Allen and Mikes Really Cool Backcountry Ski Book Revised and Even Better Traveling and Camping Skills for a Winter Environment Falcon Guides
June 13, 2009 by Camping Gear · Leave a Comment
In this work, these two National Outdoor Leadership School instructors offer lots of tried-and-true tricks and useful tips drawn from years of experience. The material is easy to understand and accompanied by hundreds of entertaining illustrations by renowned illustrator Mike Clelland!
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars Funny and Informative!
The clever humor aside, this book has everything I needed to know before entering the back country. I highly recommend it.
5 Stars Useful even if you don’t ski.
There are many tips in this book that may be of value for winter camping even if you do not ski to get there. The information is presented in an easy to retain manner with humor and cartoons. I may even try to ski one day.
Camping And Woodcraft Handbook Vacation Campers Travelers Wilderness
June 11, 2009 by Camping Gear · Leave a Comment
Camping And Woodcraft Handbook Vacation Campers Travelers Wilderness
Camping & Woodcraft By Liberty Mountain
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars A THROWBACK
As a practical guide this is a very good book, but it serves just as well as a history book. Most people panic when the electricity goes down for a few hours. This book goes back to a time not that long ago when most people were handy and knew how to survive with basic shelter and food.
It’s sad in a way that America was once a nation of independent and self-reliant people. Work that is considered gruelling or even punishment was once just part of everyday life. This book goes back to that time on some level. Most of us aren’t going to trek through the woods for months at a time but I think it’s important to have some basic woodcraft and survival skills no matter who you are and what you do. A good book to have and enjoyable to read. Also, if you get the book try some of the camp cooking recipes…they are quite good.
5 Stars outdoors reference
This is probably the most exhaustive and authoritative book on outdoor craft that I have read. Very dry and detail oriented so you have to be interested in the science for it to work. It is not extreme lke the 60/70’s survivalist dogma but presented matter of fact and unpretentiously by someone who lived it. With this book you could eke out a living off the land just about anywhere. There are many books that are a better casual read. But it will be hard to beat this book for its pure reference capacity. A classic that makes a great gift to anyone who is outdoors person, wants to know more, about how and why or just curious.
5 Stars The original outdoors-man handbook
This is a must for any library of outdoor books. It may lack a lot of modern day political correctness but, it was how it was done back then. A great look into outdoor history, this was THE handbook for outdoor wilderness skills and recreation. Any student of wilderness skills MUST have a copy.
5 Stars Camping and Woodcraft, Horace Kephart
Not just one of the classics, one of the best of the classics. If you’re serious about the outdoors, this should be on your bookshelf.
5 Stars A Classic
You won’t find reviews of the latest or lightest gear here. The wisdom though is timeless. For years it has continually provided me a “new” way of doing something in the outdoors, by looking back on how it had been done successfully. Unless your great-grandfather was a camper and left you his memoirs, this belongs on your shelf for ready reference.
Denali National Park Guide to Hiking Photography and Camping
June 10, 2009 by Camping Gear · Leave a Comment
Denali National Park Guide to Hiking Photography and Camping
A complete guide to dayhiking, backpacking, camping and photography in Denali National Park plus 3 hikes in Denali State Park. Dayhikes and backpacks for all abilities are described, including walks to picnic or enjoy wildflowers. You will find:
Wilderness Survival
June 9, 2009 by Camping Gear · Leave a Comment
Wilderness Survival: Living By Liberty Mountain
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars Wilderness Survival
This book is the perfect supplement to typical survival reading. The combination of actual experience with creative ideas on tools, techniques, and tricks keeps the book interesting. This is great for those of you who are either starting out in your search for survival knowledge or have holes in your existing knowledge. On several occasions the author mentions practices that are so astute and are not mentioned in manuals like the army survival manual. The book is obviously not for everyone…like those who think they know everything. Highly recommended for open minded people who wish to learn while enjoying a good story.
4 Stars Great intro!
I really enjoyed this. Mostly very good explanations of some survival techniques well-placed among the story of his summer in the woods in New England. This is not a comprehensive handbook, but a very nice, easy to read, introduction. Some of the philosophical ramblings were forgettable, but several bits gave me an appreciation for our connection (or lack thereof) to nature that is missing in some survivial textbooks. Definitely recommended as an introduction!
5 Stars Worth reading!
I highly reccomend this book. Some have said the title is misleading and that the book isn’t about survival, but what is the most important part of survival? Attitude! And this book helps you to think about that attitude and what it means. The skills talked about are both survival and wilderness living skills, both of which are needed in survival situations. If you only learn how to read a compass and use a signal mirror, you MIGHT survive if you get lost in the wilderness, but you will need to know much more than that, and this book shows you how you can learn without having to be in a wilderness. The things they write about are real experiences.
