Books for Hikers and Backpackers (2024 Version)

The fifth iteration of the “Mountain climbing Books Information” has been up to date and expanded to incorporate greater than 90 works divided into eight classes: 1. Instructional; 2. Guidebooks; 3. Humour; 4. Inspirational; 5. Literature; 6. Memoirs; 7. Philosophy, and; 8. Ultralight.

All the books have a spot on my conventional, cyber, or audio bookshelves, and the featured authors embody a number of the most skilled and educated hikers and/or outdoorsy people on the planet.

Outdoorsy bookshelf at Casa Honan.

1.   Instructional

• Auerbach, Paul. Medication for the Outdoor (seventh version, 2023): I first picked up a replica of this e-book within the late ’90s. Wonderful reference textual content. Based on Richard Carmona, seventeenth Surgeon Common of the USA, Auerbach’s e-book is the “most complete and authoritative work within the subject.”

• Burns, Bob. Wilderness Navigation (third Version, 2015): Clearly written, helpful for newbies in addition to veterans in search of a refresher. Contains useful sensible workouts in the back of the e-book. Written by the co-author of the ‘Navigation’ chapter of the basic, “Mountaineering: Freedom of the Hills.” (see beneath).

• Curtis, Rick. The Backpacker’s Discipline Handbook (2005 version): Arguably nonetheless probably the most complete “learn how to” backpacking information available on the market. A wonderful reference e-book that deserves a spot on each hiker’s bookshelf.

• Gonzales, Laurence. Deep Survival (2003): After listening to about this e-book for a decade, I lastly bought round to studying “Deep Survival” through the pandemic. I discovered it to be a extremely readable mixture of survival tales, sensible recommendation, and the psychology of how individuals cope with excessive adversity. On the not-so-great aspect, it felt a bit of disorganized and repetitive at occasions.

• Gooley, Tristan. The Misplaced Artwork of Studying Nature’s Indicators (2015). An informative and entertaining information to channeling your interior Sherlock Holmes out within the wilderness. Gooley particulars learn how to use Mom Nature’s indicators to find out every thing from the path of journey to climate patterns to animal behavioral patterns.
  

  “Randomness isn’t an ideal survival technique, so it’s uncommon in nature.” – Tristan Gooley

• Hansen, Derek. The Final Grasp (2024): Extremely regarded illustrated information to hammock tenting. Really useful by serial thru-hiker and long-time hammock devotee Brian “Beardoh” Ristola, who wrote Hammocks for Via-Mountain climbing for ‘The Mountain climbing Life’ web site in February 2018.

• Lichter, Justin. Path Examined (2020; 2nd Version). Light-weight backpacking strategies and equipment recommendation from a man who has walked the stroll for over 40,000 miles, together with winter thru-hikes of the Appalachian Path and Pacific Crest Trails and pioneering routes within the Himalaya, New Zealand’s South Island, and Mexico’s Copper Canyon Area (with yours really).

• Magnanti, Paul. Survive Your First Journey into the Wild: Backpacking for Rookies (2019). Stuffed with sensible, to-the-point recommendation,  Survive Your First Journey into the Wild is right for these seeking to make the transition from day hikes to in a single day backpacking excursions. Magnanti’s many years of subject expertise, mixed with an usually humorous writing fashion, make this e-book not solely an ideal useful resource for newbies but in addition brings residence the truth that so long as you’re nicely ready, heading out into the woods is an expertise to be loved, quite than merely endured.

• Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills (tenth version, 2024): This basic mountaineering textual content (first revealed in 1960) additionally has a lot of info related to hikers and backpackers (e.g., snow expertise, wilderness first assist, knots, and navigation).

• Skurka, Andrew. The Final Hiker’s Gear Information (2017; 2nd Version). A radical overview of light-weight backpacking gear and strategies from one of many sport’s main authorities.

• Tazz, Iron. Hike It: An Introduction to Tenting, Mountain climbing, and Backpacking within the USA (2024). Written by fellow PCT 2012 alumni Iron Tazz and illustrated by Martin Stanev, Hike It is an excellent introductory information to the world of climbing and backpacking aimed toward younger adventurers aged 7 and up. The e-book showcases a few of America’s most gorgeous landscapes whereas additionally concerning vital topics similar to navigation, LNT, wildlife encounters, climbing your personal hike, and learn how to poop within the woods.

