backpackers deserve to be told the other side of the story: that you can do more with less, and that a pack weight of less than 15 pounds (not including food and water) is easily accessible even to beginners."

A book about lightweight backpacking should be smart, fat, and heavy.

This new book redefines modern day backpacking as safe, comfortable, and fun – but with a much lighter pack. And, it doesn't take a casual approach to the topic: 436 pages of content educate backcountry users of all levels about the gear and technique required to make them experts.

Lightweight Backpacking & Camping fills major gaps in existing outdoor literature by offering:

- Multiple, balanced perspectives that appeal to a wide range of experiences, skills, and personal styles.

- In-depth content that provides basic, intermediate, and advanced discussions of skills that grow with the reader.

- Up-to-date information about the best lightweight gear and apparel, including the manufacturers that make it and the retailers that carry it.

Lightweight Backpacking & Camping is the most comprehensive and rigorous text ever published on the subject. In addition to chapters about gear and basic skills, consider its more advanced topics: why the biomechanics of walking justifies the use of running shoes instead of boots; how an examination of thermoregulation science suggests why today's high-tech synthetic clothing is too heavy and poorly engineered; how super-ultralight backpacking with a five pound pack can allow someone in average physical condition to hike a 30 mile day, and why some inclement weather conditions can be ideally suited for sleeping under an ultralight tarp, rather than a heavy tent.

Lightweight Backpacking & Camping not only sets the standard for backcountry education, it raises the bar to heights never before seen in the outdoor industry. Unlike other texts, Lightweight Backpacking & Camping justififes its claims with good science, proper technique, and rationale discussions: not marketing, hyperbole, and guesswork.

Yes, lightweight backpacking works for everyone.

Lightweight backpacking (often, with a pack weight of less than 20 pounds) is the fastest growing trend in backpacking. Going light makes backcountry hiking more accessible to families, Boy Scouts, and aging baby boomers – groups normally excluded from enjoying the backcountry because of their inability to carry absurdly heavy backpacks.

Lightweight Backpacking & Camping is targeted not only to "heavy school" backpackers trying to get the motorhome off their back, but also to advanced wilderness travelers trying to do more with less. To that end, the volume is as well-suited for beginning hikers as it is to elite mountain athletes.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...after reading this book my pack weight plummeted and I've entered a new league of lightweight experts." -- Mike Clelland! National Outdoor Leadership School

"This is a rigorous, thorough, sober treatise...many will lighten up and enjoy the outdoors with more confidence and safety." -- Demitrious Coupounas, CEO & Founder, GoLite

About the Author

Ryan Jordan Ph.D., is the co-founder and Publisher of Backpacking Light Magazine. His doctoral level engineering background allows him to analyze gear and proclaim the gospel of ultralight backpacking in a rationale and safe manner. An Eagle Scout and former BSA High Adventure Program Director, Jordan lectures regularly to outdoor education leaders, search and rescue organizations, and land management agency staff about the gear and skills required to go light.

More important, Jordan walks the talk. He's not just a casual enthusiast interested in "writing a neat book". His idea of a good time: trekking several hundred miles through vast sections of remote wilderness with an ultralight pack – eliminating the need for resupply.

Jordan's approach to gear testing is unrivaled in the industry, blending hardcore field testing in the deep snows of Montana's wintertime wilderness with objective laboratory science and engineering evaluations that expose the most subtle flaws in poor product design.

About Backpacking Light

Backpacking Light Magazine is the outdoor industry’s most recognized, authoritative, and controversial voice about lightweight hiking and backcountry travel. Backpacking Light Magazine is published as a quarterly print magazine and a comprehensive subscription-based Website. Both feature editorials, advice on technique and training, travel journals, and in-depth scientific gear reviews. In addition, BackpackingLight.com hosts reader forums and gear reviews, gear buying guides, and a co-op style gear shop that sells some of the most innovative – and lightest – gear on the planet.

Product Details

• Paperback: 436 pages
• Publisher: Beartooth Mountain Press; 1 edition (October 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0974818828
• ISBN-13: 978-0974818825
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #690,299 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

66 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Heavy on the basics, light on specifics, July 31, 2007

By 

M. Petrie "eponymous" (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lightweight Backpacking and Camping: A Field Guide to Wilderness Equipment, Technique, and Style (Backpacking Light) (Paperback)

For those who are skeptical that backpacking relatively comfortably while carrying less weight is possible, this book does a pretty good job of making the case for dropping the extra pounds. However, if you're already convinced that lightweight or ultra lightweight backpacking is the way to go, this book feels a lot like preaching to choir.

