Books for Hikers and Backpackers (2024 Version)

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

The entire books have a spot on my conventional, cyber, or audio bookshelves, and the featured authors embrace a few of the most skilled and educated hikers and/or outdoorsy of us on the planet.

Outdoorsy bookshelf at Casa Honan.

1.   Academic

• Auerbach, Paul. Drugs for the Open air (seventh version, 2023): I first picked up a duplicate of this e-book within the late ’90s. Wonderful reference textual content. In keeping with Richard Carmona, seventeenth Surgeon Basic of the USA, Auerbach’s e-book is the “most complete and authoritative work within the area.”

• Burns, Bob. Wilderness Navigation (third Version, 2015): Clearly written, helpful for novices in addition to veterans searching for a refresher. Contains useful sensible workout routines 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 under).

• Curtis, Rick. The Backpacker’s Discipline Handbook (2005 version): Arguably nonetheless essentially the most complete “methods to” backpacking information available on the market. A superb 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 acquired round to studying “Deep Survival” throughout the pandemic. I discovered it to be a extremely readable mixture of survival tales, sensible recommendation, and the psychology of how folks cope with excessive adversity. On the not-so-great aspect, it felt just a little 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 methods to use Mom Nature’s indicators to find out every little thing from the course of journey to climate patterns to animal behavioral patterns.
  

  “Randomness just isn’t a fantastic survival technique, so it’s uncommon in nature.” – Tristan Gooley

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

• Lichter, Justin. Path Examined (2020; 2nd Version). Light-weight backpacking methods 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 actually).

• Magnanti, Paul. How you can Survive Your First Journey into the Wild: Backpacking for Inexperienced persons (2019). Stuffed with sensible, to-the-point recommendation, How you can Survive Your First Journey into the Wild is good for these seeking to make the transition from day hikes to in a single day backpacking excursions. Magnanti’s a long time of area expertise, mixed with an usually humorous writing fashion, make this e-book not solely a fantastic useful resource for novices but additionally brings dwelling the truth that so long as you might be properly ready, heading out into the woods is an expertise to be loved, slightly than merely endured.

• Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills (tenth version, 2024): This basic mountaineering textual content (first revealed in 1960) additionally has plenty of data 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 methods from one of many sport’s main authorities.

• Tazz, Iron. Hike It: An Introduction to Tenting, 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 mountaineering and backpacking geared toward younger adventurers aged 7 and up. The e-book showcases a few of America’s most gorgeous landscapes whereas additionally pertaining to essential topics akin to navigation, LNT, wildlife encounters, mountaineering your personal hike, and methods 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 properly 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 Outside Guide Award in 2017 (Educational Class).

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

• Wall Kimmerer, Robin. Braiding Sweetgrass (2015). An insightful and galvanizing e-book beneficial 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, in fact, the human being on prime—the head of evolution, the darling of Creation—and the crops on the backside. However in Native methods of realizing, human persons are sometimes called “the youthful brothers of Creation.” We are saying that people have the least expertise with methods to dwell and thus essentially the most to study—we should look to our lecturers among the many different species for steerage. Their knowledge is obvious in the best way that they dwell. They educate 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 beneficial 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 right now than ever earlier than.

“However essentially 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 minimize down by feeding it sugars and different vitamins, and so protecting it alive……..A tree’s most essential technique of staying related to different timber is a “wooden broad internet” of soil fungi that connects vegetation in an intimate community that permits the sharing of an infinite quantity of knowledge and items. Scientific analysis geared toward understanding the astonishing skills of this partnership between fungi and plant has solely simply begun. The rationale 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 stunning that remoted timber have far shorter lives than these residing related collectively in forests.”

2.   Guidebooks

• Cicerone Press Guidebooks: For greater than 5 a long time, Cicerone Press has been producing extremely regarded guidebooks for mountaineering, trekking, climbing, and biking. Historically, their focus has been on the UK (the place they’re primarily based) and Europe; nonetheless, in latest 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 outside guidebooks in america. Their intensive mountaineering catalogue contains Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, and Arizona.

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

• Trailblazer Guidebooks: Together with Cicerone Press, the principal mountaineering guidebook firm for the UK and Europe over the previous couple of a long time. 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) slightly than specializing in what it’s – a witty and infrequently 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 girl 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 concerning the issue of discovering a parking area. After I requested her as soon as why she didn’t stroll to the fitness center 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 velocity, and I can alter it for diploma of issue.’ 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 gratifying account of 4 a long time’ 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’ glorious 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 mountaineering on a few of America’s best trails. Humorous, poignant, thought-provoking, and entertaining, studying Grinter’s books makes you are feeling like you might be 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 infrequently have these eccentricities been higher captured than in Boots McFarland’s great cartoons. Whether or not or not it’s our questionable consuming habits, debatable hygiene practices, or just the loopy notion that individuals would need to stroll hundreds of miles only for the enjoyable of it, Boots’ illustrations are a chafe-and-all celebration of what makes hikers tick.

• Newby, Eric. A Quick Stroll within the Hindu Kush (1958). The (mis)adventures of a trend government and his mate who works for the British International Service, who journey from London to Afghanistan with the objective 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; probably as a result of they couldn’t conceive of anybody buying such a group of kit with out realizing methods 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 an enormous smile to my face.