“Hike It” by Iron Tazz.

• Thomas, Liz, Mastering the Artwork of the Via Hike (2017). Over the previous decade, Liz “Snorkel” Thomas has hiked many long-distance trails round North America, together with the Triple Crown (i.e., PCT, CDT, and AT). That nicely of ambulatory expertise mixed with spectacular consideration to element has resulted in a e-book filled with sensible, hard-won recommendation, which took out the Nationwide Out of doors Ebook Award in 2017 (Tutorial Class).

• Townsend, Chris. The Backpackers Handbook (4th Version; 2011). A wonderful backpacking useful resource written in a private, down-to-earth fashion by a person who positively is aware of his stuff. Over the many years Townsend has revealed greater than 20 hiking-related books, and since 1991 has been the Gear Editor for The Nice Outdoor (TGO) journal.

• Wall Kimmerer, Robin. Braiding Sweetgrass (2015). An insightful and provoking e-book advisable to me by serial long-distance hiker, Kate “Swept Away” Pickett. Weaving collectively botany, spirituality, and Indigenous knowledge, Braiding Sweetgrass examines and celebrates our innate connection to the pure world whereas nudging the reader to acknowledge and act upon the teachings which can be usually ‘hiding in plain sight.’

“Within the Western custom there’s a acknowledged hierarchy of beings, with, after all, the human being on prime—the top of evolution, the darling of Creation—and the vegetation on the backside. However in Native methods of realizing, human persons are also known as “the youthful brothers of Creation.” We are saying that people have the least expertise with learn how to dwell and thus probably the most to be taught—we should look to our academics among the many different species for steerage. Their knowledge is obvious in the best way that they dwell. They train us by instance. They’ve been on the earth far longer than we have now been, and have had time to determine issues out.”

• Waterman, Man & Laura. Wilderness Ethics: Preserving the Spirit of Wildness (1993). This e-book was advisable to me by Paul “Mags” Magnanti (see above). I discovered it to be a well-written, balanced, and fascinating examination of the moral questions round how we use wilderness. Its themes are extra related at present than ever earlier than.

“However probably the most astonishing factor about timber is how social they’re. The timber in a forest look after one another, typically even going as far as to nourish the stump of a felled tree for hundreds of years after it was lower down by feeding it sugars and different vitamins, and so retaining it alive……..A tree’s most vital technique of staying linked to different timber is a “wooden large internet” of soil fungi that connects vegetation in an intimate community that enables the sharing of an unlimited quantity of knowledge and items. Scientific analysis aimed toward understanding the astonishing skills of this partnership between fungi and plant has solely simply begun. The explanation timber share meals and talk is that they want one another. It takes a forest to create a microclimate appropriate for tree development and sustenance. So it’s not shocking that remoted timber have far shorter lives than these dwelling linked collectively in forests.”

2.   Guidebooks

• Cicerone Press Guidebooks: For greater than 5 many years, Cicerone Press has been producing extremely regarded guidebooks for climbing, trekking, climbing, and biking. Historically, their focus has been on the UK (the place they’re based mostly) and Europe; nevertheless, in current occasions, they’ve been more and more that includes different areas all over the world, such because the Himalayas, Andes, and Atlas mountains.

4 of my Cicerone Guides from the 90s and 2000s.

A screenshot of the Cicerone Kindle guides I utilized in 2018/19 for journeys to the Scottish Highlands and the Alps.

• Falcon Guides: One of many largest publishers of out of doors guidebooks in the US. Their in depth climbing catalogue consists of Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, and Arizona.

• Lonely Planet Mountain climbing Guides: Amongst its a whole bunch of titles, the famed journey e-book writer has additionally put out scores of helpful climbing/trekking/strolling guides. Areas lined embody the Nepal Himalaya, New Zealand, and Patagonia (Observe: Most of the LP climbing guides are at present out of print, however with a little bit of looking out, you’ll be able to usually discover used copies and/or eBook variations).