I've been a lightweight convert for two years, and I bought this book hoping to learn some advice and techniques to shave my pack weight down even further. While the book has some useful specifics on some topics (I now swear by the bear bagging technique I learned from it, and the first aid section is very good), I found that it mostly lacked the level of detail I was looking for.

The essays all talk about how great going lightweight is and drool over expensive boutique gear. Indeed, there is a distinctly worshipful tone when discussing the latest carbon fiber and silnylon technologies. The book promotes a lot of very high end equipment while remaining seemingly oblivious to far less expensive alternatives that offer minimal performance compromises. But nothing really goes into specifics beyond what you could find on the internet for free. For example, the book extols the virtues of using a tarp tent, and has pictures of several brands, but provides only vague information on how to actually pitch one correctly, or how to pitch one when there aren't any trees while keeping it stable.

It seems obvious to me that carrying 20lbs would be better than carrying 50, I no longer need to be convinced. I was looking for more technical information and this book just didn't have it.

Also, the book is really just a collection of essays, many of which were written for Ryan Jordan's magazine/web site Backpacking Light, and as a result the book lacks a consistent voice and tone. The essays are also not really organized in an intuitive way.

Ryan Jordan also seems obsessed with light weight for light weight's sake, rather than as a means to add enjoyment to your backpacking experience. Sure it possible to get your pack weight down to 5lbs, if you're willing to shell out lots of money for lightweight fabrics and gear that's often not versatile and that you will probably have to replace every season because of its lack of durability. This might give you bragging rights at the trailhead, but I question if its really worth the added expense and inconvenience over say, a 15 pound pack, which is less weight than the average middle schooler carries every day, and can be acquired much less expensively.

This book has some useful ideas and recommendations on gear, so I'd recommend it to anyone who is interested in learning about lightweight backpacking for the first time, which is why I'm giving it three stars. If you've already shed some pounds from your pack, or are trying to enjoy the outdoors on a fixed budget, there are better and more detailed books out there, like The Complete Walker IV or Ray Jardine's Beyond Backpacking.

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good reference, November 27, 2005

By 

Jim Morrison (Hansville, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lightweight Backpacking and Camping: A Field Guide to Wilderness Equipment, Technique, and Style (Backpacking Light) (Paperback)

Ryan Jordan's Book has no index, and that always bugs me. It is a collection of pieces by no less than eleven different authors. The central idea is that you should lighten up you pack, even though the preface admits that it isn't for everyone. He believes you can maintain, if not increase, comfort and safety with lighter gear. They don't necessarily recommend the most expensive or fashionable gear offered by current manufacturers, and I find that refreshing. The authors offer some very accurate data and information on lightweight gear, food and first aid. It reflects the trend toward lighter weight backpacking that has been going on for some time. Much of the information, but certainly not all of it, already exists in other backpacking bibles and on the Internet. The book is well organized and I especially liked the way some subjects were classified and explained, like "Protection" and "Risk Management". For me it seemed to be an above average book on the subject of backpacking (I have read several), but not superior. Perhaps it is just a matter of style. Nevertheless it is a valuable reference for the light and ultralight backpacker.

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very technical gear guide, November 4, 2006

By 

P. Mumford (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lightweight Backpacking and Camping: A Field Guide to Wilderness Equipment, Technique, and Style (Backpacking Light) (Paperback)

This book is well worth reading. It is not, as the authors assert, the new ultralight hikers bible. It is useful to compare this book to Ray Jardine's classic Beyond Backpacking. I see it as a good update and companion to Jardine's book. This field guide, edited by Ryan Jordan with contributions by himself and several others, certainly has the advantage of a variety of very sound authors. Jardine asserts only one way of doing things. However Jardine's way is much closer to my preferred style of hiking than Jordan, et al. Jordan focusses on finding excellent commercial ultralight gear; Jardine gives instructions for making and improvising gear. On a variety of topics, from water purification to nutrition to pack design, I tend to agree with Jardine over Jordan and his pals. But if the Ray Way doesn't work for you, perhaps this will be your hiking bible.

This book does contain comprehensive and useful information on first aid, a wide range of shelter and sleep systems and apparel, and general hiking styles that are not covered by Jardine. It also gives good information on commercially made, but hard to find, ultralight gear. For this info it is well worth the price.

Jordan can be highly technical. Here is a typical quote:
"..this excercise emphasises the downward force of gravity that exerts itself at the center of gravity of both pack and the body. The horizontal distance between these two distances is called the moment arm. In turn, the force exerted on the body's musculature to remain stable by that moment arm, which I refer to as pack torque (T), is defined as the rotational force exerted by the pack on the body."

You can simply gloss over the many passages like this if you don't want to follow Jordan's math. Jordan uses analysis like this to evaluate gear - very impressive. My only problem with it is that the conclusions he arrives at often don't agree with what works for me in the field.