Reading on the Trail

[Dan Roper]

I love reading on the trail, when I'm backpacking solo. I like it so much that sometimes I spend too much time in camp in the late afternoon, reducing my mileage. I might read 25-50 pages a day.

I don't have any electronic devices (even in real life), so I always carry a book. I prefer that they be less than epic length (To Kill a Mockingbird rather than Gone With the Wind). I also prefer mystery, historic fiction, or historic non-fiction.

I sometimes carry a small Gideon Bible, which works well. Last summer I carried Alistair MacLean's Ice Station Zebra - just the right size to offer in depth reading without being too heavy. Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising and Hal Moore's We Were Soldiers Once are probably a bit thick. I don't like to read AT books on the trail (though I do enjoy them at home).

Are there other print readers out there? If so, what are some of the books you've read on the trail? Recommendatons?

[cliffordbarnabus]

anything by kerouac or salinger.

[rickb]

TBH I have not read all that much when hiking, but for fun I like the Joe Picket series (he is a fictional Wyoming game warden) by CJ Box and am looking forward to the release of the next in 2 weeks.

[justhike]

so I 'thought' I would read on trail - figured I would need something to do for the hour or so before I drifted off to sleep.
Did not happen. I was just too tired.

But maybe this will help someone who actually DOES read on trail....

To avoid having to carry the full bulk/weight of a book, I took a box cutter to a couple of paperbacks (used books, probably got them for $1 at Goodwill or somewhere). Cut the pages from the binding so pages were all loose. Then clipped sections together with small binder clips. Included these in my resupply boxes. It would have worked great, if I had actually read them! (most got recycled...)

[LittleRock]

Reading is a nice way to spend the 2 hours between sunset and 9 PM in October.

I bought a complete set of paperback novels by Carl Hiaasen and started bringing one of them on each of my trips back when I was in central VA. I should have just enough to make it the rest of the way to Katahdin.

[Tipi Walter]

I REALLY like to read on a backpacking trip. Here's my system---

1) Bookmark a bunch of interesting stuff on your home computer. Wiki articles, blogs about backpacking, history stuff, even printable threads here on Whiteblaze etc.

2) Fire up your home printer and print out everything you bookmarked on 20 weight copy paper.

3) Number each printed page from 1 to about 70.

4) Flip over these 70 typing paper pages and print out stuff on the other side---so you end up with 140 total pages on 70 pieces of paper. (Double sided printing).

5) VOILA you've just created a BOOK ROLL. Roll up the 70 sheets and band tightly with a rubber band.

These babies of course are HEAVY and I've been known to carry up to 11 book rolls on a trip---btw a ream of copy paper(500 sheets) weighs 5 lbs.

But the BEAUTY of it is you can BURN IT ALL during the course of a trip.

Here's a typical load of book rolls on a trip---

47337

And here's a camp trash fire whereby a book roll gets burnt---

47338

[Dan Roper]

In the distant future, an archaeologist working in the Slickrock Wilderness will find a bunch of mummified scrolls and reveal them to an awestruck world. The Slickrock Scrolls.

Tipi, that's a great idea.

I like hearing that you and others enjoy reading on the trail.

[perrymk]

Despite my sharing of Kindle books, I still prefer paper. My usual go-to genres are non-fiction including true crime (usually serial killer and/or set in Alaska), bodybuilding (not workout, but behind the scenes life stuff), and sometimes prison life. I also like to read how-to books. Repairing bicycles, weaving baskets, whatever. It doesn't matter much if I ever intend to use the knowledge; sometimes I just like reading about how things are done.

[Tipi Walter]

In the distant future, an archaeologist working in the Slickrock Wilderness will find a bunch of mummified scrolls and reveal them to an awestruck world. The Slickrock Scrolls.

Tipi, that's a great idea.

I like hearing that you and others enjoy reading on the trail.

Hopefully an archaeologist won't find my Turthlehead Scrolls---10,000 pages written about The Art of Birthing An Angry and Fearsome Colon Lizard---the Turd Diaries.

[Dan Roper]

We'll find, per the Doo-y Decimal System, in the Scatogorical Section.

[Old Grouse]

TBH I have not read all that much when hiking, but for fun I like the Joe Picket series (he is a fictional Wyoming game warden) by CJ Box and am looking forward to the release of the next in 2 weeks.

+ 1 on the Joe Pickett series. Also try the Kate Shugak series by Dana Stabenow.

[Coffee]

I read about fifty pages per day but I find it difficult to do any reading on trips. It’s partly because I don’t like spending much time in camp other than sleeping but I also find it uncomfortable to sit in my tent to read and I can’t get comfortable lying down to read. So I started listening to audiobooks, which I never do off trail. I can get in my sleeping bag and lie down and listen to an audiobook for a half hour before going to sleep. Works much better for me and it weighs nothing.

[Tipi Walter]

The no-brainer secret for me in camp for reading is to make a head rest so when you're supine on the sleeping pad your head is propped up perfectly for long-term reading. I use an up-ended nalgene liter bottle with the end capped off in some ccf (walmart blue) foam for head comfort. Or you can use a large food bag.

[gjbu]

Just hit link and reading Walters 21 day quest for camp hope. Very interesting. Looks miserable and grand at the same time.

[hobbs]

I been reading Heros of the Bob Marshall wildernes...Its history etc all rolled into one...

[hikermiker]

Mostly I hike with a couple of other guys and so after our bull sessions in camp I only read about 10 or 12 pages a night. I prowl used book sales for Penguin 60s which were a series of excerpts or short stories from their longer books. They tend to run 40-60 pages and so are good for 4-6 nights, while weighing only a couple of ounces. For hikes where I expect to spend more time in camp or when hiking solo I bring a mystery or thriller with about 30 or 40 pages a night.

[BlackCloud]

The journals of Richard Proenneke, a guy who lived in the Alaska wilderness on and off for 30 years. The easiest way to start is with One Man's Wilderness.

Murder on the Appalachian Trail
The Complete Walker III
Cadillac Desert

There are several soft back National Park Service Handbook series offerings detailing parks the AT traverses and the people who lived in the mountains before they were evicted for our convenience.

In the same vein, the PATC has some great short books:
http://www.patc.net/PATC/Our_Store/Shenandoah_National_Park.aspx

[The Solemates]

I go nowhere without a book. I literally take one everywhere. If I have a spare 5 minutes even, you’ll find me reading. I just got back from a backpacking trip and took David McCullough’s Truman. If you don’t know about that book, it’s nearly 1200 pages and weighs somethin mean. I don’t care. I’ll take a book before a stove if I had to choose.