Backpackin'

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• Pocket size SAS Survival Guide
• A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson 
• White Blaze Fever by William Schuette  
• Walking With Spring by Earl Shaffer
• The Complete Walker IV by Colin Fletcher
• Just Passin' Thru by Winton Porter
• How to Hike the A.T.
• Three Hundred Zeros

If knowledge is more important than gear, how many pounds of knowledge would you carry?

I'd carry this much: 7.6 ounces, or .475 pounds, or 216 grams. That's the weight of this pocket edition of the SAS Survival Guide How to Survive in the Wild, in any Climate, on Land, or at Sea. It covers everything from food, water and shelter to outdoors medicine, knots, reading the weather and predicting disasters.

This is not something I'd carry on an Appalachian Trail thru-hike. Help is simply too near and anyway is liable to come right up to you in the form of another thru-hiker or a section hiker, day hiker, photographer, bird watcher, trail runner or someone illegally using the AT for hunting or ATV, horse or motorcycle riding. On a thru-hike my survival kit would contain things to call for help with, such as a whistle and a signal mirror, as well as a first aid kit.

But if I were going on the type of trip that requires an expedition weight pack into backcountry where I could be too far from civilization, I'd put one of these in the pack.

I would also drop one in a bug out bag, a car emergency kit, and, since I live in Florida, a hurricane/emergency kit.

The reason I would carry it is because I don't know all of it yet, don't want to devote a lot of time to memorizing it, and in the midst of a stressful emergency situation I'm not sure I'd want to depend on my memory, anyway.

The SAS is the British Army's premiere special forces unit, the Special Air Service. These people are trained to operate anywhere and be prepared to survive no mater what. Lofty Wiseman served 26 years with the SAS and was a survival instructor.

The book is well organized and contains many explanatory pictures, some in color where it's important, such as in plant identification. Especially critical, the writing is tight, crisp and clear. You don't want to have to wade through a lot of word sludge in a survival situation and with this little book you won't have to.

SAS Survival Guide, by John "Lofty" Wiseman, John Wiseman 1986, 1993, 2004, HarperCollins Publishers, 10 E. 53rd St., New York, NY 10022. US ISBN 10-0-06-084982-7. Paperback. $7.95. 

1. Is this an enjoyable book about how to backpack the Appalachian Trail and have a great time? No.

2. Is this an enjoyable book about two schmucks stumbling around the woods until they give up? Yes.

There.

A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson, © 1998 Bill Bryson, Broadway Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, NY 10036. US ISBN 0-7679-0252-3 Paperback $14.95
 

This guy has a passion for exclamation marks. You know, these things: !!!!!!

They get in the way of his book, which is essentially a bound version of his trail journal entries from his 2000 thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail. His liberal use of this punctuation mark makes it seem you are reading an overly excitable teenager or some PR flack who thinks screaming in print will sell for his clients. 

Exclamation points are really to show something like great shock or anger. You know like "'No!' he shouted." But a lot of people use them for emphasis and sometimes this gets out of hand.

But the author's use of exclamation marks is only one block to reading this thing with ease. Another is his fondness for certain phrases that he then repeats and repeats. Two of them stand out for me and they are somewhat similar, which just heightens the effect.

Page 90. "'I think I'm in thru-hiker heaven.'"

Page. 116. "I was in hiker heaven."

Page 240. "...but for a hiker, having food, water, and a roof over one's head was like heaven."

Page 286. "Heaven, simply heaven! I had found a thru-hiker's paradise in the middle of the Hundred Mile Wilderness."

And

Page 47. "...'What more could two tired-ass hikers ask for?'"

Page 123. "With a roof over our head and a full belly, what more could a thru-hiker ask for?"

Page 254. "And what more could a hiker ask for?"

Relief, that's what.

Nevertheless, I've read this book three times. Maybe it's because I have a hiking deficiency and reading about it is better than nothing. But I think it is also for two other reasons.

Schuette, a retired school principal who was 51 when he started his thru-hike, is unrelentingly positive and upbeat. His writing style may be a bit pollyannaish, but he seems to actually put into action one important requirement for a successful thru - a sense of humor. And unlike some writers, like me, he doesn't spend a lot of time making fun of others.

The second reason is because the book is full of what he calls "Hiker Tips." These are almost as liberally spread through the book as his beloved exclamation marks and are far more useful. These are tips written from someone in the field and include mini-reviews of gear, shelters, hostels and trail towns, mistakes he made and others might avoid, like sending home cold weather gear too soon, and what he would do differently, like get a waterproof bag for his tent.

If you love the Appalachian Trail like I do, and you can get past the exclamation points and repetition business, this book is worth a read. Or three.

White Blaze Fever, by William Schuette, © 2003 William Schuette, Virtualbookworm.com Publishing, PO Box 9949 College Station, TX 77842, US ISBN 1-58939-429-1 Paperback $14.95.