5 Stars Putting it all Together
I very much enjoyed this book. The simple description is that it’s a journal of a few guys who wanted to put all the individual skills of survival together and see how they fared. The skills section is not a list of every survival skill, but a description of how to do each skill they used on their 46 day trip. The fact that they were not in some remote wilderness has no bearing on the fact that they provided for themselves while they were in the woods (the pizza meal did not sustain them for 46 days…did it?). They hunted, caught fish, harvested wild plants, made shelters and carried no gear other than their clothes and knives, how cool is that? One of the great things about this book is that you can see how they prioritized, how they strung all the skills together to form a way of life for the duration of their trip.
The only little thing I was not liking, was that the moment a skill was mentioned in the journal, the instruction on how to do it was inserted, even when there were only a few lines left of the journal. It would be better if the instruction came at the end of the chapters, but no biggie.
I wholeheartedly recommend this book to any who enjoy the outdoors and particularly to those who would make a similar trip.
1 Star Wilderness Survival or Shame?
The title is what made me order this book. I wanted to hone my own survival skills that I’d gathered over the years, and the context of a story rather than a guide was quit appealing. Unfortunately what I found was of little value. I must say the whole context of the book is a little hokey. While other true survivalists have been known to fly into remote areas like Alaska with just the basics, these guys simply wander off a few hiking trails in the vicinity of an urban area. One gets lonely quite quick and leaves whenever he wants. 7 days into the journey they all hit the local restaurant for pizza, then the very next day have the gall to club a baby fawn to death in the name of “survival”. Later Mexican food is brought in by a girlfriend.
This is not “survival” to me, just three guys choosing to live in the woods next to a highway. There was no danger from predators, disease or hypothermia. This self-serving exercise took place in the peak of summer in a hand-picked abundant forest, with emergency services and civilization only a walk away. Yet with all the clubbing, spearing and snaring they did, there was always the usual justification for there actions in controlling excess populations of animals.
There are certainly better books on the skills to exist in the woods, better written and richer in knowledge. True survival stories are also far more rich in adventure and authentic in nature. Pass this one unless found in a clearance bin and you need fuel for a campfire.
Treehouses The Art and Craft of Living Out on a Limb
June 7, 2009 by Camping Gear · Leave a Comment
Treehouses The Art and Craft of Living Out on a Limb
Treehouses lift the spirits. They inspire dreams. They represent freedom: from adults or adulthood, from duties and responsibilities, from an earthbound perspective. If we can’t fly with the birds, at least we can nest with them. With lively writing and beautiful photographs, Treehouses paints a fascinating portrait of this ingenious branch of architecture. It provides a brief history of treehouses, from Caligula through the Medici to Queen Victoria. It shows how to design and build a treehouse, from picking the right tree to shingling the roof. And it tells the stories of dozens of treehouses and the people who built them, from simple platforms nailed together by kids to arboreal palaces constructed and lived in by grown-ups. The centerpiece of the book is a photo essay showing Pete Nelson building a spectacular octagonal treehouse thirty feet up an old-growth fir on Saltspring Island in British Columbia. With two hundred square feet of floor space, cedar paneling, and leaded French doors, the Saltspring treehouse is one of the finest specimens of the treehouse builder’s art. Anyone who has ever built a treehouse, or dreamed of it, or read Swiss Family Robinson, will find Treehouses irresistible.
User Ratings and Reviews
3 Stars Another catalog.
I’m not sure what to think about this book. Sometimes I read it with joy. At other times I wonder why I bought it. Nice pics, little advice on building.
4 Stars Never too Old for a Treehouse
I found the drawings of treehouse construction principles helpful and potentially life saving. The photos were beautiful and inspirational. This isn’t the only treehouse building book I will own, but it was a good one to start out with.
5 Stars Tree Huggers Beware.
Great Book, with lots of great pictures. Some technical stuff also. Another book that has a little bit on building tree houses is called “Shelters Shacks and Shanties by D.C. Beard. I love tree’s myself but for you tree huggers complaining about a few nails, sheesh, your houses are full of lumber. Look in the walls at the studs, under the floors at the joists, kitchen cabinets, dining room table and chairs, bedroom furniture, etc. etc. so don’t worry about a few nails in a tree eh, they love the iron in them anyhow!
5 Stars Good Promotion for Treehouses
This book is 90% inspiration and 10% technical information. I don’t think that there is enough information for someone wanting to build their own treehouse, but if you already have one of those books, then this one is a good companion for inspirational purposes.
2 Stars Interesting at a high level
I was looking for something practical to help me design and build a tree house for my 5 year old. This is a great book if you want to consider “possibilities”. It helped a little, as well in terms of providing conceptual designs. It was not as good in providing detailed plans on how to build a specific tree house. If you are an experienced builder you could probably take what they have here and develop your own blueprints. If you are a novice,and need detailed plans this book will not get you there.