• Trailblazer Guidebooks: Together with Cicerone Press, the principal climbing guidebook firm for the UK and Europe over the previous couple of many years. As with their counterpart, they’ve additionally expanded their geographic horizons lately and now function books for South America, Asia, and different locations across the globe.

3.   Humour

• Bryson, Invoice. A Stroll within the Woods. The famed journey author’s account of his time on America’s most iconic long-distance pathway. Some thru-hikers complain about what this e-book isn’t (i.e., the story of somebody who hiked the entire Appalachian Path) quite than specializing in what it’s – a witty and sometimes insightful account of an AT part hike by an excellent author.

“I do know a person who drives 600 yards to work. I do know a lady who will get in her automobile to go 1 / 4 of a mile to a school gymnasium to stroll on a treadmill, then complains passionately in regards to the problem of discovering a parking area. After I requested her as soon as why she didn’t stroll to the gymnasium and do 5 minutes much less on the treadmill, she checked out me as if I have been being willfully provocative. ‘As a result of I’ve a program for the treadmill,’ she defined. ‘It data my distance and pace, and I can regulate it for diploma of problem.’ It hadn’t occurred to me how thoughtlessly poor nature is on this regard.”

• Burns, John D. The Final Hillwalker (2017). A love letter to the hills. I picked up this completely pleasurable account of 4 many years’ value of adventures within the British mountains (and past) throughout my 2018 journey to the Scottish Highlands. On the identical journey, I additionally learn Burns’ wonderful Bothy Tales – an ode to the characterful mountain huts that dot the Scottish Highlands.

• Grinter, Lawton. I Hike (2012) and I Hike Once more (2019). Collections of brief tales derived from greater than 15,000 miles of climbing on a few of America’s most interesting trails. Humorous, poignant, thought-provoking, and entertaining, studying Grinter’s books makes you are feeling like you’re sitting round a campfire, swapping yarns with a bunch of long-distance hikers over a beer or three.

• McFarland, Boots. On the Path with Boots McFarland (2019): Lengthy-distance hikers are a quirky bunch. And barely have these eccentricities been higher captured than in Boots McFarland’s fantastic cartoons. Whether or not it’s our questionable consuming habits, debatable hygiene practices, or just the loopy notion that individuals would wish to stroll 1000’s of miles only for the enjoyable of it, Boots’ illustrations are a chafe-and-all celebration of what makes hikers tick.

• Newby, Eric. A Brief Stroll within the Hindu Kush (1958). The (mis)adventures of a trend govt and his mate who works for the British Overseas Service, who journey from London to Afghanistan with the purpose of scaling a hitherto unclimbed peak (Mir Samir) within the Hindu Kush. One of the entertaining books about climbing and trekking I’ve learn.

“I used to be closely concerned on all fronts: with mountaineering outfitters, who oddly sufficient by no means fathomed the depths of my ignorance; presumably as a result of they couldn’t conceive of anybody buying such a group of kit with out realizing learn how to use it.”

• Twain, Mark. Roughing It (1872). Private recollections and tall tales from the writer’s wanderings round America’s Wild West. My favorite of Twain’s journey narratives, simply nudging out The Innocents Overseas. It’s not precisely a wilderness e-book, however what the hey, I like Mark Twain, I like the American West, and his tales by no means fail to convey a giant smile to my face.

4.   Inspirational 

• Berger, Karen. America’s Nice Mountain climbing Trails (2014): A fantastic espresso desk e-book that includes America’s 11 Nationwide Scenic Trails. Certainly one of Berger’s earlier works, “Mountain climbing America’s Triple Crown” (2001), launched me to the thought of tackling the massive three of American long-distance climbing (i.e., the Appalachian, Pacific Crest, and Continental Divide Trails), which I finally did in 2012.

• Honan, Cam. Wanderlust: Mountain climbing on Legendary Trails (2017), The Hidden Tracks: Wanderlust off the Crushed Path (2018), Wanderlust USA (2019), Wanderlust Himalaya (2022), Wanderlust Nordics (2023), and Wanderlust Mediterranean (2024). Odes to the sweetness and surprise of experiencing the pure world on foot. Every work within the Wanderlust sequence options roughly 30 of the best trails and routes from across the globe, together with Tibet’s Mount Kailash Circuit, California’s Lowest to Highest Route, Peru’s Cordillera Huayhuash Circuit, and the legendary Haute Route between Chamonix and Zermatt. The books comprise background historical past, path descriptions, overview maps, and, most notably, scores of spectacular wilderness pictures.

