Camping Books

I absolutely love this book, so much so that I have given it as a gift a number of times and my copy is one of the most well-worn volumes on my bookshelf.

Among its many outstanding features are the Planetary Tables on pp. 134-135 that show you where the visible planets will be located as the years pass. The tables run from 1997-2006. The tables in the current edition are therefore out of date (type "134" into the "Search Inside" box and look at pp. 134 and 135).

I realize this is a minor quibble, and it is the ONLY reason for my 4-star rating. But these pages deserve an update. There are easy ways to get planetary information on the internet but it would be nice if the tables were updated in the book.

This book is a very good guide for the beginner as well as veteran stargazers. The book's biggest asset lies in the way the stick figures are drawn. Unlike the drawings before this book was published Rey's drawings are realistic in shape, corresponding to the name of the constellation, making them easy to spot and memorize.

This is a great book....reducing the complexities of the always in motion astronomical world to something understandable by ordinary folks with a curiosity.

This book is the BEST format for learning the constellations with your kids, and getting a good feel for the "summer sky", "winter sky", etc... Even my six year old can pick out obscure groupings by using the charts. We spend evenings after dinner finding as many as we can and we can hardly wait for camping this summer!

When I was a kid, my father had a clever response to my "Why?" He threw books at me. Once I asked about the stars, and this book was what I got. And what a book it was! It taught me the mechanics of the nights sky, about the Moon and planets, what the constellations looked like and how to find them in the sky... Everything I needed to go outside and start finding things.

The book didn't stop there. It teaches about the seasons, the difference between 'star time' and 'sun time', why the stars and constellations precess as they do, and MUCH more.

All this was about 1957. For whatever reason, my interest in all this got rekindled around 1997. But my old friend - the book my father gave me - had been lost many years before. So, I went to a local book shop, looking for a some kind of substitute, and to my astonishment, there it was! A copy of HA Rey's book, my long lost friend! So I was off again, looking at the easy-to-use diagrams, finding the constellations in the sky.

You may go to astronomy forums on the net, and you'll find this book mentioned all too seldom. The one most mentioned (to my observation) is "Turn Left At Orion", which is a fine publication, but it is NOT a beginner's book. Rey's is, and there isn't one better, and never has been. (The net forums seem to be for folks that are beyond the beginning stage, and I've found none designed for kids just starting. So, for absolute beginners, these forums can mislead, though, I'm sure, not intentionally.)

For absolute-beginner backyard astronomy, if you're looking for a book for your kid (or you're a kid looking for something to pester your parents to buy), you've found it. And at a rediculously low price to boot.

If I were king, this book would be in every library that calls itself a library. No praise can be too high, for this book does, exactly and completely, what it purports to do. Mr. Rey passed in 1977 (Wikipedia, "HA Rey"), and his work has long outlived both him and his wife. But, as long as a publisher with a heart and brain exists, his masterpiece will continue to show kids (of any age) the way to the stars.

I can't believe I missed out on this one as a child... but it's just as good coming to it as an adult. The perfect lazy Sunday afternoon book to read. Adults can also escape to the wilds of Lake Windemere (Lake District), to sail up the Amazon, do battle with pirates and search for buried treasure on Cormorant Island.

The year is 1929 and story is about four children - John, Susan, Titty and Roger (in age order) - who are holidaying on the shores of Lake Windemere with their mum and baby sister, Vicky. The children are an adventurous lot and love sailing in their boat, the Swallow. Towards the end of their holiday they persuade their mum to allow them on an adventure for a week. They're allowed to sail across to the island not far away and make camp there by themselves.

This is a great adventure for these intrepid explorers. They discover a retired pirate, camp, bathe in the lake, fish and cook for themselves, and are threatened by a rival group of bandits, the Amazons (otherwise known as Nancy and Peggy). All in all a great week of fun and adventure is had by all - brilliant to read about, although there are very few children who'd be allowed to do this now! Inspired by the author's own childhood holidays at the south end of Coniston in the Lake District.

This wonderful book was written about 75 years ago, but is still extremely popular today. It is ageless. I first read it as a nine or ten year old and have read it several times since then. The last time I read it I was in my late 50s or early 60s. Every young person should enjoy it immensely as a fictional story. But there are many moral and ethical issues that are slyly inserted into this novel. The biography of the author and how he came to write this book, which was the first in a series of 9 or 10 novels, is a fascinating story in itself.

