Topic
book – trail tested
Forum Posting
A Membership is required to post in the forums. Login or become a member to post in the member forums!
Home › Forums › Gear Forums › Gear (General) › book – trail tested
- This topic is empty.
-
AuthorPosts
-
Jun 28, 2012 at 10:54 am #1291475
How does Justin Lichter's book (Trail Tested) compare to Andrew Skurka's book (The Ultimate Hikers Gear Guide) ?
Is gear advice a large percentage of Justin's book?
Thanks.
Jun 28, 2012 at 12:26 pm #1890866Both books are great reads. As someone who's spent several years on BPL, I still learned a great deal from both and would recommend picking up both.
Skurka's book is the more well written of the two (ie. literary quality). It does a solid job covering gear and trip planning, the latter of which is the best part of the book if you've already highly refined your gear list. Lichters book does a nice job covering skills (ie. navigation, snow), which is its strongest portion along with the abundance of interesting stories. To illustrate the difference, Skurka discusses choosing the best gear/equipment related to navigation (ie. compass vs. GPS, best topo maps) while Lichter covers this in less depth but then actually gives you pointers for using it in the field.
The gear section in Trail Tested isn't as good as Skurka's. Andrew explains the decisions in more depth, so you get a better understanding of WHY one gear item is better than the other and how this changes in different circumstances. It's a great reference. Lichter's hiking is more traditional (ie. framed packs, double wall tents, sleeping bags) so the discussions in the gear section are less diverse and of lower interest (to me).
Trail Tested is divided into three sections and the final section (advanced) is the best part. If you've hiked a lot then you may gloss over the first two sections.
Both books have a mix of great photos mixed in with some low quality ones. Lichter's book has a ton of photos (10-15) taken at a photo shoot in one camping store (Midwest Mountaineering), while Skurka's book mixes awesome photos from the wild in with what appears to be quite a few stock photos from various manufacturers.
That's my best recollection of these two books….it's been a few months now since I read either.
-
AuthorPosts
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Forum Posting
A Membership is required to post in the forums. Login or become a member to post in the member forums!
Our Community Posts are Moderated
Backpacking Light community posts are moderated and here to foster helpful and positive discussions about lightweight backpacking. Please be mindful of our values and boundaries and review our Community Guidelines prior to posting.
Get the Newsletter
Gear Research & Discovery Tools
- Browse our curated Gear Shop
- See the latest Gear Deals and Sales
- Our Recommendations
- Search for Gear on Sale with the Gear Finder
- Used Gear Swap
- Member Gear Reviews and BPL Gear Review Articles
- Browse by Gear Type or Brand.