The six Wanderlust books I’ve written since 2016/17.

• Krakauer, Jon. Into the Wild (1996): The cautionary, enthralling, and tragic story of Chris McCandless, an idealistic younger man who walked alone into the Alaskan wilderness. I learn this e-book throughout my very own three-month journey in Alaska and the Yukon in 1998. From the time of its publication, the e-book polarized readers, with McCandless being painted as every thing from a tragic hero to a reckless narcissist. Finally, his story stands as a grim reminder of what can happen within the wilderness when desires and idealism aren’t balanced by objectivity and the data and expertise vital to soundly negotiate your chosen surroundings.

• McDougall, Christopher. Born to Run (2009). Informative and inspirational, this e-book options the unbelievable Tarahumaras (Raramuri) of Mexico’s Copper Canyon. The realm and its individuals maintain a particular place in my climbing coronary heart. Between 1995 and 2013, I undertook 5 prolonged journeys there, the final of which was a 381 mi (613 km) traverse that linked collectively the six main canyons that represent the Copper Canyon Area (along with Justin Lichter).

Justin “Trauma” Lichter on the base of Basaseachic Falls (246 m/807 ft excessive), the place to begin of the Copper Canyon Traverse (2013).

• Macfarlane, Robert. The Outdated Methods: A Journey on Foot (2012):  In “The Outdated Methods,” Macfarlane traces the traditional pathways of Britain and past and explores the connection between individuals, time, and landscapes. As with the writing of Nan Shepherd (see beneath), you get the sensation that the writer walks into landscapes quite than up and over them. I learn this extraordinary e-book throughout my Alps journey in 2019, and as quickly as I had completed, I ordered Macfarlane’s first two works – “Mountains of the Thoughts” and “The Wild Locations” (that are additionally wonderful).

The one and solely Grandma Gatewood.

• Shepherd, Nan. The Dwelling Mountain (1977): Nan Shepherd was a Scottish poet and nationalist who’s commemorated on the nation’s five-pound be aware. “The Dwelling Mountain” is Shepherd’s superbly written testomony to the fun and wonders of strolling in nature, particularly in her beloved Cairngorm mountains:

“I consider that I now perceive in some small measure why the Buddhist goes on pilgrimage to a mountain. The journey is itself a part of the approach by which the god is sought. It’s a journey into Being; for as I penetrate extra into the mountain’s life, I penetrate additionally into my very own. For an hour I’m past want. It isn’t ecstasy, that leap out of the self that makes man like a god. I’m not out of myself, however in myself. I’m. To know Being, that is the ultimate grace accorded from the mountain.”

Yours really climbing within the Cairngorms in September 2018.

5.   Literature

• Abbey, Edward. The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975). A cult basic. Set within the desert wilderness of America’s southwest, The Monkey Wrench Gang follows the radicalized adventures of 4 environmentally-conscious misfits within the face of commercial growth.

• Snyder, Gary. Turtle Island (1974) & The Apply of the Wild (1990): Thought-provoking poems and essays. I didn’t get into Snyder till my early 30s, once I randomly got here throughout a replica of ‘Turtle Island’ in a used bookstore in Queensland, Australia. I’ve been a giant fan of his writing ever since:

“Strolling is the good journey, the primary meditation, a observe of heartiness and soul major to humankind. Strolling is the precise stability between spirit and humility.” (The Apply of the Wild).

• Tolkien, JRR, The Lord of the Rings (1954). The story of a various bunch of men who went out for a multi-month stroll had a lot of memorable adventures, met some cool path angels, took some zero-days, had some variations of opinion concerning route choice, misplaced one among their members as a consequence of chest pains, cut up into separate teams, stood by one another when occasions have been powerful, completed their journeys at totally different termini, and, lastly, all met up for celebratory beers on the Discipline of Cormallen at journey’s finish.