The Swallows and Amazons series was one of my favorites when I was a child. The story, set in the Lake District of England where Wordsworth and other great poets grew up, is a gentle adventure tale about children camping out on an island and rigging a little sailboat. It is slower paced than children are used to today. But I think a sensitive boy or girl would find it reassuring that the children solve their own problems of navigation etc.

While it didn't bother me as a child that the language was distinctly British, as I'd been prepared by the Winnie the Pooh stories, and Wind in the Willows, I would recommend Swallows and Amazons as a bedtime story to be read aloud by an adult reader. The reader could then explain the language. A map of the UK would help too, as the story is set in the Lake District.

An adult storyteller might be interested in a biography of the series author, Arthur Ransome, who led an adventurous life - including work in the Soviet Union and marriage to a Russian woman.

Enchanting
It's hard to explain what makes this book so charming: The writing, the way the children and their relationships with each other are shown so clearly and believably, the very real adventures they have, the sense of place....but listing those traits doesn't do the book justice. It's also really funny in places! Ransome creates a world that is clearer and lighter and more enchanting than the one most of us live in -- but he's also written a realistic book. The Lake District DOES look the way he describes it, and there could be children like the Swallows and their friends the Amazon pirates.

The books are for all ages, and I think they are also inspiring and a good influence! They make me want to have adventures -- and they encourage parents by example to let their children have them. The parents in the books are responsible, teach their children well -- and allow them to adventure on their own. They can do that because they've taught the children to have good judgment and be responsible.

Arthur Ransome's own favorite in the series was WINTER HOLIDAY, which I also loved. Once the original characters leave the series, it loses its interest (for me, anyway) -- children who enjoyed the first books will also probably like Blow Out the Moon by Libby Koponen and all the E.Nesbit books.

About 60 years ago I read as many books from this series that I could find in my local public library. I had passed through a phase of devouring the Dr. Doolittle fantasy series (so damaged by the motion pictures using that title - how could they cast tall lanky Rex Harrison in the role of a short cuddly grandfather-like figure?) Another series in which, as an American boy fascinated by warplanes during the Worl War II era - I went on to become an aerospace engineer - I was enthralled, was "A Yank in the RAF", which I don't think would translate to the 21st Century very well. But the series that made the most impact on me was Ransome's Swallow family. As with Hugh Lofting's Doolittle, the author's drawings enhanced the books.

I have not visited there yet but I plan on touring Britain's Lake District (I don't think I was cognizant of where the tales took place, except I knew the children were British. They liked to drink ginger beer; in the US we had a ginger ale drink, but not ginger beer and I was curious to have some.) I have long wanted to live somewhere that would allow me to experience the thrill of mastering the small sailing boats of the story. The closest I came was living near the Pacific in California and near the Potomac River. But the boats in those regions were larger and not terribly accessible. I did go sailing with friends and tried to sail on my own in a marina with a rented boat (a too narrow and crowded venue for a novice just learning to tack and unfamiliar with how to dump wind from the sail when being carried in the wrong direction.) I have gotten to taste ginger beer. I have also used the children's means of including coded messages in their letters in the form of dancing stick figures around the page's margin (the secret was to ignore other parts of the figures and concentrate on the positions of the arms, which were standard semaphore code.) I introduced the code to one of my daughters when we were in the "Indian Princesses" organization. (Is the name and programs of that organization offensive to American Indians? I'm sure its founders weren't sensitive to the fact that American Indians still existed.)

I will introduce this series to my precocius 6 year old grand daughter when I think she is ready.

I've used this book so much over the past 2 years I may need to replace it soon. While the rating system took me a little while to figure out (the numbers do NOT represent the ranking, just the location on the map), the book is very user-friendly. In addition to giving accurate directions to each campground, it directs you to the correct page and area in both the Colorado Atlas & Gazetteer and Colorado Recreational Road Atlas. By rating Scenery, RVs, Tents, Shade, and Privacy, the book helps you locate the campgrounds based on what is important to you. The elevation info is great if you have young children who might not appreciate waking up in the snow and I love that the book tells you which tent sites are the most popular since we tend to reserve campsites well in advance of trips. This is a great book.

The book is a very good reference on a large number of campgrounds. It has a strength in that it provides pictures, unlike for instance the Moon guide. In my opinion, the book would be better if it covered the CGs more evenly: the authors' choices of "best" very often coincide with "most popular" (read: "most crowded") and the quieter campgrounds do not get the coverage that may be of interest to readers.
Another annoyance I found is numbering of campgrounds. They are not numbered and listed in a logical order that would allow reading about closely located ones in a sequence. Instead, you can read on one and the adjacent one on the map is fife pages down, yet the next one in the text is 50 miles away. This makes one go back and forth between the map and the text if you are trying to get impression on CGs in a certain area.
However, all this notwithstanding, I think this book is well worth having.

