Backpacking Literature

[berkforbes]

Maybe this is already an open thread, im too lazy to find it.. I am packing for our Grand Canyon trip this weekend and am trying to figure a good book to bring, figured you all might have a few (hundred) preferences for a lightweight good read..

[azbackpackr]

Quite a few times on a Canyon backpack I have taken a paperback copy of Colin Fletcher's The Man Who Walked Through Time with me on a Canyon hike. I have read this book at least 10 times since I was young. Some like this book, some don't. Old Colin is quite a character. He tries to teach geology while hiking the Canyon, and ruminates on numerous other things as well. He looks for a kind of epiphanic experience whereby he can sort of picture the millenia of the Earth as he is hiking. Not sure he achieves it, but it is kind of fun to read, anyway. It has definitely become a classic of Canyon literature. Sometimes I am just scrounging in my bookcase for a smallish paperback to bring, and I grab that one. It is fun to be out there and realize you are camping in the exact same spot where Colin camped in 1961. He hiked from one end of the Canyon to the other without topping over the Rim. He placed food caches and arranged for airdrops. The whole thing took a couple of months. It was helped greatly by the fact that the water in the river was very low because they had just started filling up Lake Powell. So there were places he could walk along the river, or safely take an air mattress, which are not available today.

One thing I can't do is read poetry, the Bible or anything else deeply spiritual and inspiring while I am backpacking. I think this is because so many times I have been "told" that that is the only kind of book to bring, or you will just miss out on something or other that is very important (to the people who preach that stuff). Most of the time, I take along a murder mystery!

[PLC92084]

Is it too soon for a cook book? :bdh:

[azbackpackr]

[BobP]

Just bring a couple of your Dad's magazines ;)

[berkforbes]

Just bring a couple of your Dad's magazines

i just tossed a bunch of old playboys and maxims.. shoulda told me sooner ;)

[BobP]

In response to berkforbes:
NEways....you'll be hiking, contemplating "hiking",eating,or sleeping..no time for reading. Yet...I'm thinkin of bringing...The Little Engine that Could and re-reading....yes I can...yes I can....yes I can

[oceanwithin]

On the Road by Kerouac is a good one for backpacking! If you enjoy that style of writing, that is...

[dysfunction]

In response to oceanwithin:
So is Dharma Bums

[azbackpackr]

Yeah! I haven't read those in years.

On the other hand, I know too much about those guys in On the Road because people I knew, knew them. Kerouac lived with his mother, and Neal Cassady (Dean Moriarty) was a brain-burnt speed freak who got run over by a train. For real. He was always down and out and sleeping on the porch of my friend's cabin in the Santa Cruz Mtns. My friend said they would drive to New York and literally not stop except to get gas.

[dysfunction]

yea, but at least Neal ended up being a muse of muses...

[sirena]

Desert Solitaire Small, loaded with goodness, and one of my favorite Ed Abbey books.

[azbackpackr]

I have an autographed copy of Desert Solitaire! It is all beat up and battered, though. The woman who owned the now-defunct used bookstore in Springerville saved it for me. On the other hand, how do I tell if it is a real Ed Abbey autograph?

[pencak]

The People's Guide to Mexico by Carl Franz
Loads of useful information presented hilariously.

[JimmyLyding]

http://www.jackmauldin.com/goat_recipes.htm
I vote for the Gourmet Cabrito. Hmmm hmmmm hmmmm. Make sure you choose a recipe from the "Whole Goat" section. Don't mess around.

If you're looking for a book then how about "Lady Chatterly's Lover?" Hardcover.
"Frog Mountain Blues" by Charles Bowden and "The Grizzly in the Southwest" by David E. Brown are also books I'd recommend.

[azbackpackr]

I love that book, Frog Mountain Blues. The Griz one I keep meaning to go get from library ILL. Lady Chatterley's lover is for young people! ;)