f Y Allen^^ke'sReaWCool ROOK „ Traveling & camping skills tor a Wilderness environment/ Allen OBannon Mike Clelland! & illustrations by FALCON GUIDE' GUILFORD, CONNECTICUT HELENA, MONTANA AN IMPRINT OF THE GLOBE PEOJLJOT PRESS A FALCON GUIDE Copyright © 2001 Allen O'Bannon and Mike Clelland All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, except as my be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or by the publisher. Requests for per mission should be made in writing to The Globe Pequot Press, P.O. Box 480, Guilford, Connecticut 06437. Falcon and FalconGuide are registered trademarks of Morris Book Publishing, LLC. Cover illustration by Mike Clelland! Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data O'Bannon, Allen. Allen and Mike's really cool backpackin' book / by Allen O'Bannon and Mike Clelland. p. cm. ISBN-13: 978-1-56044-912-6 1. Backpacking. I. Clelland, Mike. II. Title. GV199.6.023 2001 796.5 l-dc21 00-051867 ^Text pages printed on recycled paper. Manufactured in the United States of America First Edition/Fifteenth Printing To buy books in quantity for corporate use or incentives, call (800) 962-0973 or e-mail [email protected]. The author and The Globe Pequot Press assume no liability for any accidents happening to, or injuries sustained by, readers who engage in the activities described in this book. Contents Acknowledgments iv A Note from Mike! v Introduction: Camping in Style 1 Dressing and Packing for the Outdoors 3 Equipment 24 Travel Techniques 43 Campcraft 70 Trip Planning 102 Outdoor Hazards 118 Weather 146 Appendix A: Leave No Trace (LNT) 152 Appendix B: Other Recommended Resources. . . 154 Appendix C: Gear . 155 Index 156 Acknowledgments Oh my gosh. There are so many people whom I have learned from, that it would be a separate book unto itself to name them all. As a student of and instructor for the National Outdoor Leadership School, I gained an incredible depth of knowledge from all the wonderful people who work there. This is the place where I truly honed my skills and gained much of my experience and wisdom. Thanks to all those I have worked with and to all of their mentors as well All of our experience is built on those who came before. Many thanks to all my friends from high school and college who got me started in the outdoors. It was in these early years that I gained appreciation for and inspiration from the natural world and all its beauty. Thanks to Mike Clelland for his wonderful and inspiring illus trations, for all the editing that he did, and for getting me started as a writer. Also thanks to John Burbidge, our editor at Falcon, for helping us along. Finally thanks to Erika Eschholz for the time and understanding she gave me in order to complete this project. Allen O'Bannon A Note from Mike! Why go into the wilderness? The natural world can be hard work, frustrat ing, and uncomfortable ... but we go nonetheless. What pulls us there, to a place that we sometimes perceive as unwelcoming? For me, and maybe you too, there is a very real tugging at the soul, a deep-rooted desire to find something, to achieve something ... a metaphysical fix of some sort. The oppressive influences of our modern society keep many of us from being our real selves. We continually react not to Mother Nature, but to Mother Culture, and we take on identities and personalities not our own. But when we step into the wilderness, we temporarily liberate ourselves from those influences. There is a very real value to time spent in the wilderness. Perhaps we can begin to discover a little more about our real selves. Maybe we'll get some reassurance that there is something behind it all, and that it's good. I spend up to 30 days at a time in the wilderness, instructing for an out door school, and many of my fellow travelers are new to the Grand Experience of wilderness travel. They'll often excitedly vocalize their obser vations with statements like: "We are in the middle of nowhere!"; "There is nothing out here!"; and, "Y'know, back in the real world . . ." I have learned that it's impossible to be nowhere, much less in the middle of it. Wherever you are, and most especially in the wilderness, you are quite definitely-somewhere! In the backcountry, you are surrounded not by nothing, but by lots and lots of something, an amazing variety of the inter-locking everything! Don't look away over the distant horizon for someplace called the "real world." That is the illusion. Wherever you are, any place your feet are plant ed on this fabulously complex and beautiful earth, you are-most assured- ly-in the Real World. Mike Clelland! ^ >u c a n 't s a ve T>ack Weioht ty r e m o v i ng i > u r K a r t a s s l e! DJ Still t\ot UTrvCerst°oc£ \>y Science, y o ur "hat a c t u a l ly \jti$hsJnc>te vrVt"h.