We have camped in Colorado for years, but this guide gave us new campgrounds to explore and try. We like the idea that the author includes ratings on both tent and RV "friendly" places, as well as including shade and sun, spacing and privacy aspects.
Love the pictures!
We find the format easy to use and the organization by regions is good, too, although the San Luis Valley should be kept separate from the Eastern slope.
This is the first summer we've used the guide, but will keep it in use for many years.

I do not own an RV, but noticed that the book is full of campsite info from all around the state, and includes whether the sites allow RV's, tents, pets, if they have hook-ups, ect.

We used this book to determine every campground we'll stay at in CO.
The pictures were wonderful and the ratings were very useful. We are tent camping so it was nice to find a book that not only catered to the RV campers but the tent campers as well.

I read "Cache Lake Country" in 1968. I was delighted to find it in print again...like meeting an old friend.
Thank you.

I have read a lot of outdoor books over the last 40 years, and this is one of the best. I am going to research the author, John J. Rowlands, because he was obviously a fascinating man who lead a very interesting life. This book tells about 12 months living in a cabin on a lake in Northern Onatario. At the time Rowlands was working as a timber cruiser, evaluating forests for use as lumber. He happened upon his ideal lake and was lucky enough to get stationed there by his company. He was also very lucky to have two great friends living within miles (within signaling distance via the various drums, horns etc. they engineered), on other little lakes. Together the three lived every outdoor boy's dream life of independence and adventure. This book has stuff about canoes, wild animals, sled dogs, snowshoes, knives, axes, the history of the lumber camps, and many boy-scout like craft projects. I just wish it was a lot longer.

A good book but I didn't think it was as easy to read as friends lead me to believe. A tremendous amount of reference material, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I found the book enlightening and informative. Thank you for the opportunity to enjoy and learn from this book.

I'm going to be a little less enthusiastic, but only a little, than some of the other reviewers here. I really did like this book, but for some reason it just didn't quite pull me into the time, place, space the way it did some others- although it didn't miss by much.

This is a very unique book-probably reminding me of my old Boy Scout Fieldbook (a little more detailed and survival-oriented than the handbook) more than a typical non-fiction work. The illustrations are great as well as occasionally light-hearted, and if you are at all handy or have an engineering or for that matter, culinary bent, you will find plenty of recipes and blueprints for food, tools, gadgets- even crystal radio sets or birch bark canoes. While some of these you'd probably have to find some supplemental information to make, most come so well described and diagrammed that you could probably build them or bake them directly from the book.

For me the best part is the author's midwest and at times almost cowboy way of describing life. His time around rough loggers in the days when horses and two man saws were still the order of the day especially captured my imagination. Like many readers, I'm a lot hermit, and the thought of life in a cabin in the north woods with nothing but snow, bear, moose, and wind has a certain charm, and I'm grateful to Rowlands for giving enough of a story to enjoy a bit of that charm vicariously. An excellent and unique book, and for some it will probably become a treasured possession.

This was an very useful book after I got hooked on backpacking. Specifically, the sections on gear let me make informed purchases when replacing my discount store equipment with higher end items from backpacking specialty retailers. The only nitpick I have is the need for some more details on types of clothing needed for certain environments, especially in the Rockies. My copy was well worn with use but still used for reference.

This is well-written and thorough guide to backpacking. It provides helpful ideas for backpackers at all levels, not just beginners.

Like any book, it has its biases. Townsend is a long-distance solo backpacker with most of his experience in western North America, Britain, and Scandinavia. He often hikes on snow, and spends a significant amount of time on skis. He is a vegetarian with a minimalist approach to backcountry cuisine.

What does this mean? First, the weekend backpacker will find a lot of material that goes well beyond his needs. This stems from the book's efforts to be useful to people at many different levels. At the other extreme, a highly experienced backpacker will find much of the book too basic, though as a long-distance hiker Townsend will provide various nuggets of advice even for her.

Second, Townsend almost completely ignores fishing. This is a popular part of the backpacking experience for many people and should be included. (I suppose a little advice for backpacking hunters would probably also be helpful.) Since Townsend doesn't hunt or fish, he may want to take on a coauthor in future editions who can help him a little in these areas.

