The Boomer's Guide to Lightweight Backpacking: New Gear for Old People

This book will bring you up to speed on all the new products and load-lightening techniques needed to make your next trail experience a great one. With detailed recommendations and a lively visual format, this book will help you re-create your wilderness system one piece at a time making it lighter, safer, and more comfortable. There's always some new gizmo or gadget on the market; and with so much gear out there, it's easy to get confused. Corbridge takes away the guesswork with gear tables in each chapter that tell you where to buy the items discussed; the tables list the specific model, manufacturer, price, weight, and website. Carol's done all the research for you over several years of trials and many miles of trails. For Corbridge light doesn't mean skimping on the fun. For a week-long journey, she carries about 30 pounds, which includes 1.8 L water, food, camera, fishing gear, swim fins... you get the idea. Once you've cut out the unnecessary weight, you can add back the toys. Extend your years on the trail. Enjoy every step, as you walk into lightness. With The Boomer's Guide to Lightweight Backpacking you'll carry less, have more fun, and go out more often. See you on the trail!

Carol started her backpacking career as a teenager, exploring Point Reyes National Seashore north of San Francisco. Like many people, she backpacked maybe once a summer throughout her early adult life and then became busy with other things and eventually didn't go at all. In her forties, while managing her landscape construction business, Carol rediscovered the joys of the day-hike: a shorter, easier form of wilderness experience. One thing lead to another and after a few years of weekend day-hikes, backpacking became possible again. Carol found backpacking the perfect retreat from cell phones and freeways. Being older and wanting to extend her years on the trail, as well as improving the quality of those years, she proceeded to find the lightest, most comfortable gear available. Carol now spends more than 60 nights in the wilderness under the stars each season.