The Backpacker

San Francisco: 101 Productions, 1972. Trade Paperback. Good. 4" x 8 " Pocket Size. Saijo, Gompers. 96 Pages Indexed. This is a 4 inch wide book that is pocket size. Very lightly, barely noticiable, age tanned. Contents: Introduction, Which Foot First, The Outfit, Food, Getting The Trip Together, The Walk In, Camp, Out, Recommended Reading. No one has worked out a backcountry style as light, simple and elegant as that of the Himalayan yogi. Milarepa, the 11th-century Tibetan saint, at one point in his life, had his outfit down to a few religious objects and a bowl. He needed no more protection than a thin cotton cloth because he had mastered the yoga of vital heat that enabled him to stand extremes of cold. He needed no bedding because he never lay down, spending most of his time in the posture of meditation. He needed no special supply of food. He made a soup of nettles that grew along the way. He hardly ever came down from the mountains. Milarepa was in the ancient tradition of the mountain men of the Eastern religions-rishis, arhats, yogis, the Taoist outdoorsmen of China. All were in wilderness with the purest intention, for the only right reason. Uplift. Some could subsist on air, which is even lighter than freeze-dried food. There are also stories in the Bible of men who traveled very light. Jesus went into wilderness forty days and ate nothing. John the Baptist traveled the wilderness of Judea in camel-hair raiment and leather girdle, eating locusts and wild honey. When we think of these outdoor styles and the very spare outfit they were based on, we begin to understand the enormity of our concern with food and equipment.