Trail craft : an aid in getting the greatest good out of vacation trips

Front matter

MOTOR CAMPINQ

By

DR. CLAUDE P. FORDYCE

Foreword

Occasion is here taken to express appreciation for the co-operation of the following gentlemen who, as editors, have permitted the reprinting of my articles which have appeared in their respective magazines: Mr. Hy. S. Watson, of Field and Stream; Mr. Albert Britt, of Outing; Mr. Dan. B. Starkey, of Outers-Recreation; and Mr. J. A. McGuire, of Outdoor Life.

Claude P. Fordyce.

Falls City, Nebraska, October 6, 1921.

Introduction

Dear Doctor Fordyce:

I am glad you are publishing the book. All your articles on the out-of-doors life have seemed to me practical, sensible, and the product of much experience, plus some discriminative thought. In book form they ought to be a great help, as well as an inspiration to go out and see if it works. That, in the last analysis, is the main thing; — to get 'em out. If, in addition, you can give them hints that will, through their interest or comfort, keep 'em out, the job is complete.

Sincerely,

Stewart Edward White.

I

Contents

Chapter Page

I. Wilderness Handicraft 1 1

II. Outfitting for Go-Light Trips - - - 14

CHAPTER I Wilderness Handicraft

The enjoyment of a vacation really begins with the first preparation in which the participant makes free use of his own skill and ingenuity. The long winter evenings inspire the dyed-in-the-wool recreationalist to reminiscences of the past and to a delightful anticipation in formulating plans for the next season's joy. As spring opens, the Wanderlust permeates his whole being at the accidental mention of a name which savors of the wilderness, or mayhap by running across some item of duffle which brings out the old outfit, and from then on delightful hours are spent in rehauling in preparation for use. Never a season has been spent without alteration— some pet foible dropped from the list of supposedly necessary items and some new wrinkle substituted which boils the equipment down to that irreducible minimum which the touchstone of experience has taught is irrevocable.

Wilderness handicraft defines one's ingenuity displayed in making with his own hands devices which render the vacation less irksome, and this skill, pertaining as it does to the primitive pathways of the outdoors, is worthy of the specific term — Trail Craft.

Usage, never convention, is the only truthful dictator as to what is essential for the greatest utility. The selection of an outfit is a matter of individual temperament based on experience. What one calls a necessity, another calls a luxury, yet this same luxury, if one wants it bad enough, forthwith becomes a necessity. The fewer the items in your kit, the more must you have knowledge of how to live comfortably outdoors and how to employ the artifices of the camping art and how to utilize Nature's primitive stores.

You may elect to hit the trail "De Luxe" with an expensive and elaborate outfit carried by motor, which opens up a vast travel range and which permits the indulgence of various artifices of a luxurious civilization. Or you may be a true disciple of the Red Gods, going light, throwing off the fetters of restraint, emancipating yourself from the world of subterfuge and becoming a worthy dweller in the land where Nature has been undefiled by the desecrating hand of man. This Nomadage is the ideal way if you want to "do" the trick of getting close to Nature properly. You can pitch your camp wherever night overtakes you — today near the tranquil lake which stretches away to the distant hills that lead up to snow-fields and cloud-enshrouded pinnacles; tomorrow establishing the little bivouac in a clearing encircled on all sides by the unbroken chain of silent pine forest.

Following the trail is a delightful pastime. It demands simply a personal resolution to conquer and an adjustment of affairs to consummate. Its rewards are manifold. It is a primitive pathway whose following

WILDERNESS HANDICRAFT

brings one to the inner secrets of the wilderness habitants and the naive beauties of their sanctuaries; it satisfies the body and soul by demanding simple, hearty living; it promotes honest companionship born of co-operation in enduring hardship, and creates a spirit ever responsive to the Red God's Summons.

Chapter II

Unless he is gifted with a sustained enthusiasm for this sort of thing, the average individual never seriously entertains the thought of taking a hiking trip with bed, shelter, and food carried on his back. No — it means work, and he disdains to 'scab" on pack horses. As a matter of fact, knapsacking means no privation at all if one is properly equipped. This avocation of being pedestrian-amateur-explorer is the best way of satisfying those mysterious primordial impulses that guide men to a soul-satisfying communion with Nature, and the work supplies just that physical exertion needed for rejuvenation — a physical re-creation which most every one, and particularly the sedentarian, needs. There is much to be said in favor of this type of outing. It turns you into an explorer, thereby developing your initiative. You enjoy absolute independence from the conventional outing as regards locale and mode of living. Being entirely upon one's resources, it is the ultimate test of one's ability in woodcraft and certainly is a key to one's gaminess.

A check list of one's summer-hike needs is the only safe guarantee of hitting the trail with a complete equipage, and no more joyful hours can be spent than the winter overhauling of one's kit anticipatory of the summer's realization. While this cataloging is of unquestioned utility, yet it is apt to overawe the tyro

THE ART OF KNAPSACK I NG

1. and 2. The Duluth Pack Sack, with the head strap and center suspension shoulder straps, is best.

