How to Suffer Outside: A Beginner’s Guide to Hiking and Backpacking

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(as of May 06, 2024 11:38:10 UTC – Details)

2022 National Outdoor Book Award Winner in Instructional Outdoor Adventure Guide
Named a Backpacker Magazine “50 Best Hiking Books of All Time”

Refreshingly approachable guide for aspiring backpackers and casual hikers of all stripesColorful and humorous illustrations throughoutRelatable, rising female voice in outdoor literature Part critique of modern hiking culture and part how-to guide, How to Suffer Outside is for anyone who wants to hit the trail without breaking the bank. Diana Helmuth offers real advice, opinionated but accessible and based on in-the-field experiences. She wins readers’ hearts and trust through a blend of self-deprecating humor and good-natured heckling of both seasoned backpackers and urbanites who romanticize being outdoorsy, plus a helpful dose of the actual advice a novice needs to get started.

Featuring illustrations by artist Latasha Dunston, each chapter focuses on a critical topic: gear, food, hygiene, clothing, and more, along with useful checklists and resources. Humorous, philosophical, and practical, How to Suffer Outside teaches casual walkers, hikers, and campers of all stripes how to venture outdoors with confidence.

From the Publisher

Excerpt from Preface

I’m assuming you picked up this book because you’ve heard the call of the wild (or a friend gave it to you, because they think you’ve heard the call of the wild). Maybe you’ve already dabbled a bit in the great outdoors. Maybe someone took you fishing at a high-elevation lake when you were eight years old, and you find yourself drawn to the memory of breathing crisp, alien air in a valley of deafening quiet. Maybe you borrowed a minivan from your BFF’s mom in high school and corralled a group of friends into “camping” (i.e., you all got very drunk on Tecate in an open field and one of you tripped in the fire). Or, maybe you have even been on an overnight hiking trip.

Whatever your history, you’ve tasted enough of the wilderness to know you want a bigger bite. You’ve melted into a golden sunset, felt the wind rush up your body at the edge of a cliff, and felt your eyes stretch into white circles in the face of a moonrise. You understand there are places in the world so f—— beautiful that even emotionally stunted men in 1850 whose siblings died from famine and pox were driven to write ecstatic poetry and perform acts of religious fervor in their presence. You are itching to go see them. You aren’t scared of walking a couple miles. You are pretty sure you own a knife, even if you can’t remember where it is. You feel ready, even you’re not quite sure for what.

Let’s talk about that last part for a minute—that nagging question: Why . . . do I want to go backpacking? Backpacking is an eight-hour leg day that ends with no shower, a sunburn, and sleeping on the ground. It’s not so much about seeing whether you can survive without Grubhub or Netflix or FaceTime. It’s about going somewhere you won’t be able to FaceTime anyone even if you think you’re about to die. So why the hell do you want to do this?

Some people believe this is a personal, mystical question: “Why did I climb the mountain? Because it was there.” This is the iconic, George Mallory–coined response, which imagines nature as some ineffable, majestic plane of existence, and to define it is to tarnish its magnetism. The question cannot have an answer; the wild that can be named is not the eternal wild.

I think this is bull—-, and I have an answer. You long to go into nature because, unlike your home, job, car, bed, or school, it’s quiet, really quiet—the kind of quiet that exists when there is nothing to turn on. But this is deeper than “unplugging.” You long to go into nature because nature doesn’t care about you. To be clear, it’s not that nature sees you, accepts you for who you are, and loves you anyway: nature just doesn’t give a s— about you.

Someday, at some point in your life (if it hasn’t happened already), you’re going to look in the mirror and see something misshapen. A pile of failed goals, a bulging heap of inadequacy, one solitary, tragic hillock of human flesh. You’ll have no idea how anyone ever loved you, or will ever love you, or how you will ever accomplish anything worth remembering. You won’t see yourself. You won’t even see a person. You’ll see only a broken promise.

