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Rating: 
Summary: A Definitive Successor to Colin Fletcher!
Review: Hart's book is well rounded. Gear is not its prime focus. There is more emphasis on describing gear features, advantages, and rationale, reminiscent of Colin Fletcher, and less emphasis on comparisons of brands and models as in Chris Townsend's The Backpacker's Handbook. Hart gives a nice description of how to hang counter-balanced bear bags using a pull down rope. This technique has been around for years, but Hart is the first to give a proper description in print. The index entry for Jasper National Park leads to a nice description of places to go and things to see in the Canadian Rockies and other places. In Townsend, by contrast, the index entry for Jasper National Park takes you to a discussion of raingear! Hart has good coverage of most skills, e.g., how to set up tarps. Yet the book is reflective, offering wisdom beyond gear, unlike Townsend, which is more procedural - what to do and how to do it. The chapter on land navigation is very interesting. Hart does not present map and compass skills with the detail of Townsend, rather, the book seems to say that every place is a good place to be, so don't fret about how to get from point A to B. That is a linear objective. Maybe if you wander about, exploring without agenda like John Muir, having "skootchers," this is good enough advice. The concept of wilderness ethics runs through this book.From a pedagogical point of view, Townsend's book may be a better book from which beginners can learn "basic" backpacking. However, after the student gets past equipment considerations, Hart's book will teach you to love to backpack.
Rating: 
Summary: Lots of detail but little substance
Review: The original edition of this book was published in 1977 and it and the succeeding editions are sponsored by the Sierra Club. If you are a supporter of the eco values of the Sierra Club, that is reason enough to buy the book and you will be completely in sync with the authors basic proposition that we should care for the backpacking environment. I agreed with that thought in the first edition and still agree with it all these years later in this edition. Having said that, I do not value this book highly and do not recommend it to anyone, specifically not to novice backpackers. Here is the problem; the book expends the vast majority of its pages in the detailed listing of the component parts of gear such as packs, boots or tents and spends almost no time in telling you how to utilize the gear efficiently. The very essence of backpacking is doing. Putting the pack on and going. This book goes to great lengths to itemize the various straps on a backpack but really glosses over the where and how to use it and all the other gear associated with backpacking. In other words, it definitely is not a "how to" book. For that, I recommend "The Backpacker's Handbook" by Chris Townsend.
Rating: 
Summary: Political Correctness carried to extremes
Review: This book expounds endlessly on how best to limit the impact of people on the backcountry in the very best traditions of the Sierra Club. It's more of a philosophy book than a "how to" book. If anyone wants to learn how to backpack and/or camp, he would be better advised to buy the several books by Karen Berger and Chris Townsend, in particular The Backpackers Handbook.
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