3. The hunting unit for the knapsacker requires a small gun, with collapsible stock,

its ammunition, a cleaner, and gun grease.

4. The silk shelter tent is weather-proof and yet gives the acme of comfort.

5. The chief enjoyment of hike trips is the independence they afford.

EQUIPMENT FOR HIKE TRIPS

1. Outdoor men agree upon certain indispensables which go into the pockets —

a compass, match-safe, goggles, first-aid kit, knife, mosquito dope, and an emergency ration.

2. The mess kit must be light in weight and compact, a small sharp axe is essen-

tial, and for lights a candle may suffice or a folding lantern.

into the belief that so much stuff is to be taken that back packing it and enjoying the trip at the same time is an utter impossibility. Many items occupy but small compass and are of negligible weight, and the science of going light is to get the essential units, such as bed, shelter, clothing, mess kit, provisions, and first-aid kit, boiled down to an irreducible minimum. The outfit may contain also certain optional units from which your choice will be according to the particular needs depending upon your temperament, the kind of country to be traversed, whether scenic, game, or fishing ; hence we may well include for your choice complete data for kits for photography, hunting, and fishing.

So important is it to be equipped rightly, that it is well to be specific in recommendation of those items which are deemed best for use as integral parts of an outfit which has passed the "acid test". Recommendations of equipment by hikers differ because there is no set standard, and hence are referable chiefly to individual preferences.

Knapsacking is a comparatively new game and it has been favored with but little published data. With this detached information the enthusiast has available but little organized method, and that is usually acquired by actual test. "In almost every art experience is worth more than precepts" (Quintillian).

The following notes on equipment are gleaned from tryouts of commonly used items with a view toward their particular adaptability in making the ideal knapsackers camp, where portability must be ultimate and utility paramount.

The foundation of go-light camping is the shelter, for two reasons — First, your trip will be a failure unless you are comfortable — you must sleep well and be protected from the weather and insect pests; secondly, the tent and sleeping equipment represent the bulkiest and heaviest items in the pack and must be reduced to a weight consistent with back packing, without sacrificing the utility for which they were intended.

Sleeping warm demands insulation by preventing the dissemination of heat waves, and, practically applied, I have found the best bed to be patterned after the suggestion made by Stewart Edward White. He recommends a wool felt pad, one inch thick and wide enough and long enough to accommodate the shoulder blades and hip bones. His blanket is of loosely-woven wool scarf material. But wool felt is hard to get. One may buy a wool batt at a department store, cover it with brown muslin and use it to make a thick shoulder and hip pad as light as the felt. An army blanket makes a good cover, but you should carry in it some cotton as well as wool. The preference of members of the mountaineering clubs is a wool-batt quilt covered with brown denim or muslin. Since many trips are taken where browse is hard to get we prefer the wool pad underneath in place of the browse bag as suggested by some outdoorsmen. The bag is the thing, however, where there is dependable supply of hay, grass, straw, or leaves for filling. Some like an air pillow, but a small muslin bag into which you put odd, soft, duffle items serves as a pillow very well. One kind, which proved popular with a mountaineering crowd in Glacier Park, was my knit helmet similar to that which the soldiers used. It comes down over the neck and has an opening for the face. Using it as a sleeping cap it denes drafts and colds.

The desirable bed is in the shape of a sleeping bag with a cover which can be opened for airing and drying. It must be of balloon silk with waterproofing on the bottom only. My first sleeping bag was too small and I collated all the evil things men had said about sleeping bags and heartily wished for a companion to aid me in getting into the thing by the assistance of a shoehorn. And once in I couldn't bend my knees, and when I rolled over, the bag and bedding went with me. A roomy bag obviated the difficulties.

Doubtless the most indispensable item in making up light-weight camp equipment is balloon silk. It has revolutionized tent making and allows of the greatest freedom in a display of ingenuity. It goes into the make-up of such items as food bags, camera cover, water bucket, etc. The latter is particularly appreciated by the hiker. It is simply a transformed gxio-inch food bag with a wooden embroidery hoop sewed into the top and a tape carrying handle attached thereto.

My favorite pack sack is the Duluth or Poirier style, whose pattern was somewhat modified by attaching an axe hanger on the back under the flap and extending the open top of the bag a foot or so with a puckering string at the edge. The bag, too, is made of balloon silk reinforced with tapes.

I have tried every tent or shelter that I know of being recommended for knapsacking. My preference is the sportsman's compac. It packs lightly (3^ pounds)

1 17 1 and is sufficiently roomy to accommodate two men. It is simply and quickly set up by staking out the four corner pegs under a tree and is suspended by throwing the peakrope over a projecting limb, or on mountaineering trips over two crossed alpenstocks. The peak is low, but the tent is well braced against storms and is particularly adapted to open country. A very desirable feature is the protection it affords. The floor is sewed in, making the roof, sides, and bottom all in one piece, thus it is snake-, bug-, and wind-proof. Little windows or ventilators allow of proper ventilation of air when the tent is buttoned up. No one shelter can be said to be so adapted to use in all kinds of camping as to be called the best all-round tent; but for the temporary mobile camp of the hiker, mountaineer, canoe cruiser, or boy scout the compac is the scientifically constructed answer to our needs.

