Trail Life: Ray Jardine’s Lightweight Backpacking, by Ray Jardine ★★★★★
Ray Jardine is the new godfather of backpacking, and has completely redefined the sport. Perhaps I might remind folk of Harvey Manning’s and Colin Fletcher’s texts…
Both of these texts defined backpacking when I was a kid. And, both of them were the bibles of how to do it. I remember reading Manning’s text backwards and forwards, and following every step of instructions that he gave. His advice is still apropos to the weekend 5-10 mile hiker. For anybody other than that, Manning and Fletcher are now hopelessly obsolete. Ray Jardine, starting with a text that I have already reviewed recently, published in 1992, irreversibly redefined the art of backpacking. Jardine’s text is most relevant to the long-distance backpacker, but his advice is still relevant to weekend excursions. Ray has thrown out the heavy hiking boots, the heavy packs, the massive requisite arsenal required for survival in the woods in favor of a lean-mean but still relaxed strategy. There is no backpacking text today that will fail to mention Ray Jardine, or the “Ray-way”.
This book covers all aspects of backpacking, including equipment, clothing, food, hygiene, planning, obstacles, safety, etc., etc. It is relatively comprehensive. Besides his continual plea to go light, distinctives of Jardine include a number of defining issues. He has an extreme objection to brand names, and will even purposely remove labels from clothing, sand off labels from equipment, etc. He has a sterility fetish, being even unwilling to use silverware in a restaurant, and brings his own spoon to eat. His dietary advice is unique, usually quite good, but also a touch weird. I guess I’ll try corn spaghetti, but will never plan on eating it almost every night on the trail. There are too many other good foods out there, without having to resort to freeze-dried foods. Ray and his partner sew all their own clothing, as well as backpacks and other hiking equipment. I don’t plan on doing that. I would hope that commercial enterprises can provide us non-sewers with similar items.
Other than that, Jardine is a must-read for the new style backpacker, and this text is beautifully organized and illustrated. Thus, a very high recommendation.