“I wish to see mountains once more, Gandalf, mountains, after which discover someplace the place I can relaxation. In peace and quiet, with out a variety of family members prying round and a string of confounded guests hanging on the bell.” (Bilbo Baggins, “The Fellowship of the Ring”)

The Fellowship of the Ring.

• Wallis, Velma. Two Outdated Ladies (1993). An Inuit legend of braveness and survival. I first learn this e-book whereas spending a summer season up in Alaska in 1998. Not about climbing and backpacking per se however as a substitute about how spending time within the wilderness can remind us that when given no different alternative, many people are able to greater than we consciously understand.

6.   Memoirs

• Abbey, Edward, Desert Solitaire (1968): Passionate, thought-provoking vignettes about life within the wilderness of America’s Southwest:

“Wilderness isn’t a luxurious however a necessity of the human spirit, and as important to our lives as water and good bread. A civilization which destroys what little stays of the wild, the spare, the unique, is chopping itself off from its origins and betraying the precept of civilization itself.”

• Fletcher, Colin. The Thousand-Mile Summer time (1964) and  The Man Who Walked By means of Time (1968): Over the previous couple of many years, there was an ever-increasing quantity of books about long-distance backpacking. None that I’ve learn are as compelling, thought-provoking, and inspirational because the works of Colin Fletcher. His e-book, River, a couple of multi-month rafting journey down the Colorado River, is equally excellent. If I needed to decide simply one among Fletcher’s works, it could in all probability be “The Man Who Walked By means of Time,” which chronicles his pioneering journey via the Grand Canyon. I learn this unbelievable e-book throughout my Pyrenean Haute Route thru-hike in 1999:

“There’s a highly effective human compulsion to depart issues tied up in neat little bundles. However each journey besides your final has an open finish. And any journey of worth is above all a chapter in a private odyssey. Its finish isn’t a lot a purpose attained as one other level in a unbroken course of. And the vital factor on the finish of a journey – or of a e-book – is to maintain shifting ahead, refreshed, with as little pause as potential.”

Mike “The Gambler” Towne on the Nankoweap Granaries through the Hayduke Path (March 2012). Fletcher slept in these cliff-hugging granaries throughout his 1963 journey via the Grand Canyon.

• Kerouac, Jack. The Dharma Bums (1958). Presumably my favorite Kerouac novel. I first learn it within the late Nineteen Nineties, not coincidentally throughout the identical interval I found the writing of Gary Synder, who was the inspiration for one of many e-book’s major characters, Japhy Ryder.

“I felt like mendacity down by the aspect of the path and remembering all of it. The woods do this to you, they all the time look acquainted, lengthy misplaced, just like the face of a long-dead relative, like an outdated dream, like a bit of forgotten tune drifting throughout the water, most of all like golden eternities of previous childhood or previous manhood and all of the dwelling and the dying and the heartbreak that went on 1,000,000 years in the past and the clouds as they move overhead appear to testify (by their very own lonesome familiarity) to this sense.”

• Matthiessen, Peter. The Snow Leopard. (1978). I picked up a battered paperback model of this basic e-book whereas trekking in Ladakh in 2008. Recounting the writer’s seek for the elusive Himalayan ‘ghost cat’ all through Nepal’s Dolpo area, “The Snow Leopard” is in the end a ‘journey of the center’, that vividly captures the abiding high quality of the Himalayan vary and its individuals:
  
  “I develop into these mountains like a moss. I’m bewitched. The blinding snow peaks and the clarion air, the sound of earth and heaven within the silence, the requiem birds, the mythic beasts, the flags, nice horns, and outdated carved stones……….Additionally, I like the widespread miracles – the murmur of my mates at night, the clay fires of smudgy juniper, the coarse uninteresting meals, the hardship and ease, the contentment of doing one factor at a time.”

• Muir, John. My First Summer time within the Sierra (1911) and The Yosemite (1912). The daddy of the conservation motion. I first learn Muir’s works as a youngster rising up in Australia. Greater than thirty-five years later, he stays one among my favorite wilderness writers.

“After ten years of wandering and questioning within the coronary heart of it, rejoicing in its superb floods of sunshine, the white beams of the morning streaming via the passes, the noonday radiance on the crystal rocks, the flush of the alpenglow, and the irised spray of numerous waterfalls, it nonetheless appears above all others the Vary of Gentle.” (The Yosemite)

John Muir in his beloved Excessive Sierra.