Third, Townsend has nothing to say about experiencing the wildnerness by canoe. This objection may be unfair, since canoeing isn't exactly "backpacking." However, many people combine canoeing with backpacking and portaging in a way that probably belongs in an exhaustive guide to backpacking. Certainly, Townsend's extensive discussions of cross-country skiing is as much a niche interest as is canoeing.

Finally, this is not the book for backcountry recipes or cooking ideas. However, it is painfully thorough in discussing cooking gear.

Townsend reflects the Rockies-and-Sierras bias of most backpacking literature, though (like others) he acknowledges Appalachian Trial hikers. It's easy to forget that the largest wilderness area in the lower 48, and the most widely visited in the entire country, is the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. Some experience with North Country backpacking would serve Townsend and other writers well.

These criticisms aside, this is the best book of its kind that I have found. I hope that it continues to evolve in its third edition.

This is a perfect book for anyone getting interested in backpacking and doesn't have a lot of experience. Townshend goes over every aspect of backpacking that you need to know including shoes, socks, innerware, outerware, accesories, backpacks, food, saftey, sleeping bags, tents and the list goes on. He tells you the correct way to pack your back pack, what to bring depending on the season and the length of the trip, the different types of ways of cooking food on a trip, the inner working of a hiking boot and it just doesn't stop. When it comes to brands and specific models of products he names names and tells you what works and what doesn't work.

On top of all this his tone and wirting style make for semi-causal reading that doesn't feel like a pain to read. The chapters are organized in ways that are easy to skip around in if you want and he has some interesting personal anecdotes taken from his vast hiking experience. He also talks about building up stamina to walk long distances, how to survive on the water of the land and how to make an igloo if you are camping in the snow.

Get this book if you are looking for an introductory guide to backpacking. I expecially recommend it if you are thinking about buying any expensive camping gear as I used much of the information before I bought my own Backpack, Boots, and Sleeping Bag.

This book is all about experience. It takes you on an amazing ride through a concise drilldown of everything one needs to take their first walk. The author does a good job of giving not only his own perspective, but the perspective of other experienced backpackers that see things differently. This gives you more lessons than a single person could ever provide. Whenever you come to a junction point in the book where you might want more information about something he specificly states he's not going into (like power hiking vs. slackwalking, or gourmet trail cooking vs. survivial eating) he always gives references to other great books that give the extra details on those other subjects. Great must-read!

I bought a few books online without paying too much attention to reviews and I was often disappointed. This time I paid a great deal of attention to the reviews while trying to sellect the book that would best fulfil my expectations and I must admit that all the good reviews about The Backpacker's Handbook, 2nd Edition, are well founded! This book is excellent and everyone interested in reading about backpacking should at least acquire this one. Thank you Mr. Townsend for sharing your experience and passion with us in such a good book! and thank you, reviewers, for guiding buyers like me toward what truly is worth ordering.

This is a GREAT book! I highly recommend it if you are planning a trip to Alaska. It is VERY informative and VERY detailed. I enjoyed it immensely and I know I will take it with me when I visit Alaska next year! Thanks to the authors for such a great book!

This is great for the RV's not so good for tent campers and Motorcycle Adventure tourers.

Since we will be camping most of the time while in Alaska, this book is a great guide.

This guide is a little dated (3rd edition - 2005), but it's not hard to cross reference the campgrounds in this guide with a more recent (Trailer Life) guide, so that's not a major problem. The campground descriptions are spot on, but the feature we relied on most was the "Big Rigs" symbol. We pull a 32' 5th wheel, so we're not really huge, but knowing you can maneuver before you enter a campground is worth it's weight in Alaska gold.

This is a detailed and very useful and essential book to help making a motorhome trip to Alaska via the Alcan highway a pleasant experience. I think it is an easier guide to use for planning your trip than the Milepost.

My kids really liked the book, but it has an element of death. It is labeled as for seven and up, but I personally prefer children's stories to be lighter in subject matter. If this was read to a very young child, parents would probably need to have a discussion about death with them. What my kids liked best: the fox helping the squirrel, the dwarf and his secrets, and the black stag because the fairies got to ride on his antlers.

In this installment of The Fairy Chronicles, several new fairies are introduced. The same fairy team of the first three books is present, except Dragonfly on vacation with family, but Periwinkle is added to the mix. She is a Native American fairy with special skills coinciding with her culture, to add to her fairy gift of sun tolerance to fit with pink periwinkles. I have been buying these for my granddaughter. Since I only see her about once a month, I get to read her books before gifting them to her. She agrees with me that Firefly and the Black Squirrel is wonderful. When the fairies go to their Fairy Circle, more fairies are introduced. We can't wait for their adventures. We took a drive to a park last week and along the way we saw what we deemed as purple meadows and white meadows. They weren't the same as the ones in the book, but we still had fun imagining that there were fairies flitting about them on a fun adventure. We really liked this book.

