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INTRODUCTION Readers have asked for a featherweight source book they can justify carrying along with them in the wilds, something that will provide a backup to their own experience, help them deal with adversity and ensure their getting the most from their trips. That's exactly what I've tried to produce. This little book deals exclusively with situations backpackers encounter in wilderness. Here are the tips and techniques my friends and I use to sail along safe and easy in the wilds, staying out of trouble, getting the maximum pleasure and comfort from our trips. I've tried to cram all the data I can into a small, tough, flexible format on light, thin but high quality paper, aiming at a total book weight of just two ounces, so weight-conscious backpackers will carry it. If the printer failed "to make the weight' you can always rip off the covers or take scissors to the margins. This is strictly a field guide. I have wasted no space on data that can't help you in the wilds. If you want to know how to choose the right gear, get in shape, travel light, select clothing, plan menus and trips, and understand how insulators, fabrics and the human body interact, get my Pleasure Packing for the 80's, also from Ten Speed. It's a soup to nuts, 255 page reference book on backpacking, but it weights twelve ounces and isn't mean to be carried. Much of this little book has been distilled from its best selling big brother. This isn't a survival booklet, either. A backpacker shouldn't need to know how to rub two sticks together for fire, flag down a passing plane, snare rabbits or cook without pots. He's supposed to have all the essentials on his back and be prepared to travel through the country he has chosen to visit. This little book is to help you deal with discomfort, injury or other emergency. It's also to help you maximize your safety and minimize your worry, to provide an extra margin of safety. Think of it as you do emergency food, bandages, surplus matches and extra batteries. You hope you won't need them, but you don't dare leave them home! I've tried to organize my material for easy access, so you can find what you need without reading the whole book. The chapter headings have been supplemented (both in the table of contents and at the head of each chapter) with an elaboration of what's contained. Headlines within the text match this elaboration to help you with equipment breakdown, unexpected weather, unfriendly campsites or a temporary loss of orientation. You can likewise find techniques to help you wring the most pleasure from your precious vacation. Even if you don't get in trouble twenty miles from nowhere, this little book will have its uses. The blank pages in back, used for notes, can double the pleasure of your next trip by reminding you what to leave home, what to bring more of and what to do differently. Or leave notes to your partner or a record in mountaintop registers. The text can supply escape reading on a rainy afternoon in the tent. It will even function as inferior toilet or cigarette paper, or excellent fire starter after a rain. Or you can prop up the stove with it, patch a hole in your boot, or insulate your bottom while sitting on cold rocks. And if you're desperate enough it can even be boiled in salted water to make a low calorie broth. Whatever uses you find for this little book, I hope it helps you to a happier, safer trip when you're deep in the wilds with only the pack you carry on your back.
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