7.   Philosophical

• Graham, Stephen. The Light Artwork of Tramping (1927): An exquisite e-book for wandering spirits and out of doors lovers. Written nearly a century in the past, it comprises some memorable nuggets of knowledge, similar to:

“The much less you carry the extra you will notice, the much less you spend the extra you’ll expertise.”

• Fletcher, Colin. The CompleteWalker 3 (1984). I’ve re-read CW3 a few occasions through the years. While the gear sections are understandably dated, Fletcher’s dry sense of humour and his ardour for the pure world stays as recent and poignant as ever.

“When you choose security to be the paramount consideration in life it’s best to by no means, below any circumstances, go on lengthy hikes alone. Don’t take brief hikes alone, both – or, for that matter, go wherever alone. And keep away from in any respect prices such foolhardy actions as driving, falling in love, or inhaling air that’s nearly definitely riddled with lethal germs………And by no means, after all, discover the center of an concept that appears as if it would threaten one among your extra cherished beliefs. In your knowledge, you’ll in all probability dwell to be a ripe outdated age. However chances are you’ll uncover, simply earlier than you die, that you’ve got been useless for an extended, very long time.” (The Full Walker 3).

For followers of Fletcher’s work, I like to recommend choosing up a replica of “Strolling Man,” a wonderful biography by Robert Wehrman.

• Gros, Frederic, The Philosophy of Strolling (2014).  An insightful have a look at how the straightforward act of placing one foot in entrance of the opposite can have an effect on our mind-set and high quality of life. Gros examines the important position that strolling performed within the work of philosophers and writers similar to Thoreau, Kant, Rimbaud, Rosseau, and Nietzsche:

• Kephart, Horace. Tenting & Woodcraft (1906): Though gear might have modified, the philosophy & expertise described on this wilderness basic are nonetheless related:

“To equip a pedestrian with shelter, bedding, utensils, meals, and different requirements, in a pack so mild and small that he can carry it with out overstrain, is mostly a positive artwork.”  

Horace Kephart – one of many OG’s of light-weight backpacking.

• Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac (1949). One of many foundational works of the trendy environmental motion. I extremely suggest Leopold’s basic e-book to anybody within the nature of human relationships with the surroundings (and I hope that encompasses most people who observe this web site). It’s a comparatively brief learn, and though it was first revealed some 75 years in the past, the themes it examines stay extra related at present than ever earlier than.

• Thoreau, Henry David. Walden (1854) and Strolling (1861): Thoreau makes probably the most eloquent of instances for the bodily, psychological, and non secular advantages of spending time within the wilderness. I particularly take pleasure in studying Thoreau once I’m backpacking quite than once I’m indoors. The simplicity and directness of his phrases appear to resonate that little bit extra.

8.   Ultralight Backpacking

• Clelland, Mike. Ultralight Backpackin’ Suggestions (2011) 153 tips about going lighter, courtesy of the identical man who did the wonderful illustrations for Don Ladigan’s e-book (see beneath). Sensible info blended in with liberal doses of quirkiness and humour. Makes ultralight backpacking sound enjoyable and pleasurable. Double thumbs up.

• Jardine, Ray. Past Backpacking (2001) and Path Life (2009). Mainly the identical e-book with a distinct title. Jardine was the person who popularised the present motion in direction of going lighter within the early ’90s. While a few of his concepts is probably not for everybody, there isn’t any denying that his progressive strategy is based upon in depth private expertise in a variety of environments.

The predecessor of Past Backpacking and Path Life was Jardines: The Pacific Crest Path Hiker’s Handbook, which got here out in 1991.

• Lichter, Justin & Forry, Shawn. Ultralight Winter Journey. In 2014/15, Lichter and Forry accomplished the first-ever winter traverse of the Pacific Crest Path. The abilities and strategies they used to perform this wonderful feat are encapsulated in Ultralight Winter Journey, an informative information that addresses worse-case eventualities, climate patterns, subject repairs, and, after all, learn how to enterprise safely into sub-freezing situations with out carrying the proverbial kitchen sink in your again.

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