This is the best time to put everything in a backpack and leave. Why? Because nature doesn’t care that you feel this way. It doesn’t care about your job, your kids, your career goals, your half-baked plan to go back to school and get your masters, or your failed attempts at Whole30. Nature doesn’t care if you’ve read Twilight or Tolstoy, if you married the right person, or if you’re a bad person because you stopped speaking to your dad.

In nature, everything is distinctly not about you. Wake up—no one cares. Eat breakfast—no one cares. Pack up your s— —no one cares. Start walking—no one cares. If anything goes wrong, and you need help, or a hug— no one cares. You cannot call your bestie or look up your ex on Facebook to imagine what it would be like if they were there with you. With every step you take, the insignificance of your problems in the face of the natural world will be unavoidable. No one will be there to care about you—except you. In other words, you will be forced to self-soothe.

Excerpt from Chapter 3, Clothes: How to Not Get Killed by Your Jeans

“You shouldn’t wear those pants.” I was talking to my friend in a tone that I hoped expressed caution, but not so much concern that I triggered some kind of testosterone-fueled teenage rebellion flashback. Most people don’t like being told what to do in the woods—especially by seemingly incompetent pudgy girls. He had already graciously agreed to let me drag him away from the warm, loving purr of his custom gaming PC and out into the crisp air of the rocky, pine-filled lower Sierra Nevada in March.

I didn’t want to push my luck, but we were also right at the snow line. These were bad conditions for jeans. In fact, it was a miracle my two-wheel drive hatchback had even made it up here without whirling backward like a Mario Kart hit by a green turtle shell. “I only brought these pants,” he countered.

I wanted to sigh. Loudly. I wanted to womansplain to him both that jeans are a terrible idea in this mushy weather, and that we talked about this before we left (because we definitely, definitely talked about this before we left).

But I didn’t do either of these things. You sort of learn to pick your battles with some people. Plus, it was too late now (it wasn’t like there was a Target anywhere out here), and we were only going out for the day anyway. We had spent the night before in a nearby campground, sneaking in at midnight, laughing at the exorbitant camping fee of thirty-five dollars, and setting up our tent in an apparently empty campsite. We were awakened by a woman rattling our tent like a bell at five in the morning, tersely informing us, “You’re in our reservation.” We hastily packed up our tent, apologized in that s—– way that people do when they’re not actually sorry (just sorry you caught them), and with literally nowhere else to go, headed for the trailhead. It was now six o’clock, the temperature was forty-three degrees, and the sky was pregnant with rain clouds. Neither one of us had had coffee, and my hiking partner was wearing jeans.

“What’s so bad about jeans?” he asked.

“They’ll soak up all the water on the trail and they won’t dry. You’ll be walking in wet denim for six hours. They’ll be heavy, and you’ll be freezing.” His face changed, as if I was suddenly offering a dare. Like any minute he would start putting rocks in his backpack, just to prove he could do it. I

quickly backtracked. “You can do what you want, I just think it’s more comfortable not in jeans. That’s why I’m wearing fleece-lined leggings.”

However, since we both knew he didn’t have leggings, fleece-lined or otherwise, he decided to stick with the jeans. I agreed this was sensible, since the only other option was to hike naked, and we headed up into the mountains. We quickly got lost because the trail was snowed over and ended up walking in an almost perfect circle three times. An hour before sunset we turned back to avoid becoming an early bird buffet special for the ice zombies that were no doubt hanging out behind every single tree. My friend’s pants were soaked to the knee. His pallor suggested one of the zombies may have already gotten to him.

This wasn’t actually such a problem, because we were ultimately heading back to a car that would turn on and push hot air out of individual, adjust- able vents like magic. He could remove the pants and sit naked from the butt down in my car if he wanted to, while I brought in snacks and steaming drinks and we drove mere hours back to houses with insulation and blankets and hot water. Who cares if you day hike in jeans, even in the snow?

If we had been backpacking, though, he could have died.

Sample Spread from Chapter 9

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Mountaineers Books (August 24, 2021)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1680513117
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1680513110
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.5 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.5 x 8.5 inches