The Winter Camping Handbook: Wilderness Travel & Adventure in the Cold-Weather Months Book

I visited Lake Placid recently and thought how wonderful it would be to ski there and about the same time I discovered by coincidence that you can put a stove in a tent and go winter camping (or, the name I prefer, 'hot tenting' - or even a 'boondocking in a hooch', which is how I refer to it all in our house). I had better read up on it.

So I spent some time with this book and found it frustrating. I wish sometimes that authors would forsake continual prose and just write short paragraphs, lavishly illustrated with line drawings and checklists (there are some here, very good ones too) in order to provide a concise summary of what you need and what's important. I am not sure I want to know what this or that fella took on his expedition, or how he feels about these new-fangled nylon tents (I am a canvas man, at least in anticipation). There's loads of good advice (staying on tents, it's a good idea to get one a bit bigger, because winter calls for a lot of gear normally) but I find it a bit buried and hard to retrieve.

The photographs annoyed me because almost every one implies that it's all about skiing - downhill too. I want to hike mostly, and snowshoe, as well as x-country. The chapter on assembling a group of people to take on a trek was lost on me - it will be just me and my wife and I wonder how many would consider this book as a basis for a serious expedition? Conversely, I very much liked the chapter on nutrition.

Maybe I've got the hump when I read it because writing this out makes it seem better than it was. Oh well. Labor Day just been and there's a chill in the air at night...