°ut a t a s s le [ Introduction: Camping in Style A simple equation exists between freedom and numbers: the more people the less freedom. Royal Robbins, Basic Rockcraft Style is everything, especially in the backcountry. This has nothing to do with how you dress or what type of gear you have. We're not talking about fashion-rather, how you act, carry yourself, and camp. For example, being a bombproof camper and knowing where all your gear is at any one time. Not having stuff hanging all over the outside of your pack, waiting to get pulled off or broken. Being considerate to the other campers you run into. This is all good style. Staying warm and dry while everyone else is stumbling around wet and cold is good style. So is keeping a positive attitude on the rare occasions when you hiked 5 miles in the wrong direction. It is stuff like this that defines a good outdoorsperson. Striving to camp and travel in good style makes you a better camper in the long run. Good style helps define a set of ethics for us as outdoor users. No longer can we simply do whatever we please in the woods. With so many other users, we need a set of principles or stan dards to help govern our actions. With so many humans trav eling the confined spaces of our planet's undeveloped places, we need a way to protect the land and other resources so they remain substantially unchanged. If we as campers practice and develop the skills to keep pristine areas free of impact, then the government doesn't need to regulate us. We must take personal responsibility for our actions and do more than just follow a bunch of regulations meant to protect us, others, and the land. This is what ethics are all about. Our goal as backcountry travelers must be to minimize our impact through the way we interact with the land and its inhabitants. Can we leave it unimpaired for future visitors, be they us in another five years, or our children and their grand children? Wilderness will never be the way it was when Lewis and Clark first traveled across North America. And 100 years in the future it will probably be substantially different than it is now. However, if we practice minimum-impact skills and act to protect wild places in all facets of our lives, wilderness will still exist. Some of the practices I talk about are more about courtesy to others than anything else. Some are just techniques Introduction designed to make you a better camper. Other practices help to minimize the effect you have on the land, whether you rec ognize it or not. Take the time to consider and accept those techniques and practices that ring true to you. If you are unsure of something, don't blow it off as the opinion of some crazy zealot-give it a try, ask opinions of others, and do some research. Only through education and experience can you learn more about the true nature of things. This is how you develop your skills and knowledge and protect the places you love. May this book help you on your way to being the consum mate outdoorsperson. Allen O'Bannon 2 Introduction DRESSING AND PACKING FOR THE OUTDOORS gloves-- In the backcountry you will see all styles of people. Some folks will be outfitted in Patagucci's latest, while others will be running around in camo (hopefully they're not armed, but On a summer trip in some places you never know). One of the best moun into the mountains taineers I ever knew used to dress in plaid polyester pants I take only.- and disco shirts purchased for pennies from a local thrift store. His reasoning was they were made of the same fiber as ( 'Your x\ttAs> m<vj After) ) the fancier stuff, kept him warm, dried quickly, and cost a heck of a lot less. The money he saved on clothes could be used to go climbing. Now, not all of us have the same taste (I personally hate disco) but the fact is there are a number of different ways to do things despite what all the glossy maga zine ads (and this book) tell you. Hopefully what you get out of this guide are some general ideas that you can use to cre ate your own reality. This chapter is all about the systems needed to dress comfort ably for the myriad of conditions in the outdoors-plus systems to help you get it all packed. There is no perfect system. You will need to develop your own system that works for you. I am attempting to give you some ideas, but in the end, you need to figure it out for yourself through trial and error. I hope to help you avoid some of the errors. It takes time to figure out a personalized system of dressing and packing. I started backpacking in the mid-1980s, and I still experiment with different systems, always trying to figure out what works best. My goal is to keep it simple. Strive for simplicity in all you do. Dressing To understand the whys of outdoor clothing, you first need to understand the purpose. In the outdoors you have no control over the weather or the temperature. You can't turn up the heat when it gets cold or turn off the wind (I know, I've tried). Clothes, therefore, need to keep you warm when it's cold, block the wind, and keep you dry in the rain. In hot environ ments like the desert, clothes also serve to protect you from the sun. Dressing and Packing for the Outdoors 3