Backpacking the Light Way: Comfortable, Efficient, Smart

This is NOT another backpacking gear book.

Backpacking the Light Way has one goal: to help backpackers lighten their loads. You need not sacrifice comfort to enter the world of ultralight backpacking, but you do need to change the way you think about gear, pack loads, and planning.

Preservation of comfort is the guiding principle of this book. It allows you to learn ultralight techniques and tricks without sacrificing what’s important.

Longtime professional outdoor-skills instructor Richard Light teaches field-tested, proven strategies for:

• Planning a modular packing system
• Creating gear lists that work
• Navigating the steps required to seriously lighten up
• Understanding the differences in conventional and ultralight thinking
• Dealing with winter conditions
• Packing to minimize frustration
• Assessing risk in the backcountry
• Effective trip planning

Backpacking the Light Way helps beginners as well as advanced backpackers pack efficiently, carry less weight while still being fully prepared, and have fun in the backcountry.

Richard A. Light is an instructor of backpacking, rock climbing, and other outdoor skills. He has been backpacking, climbing, hiking, skiing, and generally active in the outdoors for more than 50 years. He especially loves telemark skiing, rock climbing, backpacking, canyoneering, snowshoeing, building igloos, and reveling in the beauty and majesty of nature. Rick taught skiing as an RMSIA/PSIA fully certified alpine instructor in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He has been designing and leading multiday backpacks in remote areas of the Grand Canyon since 1993. He loves playing in the high country above timberline, canyoneering through slot canyons, exploring backcountry with no trails, teaching and helping others, and, especially, just being in the silence and wonder of wilderness. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.