[pct-l] Guidebooks - don't leave home without them

[kdrury at indy.rr.com (Keith Drury)]

I shipped the pages of the guide to POs but often read them AFTER I'd
covered a section, which seems silly and useless but for some strange reason
was quite satisfying.

Between the guides and the data book I couldn't imagine any reason to buy
and additional Handbook (Yogi's) but I did anyway and have been delighted
with it.  I teach several University backpacking courses and may switch form
Ray Jardine's book to hers in the future.   Her guide is not just valuable
for trail data-but even more so because of the general advice for through
hiking. I get so weary of Ray Jardine's "fundamentalist approach" to
backpacking.  Yogi gives her own opinion just as forthrightly as Ray, but
she includes the views of others so that the guide has a balanced
multi-opinioned approach.    But of course that part of the book gets "used
up" before leaving-the really gold mine is the half-sheet "On the Trail"
section-which (like the guidebooks) I have now read AFTER having finished
2300 of the 2600 mile trail-and had a good time remembering many of those
places!  I suppose if I were starting over this summer (instead of finishing
up the final 300 miles) I might just go with the Data book and Yogi's guide
alone, adding the JMT maps in the Sierras. -Second Wind   (Dr. Keith Drury,
Indiana Wesleyan University) [yeah you read that right-in the midst of
flatland Indiana this University offers backpacking courses-go figure]


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