Firefly and the Quest of the Black Squirrel has a fantastic assortment of characters: dwarf, black squirrel, goblin, twenty plus assorted fairies with six being the main participants in this fairy mission, bees, hornets, birds, brownies, the magical Black Stag, the Shadow of Death, and a magical creature known as a squit. Each of these characters is given a colorful personality, even the bees and hornets, to add to the intricate kaleidoscope. The squit, Firecracker, who is a furry, fluffy creature about the size of a basketball when dry (and a baseball when wet) has a wonderful personality. The fact that he might not even be real adds a certain charm to this book, making it extremely memorable. My two children loved this story, and I am looking forward to reading it again and sharing it with other family and friends. I think this book would appeal to a multitude of readers, and I do recommend it along with the others in this series. The books contain activities and nature facts in the backs as a bonus.

Firefly is a fairy. She goes camping with her friends. They go to Fairy Circle and meet new fairies. They go on a Quest to save all black squirrels. I like this book because they are saving black squirrels. Most books the people go and save other people. The fairies save the black squirrels and they end up saving people too. I didn't know there were black squirrels, but they are real. The dwarf has a squit named Firecracker. The fairies get to ride on the antlers of the black stag. They find blue moon clover to save the squirrels. This is a good book.

The Mom's Choice Awards® honors excellence in family-friendly media, products and services. An esteemed panel of judges includes education, media and other experts as well as parents, children, librarians, performing artists, producers, medical and business professionals, authors, scientists and others. A sampling of the panel members includes: Dr. Twila C. Liggett, Ten-time Emmy-winner, professor and founder of Reading Rainbow; Julie Aigner-Clark, Creator of Baby Einstein and The Safe Side Project; Jodee Blanco, New York Times Best-Selling Author; LeAnn Thieman, Motivational speaker and coauthor of seven Chicken Soup For The Soul books; Tara Paterson, Certified Parent Coach, and founder of The Just For Mom Foundation(tm) and the Mom's Choice Awards®. Parents and educators look for the Mom's Choice Awards® seal in selecting quality materials and products for children and families. This book has been honored by this distinguished award.

At last out in paperback, this unusual novel finally gets a foothold. It's not a "Western" at all. There are no blazing guns, sheriffs, or bad guys. There is just the beauty of the western high country bringing sustenance to a kid farmed out from a depression defeated Montana ranch to a find life packing mules and horses into the mountains. . . . We see the mountains grow into Ty Hardin as he grows into them, even when yanked from them to fight a war he is obliged to fight and which wounds him physically as his mentor, Fenton Pardee, knows it will, somehow. . . . Hardin returns to his high country to repair, and subsequently suffer the failure of a love that cannot be. He soon finds the deeper love of the woman he marries. But that too goes awry, his love dying with their child in a botched delivery. . . . That sadness takes him from the Montana mountains where he found life into the High Sierra, the west's highest range, where he knows life. He becomes a legend and dies there, trying to rescue a drug addled boy who should never have tested a country so high. . . . The book is a startling testament to something we have cherished but have never quite resolved in our literature -- the perennial allure and majesty of the American west.

I admire a spellbinding story where the characters are real, their choices and dilemmas have a grab that keeps you absorbed by their story. Then you add to this a complete understaning of the settings, the profession, the way people behave in the wilderness West, and it becomes an insight into a vanishing breed as an extra bonus beyond being a great story. The prose is as good as it gets - it often has a poetic quality. This book should be a best-seller: that is the bottom line, plain and simple.

Great book, hard read, must find a place that has no noise, then you will get through, you will enjoy it. Sound like a prop from a college wrote it.
Over all I enjoyed it.

Read this. It will stay with you. And it will probably lead you to check internet sites for pack trips into the mountains of western Montana and the Sierras of California so that you can experience what the novel describes and visit with the characters even more closely.

I loved this. One of my favorite reads of the last year. It communicates a life ethic that is 180 degrees from the culturally promoted one of contemporary American life. The persons you meet within its pages will awaken memories of folks from the margins of your life.

I can't say enough good things. It deserves to reach a wide audience. Make sure you've got plenty of time to give to this novel because you'll find you want to keep going and going till you've reached camp.

