Posts Tagged ‘book’

Have you ever had that one book that you’ve always wanted to get, but never found the chance to get it?  Well thanks to my brother and his wonderful gift card, I finally bought that book.  That book is the Appalachian Trail Food Planner.

For most hikers that have experienced the joy of the AT, they realize that it takes careful planning to resupply their larder of goods and equipment.  You can not rely on finding a store or a ride to said store anymore.  So a wonderful alternative is a process called Mail Drops.  The concept is that you will send yourself a package in advance of your arrival at a predefined post office and then hike to that office, picking up your package.  It takes a bit of future prediction, but if you design it right it will make your time hiking and your food stores much easier to plan and resupply. 

The Appalachian Trail Food Planner is the book that helps you accomplish that planning.  The book begins with a quick lesson on how much food to take with you, explaining how much (per pound) food you should take, and how many calories you should ingest each day.  This is a valuable part of your planning, as taking something weight-intensive (i.e. canned goods) will cause your pack to be too heavy and leave with you with lots of large trash to hike out.

The next section is perhaps my favorite; recipes.   I will admit, as I am a pseudo-ultralight backpacker, these recipes are rather large, and use a vast amount of water.  I guess these recipes would be good if you’re just planning a trip that will last a week or under, but I would think that perhaps you should read these and rethink the water and amount ratios, otherwise you will be carrying quite a bit of water to do your cooking. I’ve tried several recipes already and they came out rather well, with a little doctoring. 

The last section of this book contains mileage charts on each leg of the AT.  The best part of that is it also contains the distances between trail legs and the closest post office.  How could you make that chart even better?  They’ve included 3 columns, based on how much you hike a day, and the days until your next leg, and post drop pickup.  Wonderful!

If you are thinking of hiking the AT, or any leg of it, I would seriously recommend that you read this book before hitting the trail.  It will educate you on what to expect, and give you a better bearing on how to plan.

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If you had $5.00, what would you do with it?  Let me think of some fun things that I would do.   I could eat a fine cheeseburger, see 3/4 of a movie, or even change it all into pennies and toss them at cars going down the road.  All of these would be just dandy.  Let me tell you something that you should NOT do with $5.00, and that would be to purchase this book.

To be fair, I will tell you that I give all hiking and backpacking books a fair chance.  All are equal in my eyes, that is, until I am done reading them.  Until this book, I had never found myself disagreeing aloud with something that wasn’t consisted of at least 99% meat.

I started my path to dissension and righteousness around tip #13.  That section describes clothing.  I remember an old hiking phrase that states “Cotton kills”.  Words to live by in my opinion.  This book however thinks that your base layer should be a nice tight cotton shirt.  I don’t expect everyone to agree with me, but I think that’s a horrible idea to give to beginning hikers.

The book does contain a few helpful sections; how to pack your backpack efficiently, and… well I can’t seem to find any others.

The book also contains a few sections that I found myself giggling like a teenage girl who has had too much sugar.  These sections are as follows:

• Reading Maps:  Yes, it actually tells you that the “blue” spots on the map is water.
• Difficult Terrain:  With beautiful images showing you how to “go around a hill” instead of hiking UP it.
• Dangerous Animals:  Literally it just says “Don’t go near them, they’re bad.”

Luckily, it is a very small book, and short bus short in height.  It reads fast, and made me giggle nearly to the point of urination.  It is almost as if you had just watched a very fascinating NOVA special about frogs, and then someone told you to write a book on frogs with your newly acquired complete knowledge of them.  Besides saying “they’re green, and sexy” you would have a difficult time.

This book reads in that similar fashion.  I would strongly recommend reading this book, just not purchasing it.  It’s very easy to read, and does have a few scattered good points that I agree with.  It is the type of book that needs to be read while sitting in the comfort of the bookstore enjoying a hot spiced pseudo soy-based coffee-like beverage, not sitting on your own couch with a receipt next to you.

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Recently I received a small PDF handbook from the Backpacker magazine called “The Ultralight Handbook”. It’s a very good little book. I would say it’s one of the very few books that are 90% information and 10% fluff. The book reads quickly, with only 20 pages or so, but the tips and hints it gives are worth their weight in digital gold.

One interesting snippet was a breakdown on alcohol stoves. I have a friend who makes his own out of 2 aluminum pop cans and standard rubbing alcohol. I suppose everyone has their own views… and I would rather keep my Pocket Rocket and boil water in 1 minute, than simmer water in 8.

Another interesting snippet I will pass along is Fozzil bowls. The concepts behind these are neat as hell. I can not exactly wrap my brain around how they don’t leak, but every review I’ve read has been positive. Hikers use them for bowls, plates, cups, and sitting pads to keep your butt dry. The problem that I found with these, is trying to find a place to buy the darn things! I searched the internet for hours upon hours trying to find a “set” without having to buy them each individually. Every vendor that I found that sold sets, wanted anywhere from $8 to $12 in shipping! I paid less to ship my sleeping mat, and it weighed more! So I was just have to give these a virtual thumbs up, as unless I come across them in a store, I’m not going to pay that much to ship them to me.

The last interesting factoid that I will post has to do with a website called Freezer Bag Cooking. This concept of this is that you will have assembled your meal before hand in a freezer bag. Once mealtime on the trail, you would bring the required amount of water to a near boil, then dump it right into the bag! From there, put it in a cozy (which she sells as well, and are BEAUTIFUL) to let it set and soak up water. After it’s ready (roughly 10 minutes) grab a spork or foon, roll down the bag, and eat away! I’ll explain more in another post later on, and you can check out her website with the above link, or from my “Links” section on the right.

So all in all the Ultralight Handbook was worth getting, if even just for information on those few things. If anyone has any questions about this book, I “may be able to help you find a copy” by emailing me at freak_critique@hotmail.com .

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