4.   Inspirational 

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

• Honan, Cam. Wanderlust: 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 marvel 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 images.

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 little thing from a tragic hero to a reckless narcissist. In the end, 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 information and expertise crucial to securely negotiate your chosen atmosphere.

• McDougall, Christopher. Born to Run (2009). Informative and inspirational, this e-book options the unbelievable Tarahumaras (Raramuri) of Mexico’s Copper Canyon. The world and its folks maintain a particular place in my mountaineering 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 folks, time, and landscapes. As with the writing of Nan Shepherd (see under), you get the sensation that the writer walks into landscapes slightly 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 glorious).

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 observe. “The Dwelling Mountain” is Shepherd’s superbly written testomony to the thrill 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 need. It’s not 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 actually mountaineering 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 business improvement.

• Snyder, Gary. Turtle Island (1974) & The Follow of the Wild (1990): Thought-provoking poems and essays. I didn’t get into Snyder till my early 30s, after I randomly got here throughout a duplicate of ‘Turtle Island’ in a used bookstore in Queensland, Australia. I’ve been an enormous 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 steadiness between spirit and humility.” (The Follow of the Wild).

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

“I need to see mountains once more, Gandalf, mountains, after which discover someplace the place I can relaxation. In peace and quiet, with out numerous family 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 mountaineering and backpacking per se however as an alternative about how spending time within the wilderness can remind us that when given no different selection, many people are able to greater than we consciously notice.

6.   Memoirs

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

“Wilderness just 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 reducing 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 Time (1968): Over the previous couple of a long time, 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 in all Fletcher’s works, it will in all probability be “The Man Who Walked By Time,” which chronicles his pioneering journey by means of 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 go away 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 just isn’t a lot a objective attained as one other level in a seamless course of. And the essential factor on the finish of a journey – or of a e-book – is to maintain shifting ahead, refreshed, with as little pause as doable.”

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

• Kerouac, Jack. The Dharma Bums (1958). Probably 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 principal characters, Japhy Ryder.

“I felt like mendacity down by the aspect of the path and remembering all of it. The woods try this to you, they at all times look acquainted, lengthy misplaced, just like the face of a long-dead relative, like an outdated dream, like a chunk of forgotten music drifting throughout the water, most of all like golden eternities of previous childhood or previous manhood and all of the residing and the dying and the heartbreak that went on one million years in the past and the clouds as they go 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 finally a ‘journey of the guts’, that vividly captures the abiding high quality of the Himalayan vary and its folks:
  
  “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 associates at night, the clay fires of smudgy juniper, the coarse boring 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 teen rising up in Australia. Greater than thirty-five years later, he stays one in all my favorite wilderness writers.

“After ten years of wandering and questioning within the coronary heart of it, rejoicing in its wonderful floods of sunshine, the white beams of the morning streaming by means of 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 outside fanatics. Written virtually a century in the past, it incorporates some memorable nuggets of knowledge, akin to:

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

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

“In the event you decide security to be the paramount consideration in life it is 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 anyplace alone. And keep away from in any respect prices such foolhardy actions as driving, falling in love, or inhaling air that’s virtually actually riddled with lethal germs………And by no means, in fact, discover the heart of an concept that appears as if it would threaten one in all your extra cherished beliefs. In your knowledge, you’ll in all probability dwell to be a ripe outdated age. However you could uncover, simply earlier than you die, that you’ve been lifeless for an extended, very long time.” (The Full Walker 3).

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

• Gros, Frederic, The Philosophy of Strolling (2014).  An insightful take 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 function that strolling performed within the work of philosophers and writers akin 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, can be a advantageous 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 fashionable environmental motion. I extremely advocate Leopold’s basic e-book to anybody within the nature of human relationships with the atmosphere (and I hope that encompasses most folk 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 right now than ever earlier than.

• Thoreau, Henry David. Walden (1854) and Strolling (1861): Thoreau makes essentially the most eloquent of instances for the bodily, psychological, and religious advantages of spending time within the wilderness. I particularly take pleasure in studying Thoreau after I’m backpacking slightly than after 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 recommendations on going lighter, courtesy of the identical man who did the wonderful illustrations for Don Ladigan’s e-book (see under). Sensible data blended in with liberal doses of quirkiness and humour. Makes ultralight backpacking sound enjoyable and gratifying. Double thumbs up.

• Jardine, Ray. Past Backpacking (2001) and Path Life (2009). Principally the identical e-book with a unique 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 will not be for everybody, there isn’t any denying that his modern method is based upon intensive 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 talents and methods they used to perform this superb feat are encapsulated in Ultralight Winter Journey, an informative information that addresses worse-case situations, climate patterns, area repairs, and, in fact, methods to enterprise safely into sub-freezing circumstances with out carrying the proverbial kitchen sink in your again.

Disclosure: This publish incorporates affiliate hyperlinks, which implies ‘The Climbing Life’ receives a small fee if you are going to buy an merchandise after clicking on one of many hyperlinks. This comes at no further price to the reader and helps to assist the web site in its persevering with objective to create high quality content material for backpackers and hikers.