Great book if you love the mountains and enjoy escaping into a great story line with wonderful descriptions of the life of a packer in the mountains. I could not put the book down!

The book was used but looked brand new, came quickly and with it looking so clean, I should have no problems selling it back. Thanks!

If students plan to do well in class, this is definitely a got to have study guide for any student taking beginning Psychology.

I got this book very quickly and in great shape! I believe I did a great buy! I definately recommend buying from here.

This is a very interesting text!Chapters are a bit long & boring at times but overall great material. I just wish my professor didnt read the text word for word! Not the books fault! LOL

When asked to choose a book to use in my Introduction to Psychology class, I was somewhat unsure because there are armadas of books out there. For students, I think someone should take in price as a factor, look at what they are given in the way of student-aid and multimedia, and how good the book really happens to be. I initially chose this book because I knew someone that had used an older version of it and said that it was a good choice and, well, I couldn't be happier.

As far as the cost of the book, it really isn't bad for a new book. It keeps up with newer stuff, not really leaving you behind with outmoded material you really shouldn't learn anyhow. It also adds in newer elements to the study of the subject, allowing a student to feel out the subject without feeling like they've stepped onto the Intro bandwagon. This isn't to say that all the beginner's concepts aren't covered because they are - this is simply to say that the book takes the subjects and runs with them a lot more than most beginner material. Another thing to take into account if you are teaching a class are the number of chapters vs. the filler material. With classes becoming shorter now (many schools now have a 14 week series v. a 16 week one) the material needs to be able to sink in faster.
Happily for the students reading this, the material will do that AND the book will come with A LOT of help to making testing a positive experience.

One nice thing that comes with the book is the Concept Charts, making it east for people to see the ideas "come to life." It is easier to explain how a science goes from an idea to a modern approach by placing it in a nice graph, and the points that are added make it easier still to separate one person from another. The Chart book follows along with the book amazingly, too; I looked into it first off and saw that it took into account everything the Chapters were trying to say.

Running through the book, it covers: Evolution of Psychology, Researching, Biological Biases for Psychology, Sensation and Perception, Variations on Consciousness, Learning, Memory, Language and Thought, Intelligence and Testing, Motivation and Emotion, Development across the Life Span, Personality, Stress and Coping, Disorders, Treatment, and Social behavior. Combine this with the CD, web help, and you've got a full book of concepts.

If your teacher picked this out, MAKE SURE you get the concept charts with your book. It is good, will help you if you are going into any field dealing with psychology, and is a book that is worth keeping instead of recycling.

Thought this book was really good. Lots of little tidbits of knowledge that you may have heard or didn't ever think about. Presented for all ages and all skill levels.

I teach a beginning backpacking class for adults and have used several books over the past 15 years. This is the 2nd year that I have used the Allen & Mike's book and it is a much easier read. Students and instructors both like the illustrations as it makes it faster to get through the information. Much more enjoyable than standard textbooks, but with a lot of valuable information.

A friend suggested I read this book before my first backpacking trip. It is a very fast and fun read with tons of useful information. My friend, who is a very experienced backpacker and NOLS alumni, was amazed at the amount of knowledge I acquired just from the book and has since purchased his own copy for reference. I highly recommend this book to any beginner or expert who needs a refresher!

The author shares his substantial experience with the reader in a uniquely entertaining manner, and the illustrator complements the light-hearted style of the author with [occasionally] hilarious visuals. The character of this book will attract everyone in the household; even those without camping or backpacking experience will find it easy-to-read and interesting. For those already bitten by the 'outdoor bug', new insights presented by the author force us to reconsider our position on a variety of subjects.

Unlike so many of its kind, this book is comprehensive without being obscure; no lessons on building water bucket baskets or how to skin and dry moose meat for the winter. This handbook addresses the basics of backpacking with enthusiasm, and it proves contagious for the reader.

Reading this book reminds me that it's possible to learn from all types of backpackers. The book is well written and illustrated. The illustrations have ideas that are not always in the text.

Allen O'Bannon clearly is not in the lightweight backpacking camp, which I am. O'Bannon writes about heavy pack loads (how to properly put on a heavy pack) and leather hiking boots. The book is loaded with ideas that will be interesting to all backpackers. I wouldn't recommend the book to someone just starting out with backpacking. For those readers I would give it just two stars. However, I would recommend it for a current backpacker that wants some fresh ideas or a fairly new backpacker that has read a couple books on lightweight backpacking first. The book isn't loaded with a lot of fluff that can be found everywhere. It is also easy to read and not nearly as boring as many backpacking books.