Possibly the rock upon which are wrecked the ambitions of most walking enthusiasts, particularly women, is improper foot covering. Ordinary street shoes are taboo. Moccasins or shoe pacs are right for woods travel, but for most walking the Munson last, korry-krome army shoes are the best. It is refreshing to note the reversal to sane foot covering since the war. And the Munson last has done it. Women en tour can get the proper shoes as offered on the market for boy scouts.

Specifically the shoes must be a size larger than those needed for ordinary street wear. This is to accommodate the thick, heavy wool lumberman's socks, which act as a cushion for the feet, and to care properly for wetness from the outside and perspiration from within, to prevent blisters, and to safeguard against chill even though one's feet are soaked in snow water the day long. Further specifications are that the shoe must have a soft toe cap and a broad double sole extending from toe to heel. Have your shoemaker put on this extra sole and stud this with Hungarian cone-headed hobnails, a row just back of the toe, a row over the ball of the foot, and a horseshoe row around the heel. Where much slippery walking is anticipated as on wet logs, grass, or rocks, we carry in the kit ready for such use two dozen No. 7 winged lumberman's screw calks with a small wrench. The sole is painted with copal varnish and the uppers and welt well daubed with melted cocoanut butter three parts and beeswax one part.

Experienced tropical travelers prefer wool to cotton on account of the proper insulation. For personal wear experience proves to be best the knee-length duxbak riding trousers, spiral, wool puttees, army wool shirt, light wool undersuit and an army campaign hat. Instead of a sweater or coat a cardigan jacket or the Filson cruising shirt of forestry green, woolen outing cloth is ideal for it keeps out wind, is warm, and to a certain degree waterproof. A commendable feature of the Filson shirt is the double back which can be used as a small pack sack for short trips and numerous voluminous pockets with snap buttons which harbor many items which one wants to get at quickly.

All woolen articles except the quilt, undersuit, and shirt are waterproofed by lanolin. Before being woven into a fabric, wool is treated to remove the natural oil. By returning this oil to the fibers, they will not swell up when immersed in water; the water simply interposes

1 19 1 in the minute spaces between the fibers and can be easily shaken out.

In the pocket should be found the usual indispensables which all outdoor men carry : a waterproof match box for emergency, the daily supply for the camp fire and pipe being carried in the small watch pocket in the trousers (the general supply is carried in a pry-up lid tin in the pack), a jack-knife, a compass pinned to the shirt (be sure to take one along whether you think you will need it or not; it is good to refer to to keep in practice for the time when you will need it). A notebook with pencil will contain notes on cooking and room for daily jotting down happenings. The Burroughs Wellcome Exposure Calculator, recommended in the photo kit, is in the form of a wallet containing also a notebook, pencil, and pages for the exposure record. A common blue bandanna kerchief has many uses from a neckerchief, a hand towel, to tying down a hat in a hard wind, etc. A U. S. Geological Survey map of the region to be visited should be cut or folded to a 5x7- inch size and slipped into an envelope of celluloid secured from an auto-top maker. Goggles are needed to prevent injury to the eyes from sun glare. Amber (green) glass in metal rims is best, as this color soaks up the actinic rays which hurt the eyes.

The first-aid unit is carried in an empty tobacco tin and comprises a flat packet of Z O adhesive plaster (one inch x one yard) to treat blisters and abrasions of the skin, to repair the rain cape and a possible leak in the camera bellows, to seal baking powder tins and photo film containers from moisture; an ampoule or sealed vial of aromatic spirits of ammonia for inhaling in fainting and shock ; a trench tube of iodine for wound antisepsis; a vial of aspirin for colds; a laxative; aseptic gauze in waxed paper; a tube of analgesic balm; and a snake-bite kit. This last is a wooden tube with screw-cap ends which have at one end a quantity of potassium permanganate and at the other a small lance. When used the lance is sterilized in boiling water and then used to make a crucial incision over the fang puncture, and the permanganate crystals are rubbed in while coffee or other stimulant is given by mouth.

Protection against rain is really needed. The army poncho is commonly used, but the rain cape is better, as it has all of the poncho's good points but protects the arms better, slips on over the arms and pack, yet leaves the arms free and is quite airy underneath. It reaches from the neck to the knees and weighs nineteen ounces.

In summer the two-pound axe with a twenty-fourinch handle is fine for a real wilderness jaunt. On fall or spring trips a larger axe would be needed in view of the need for more fuel for the camp fire.

The housewife is the answer to first aid for mending and it consists of a leather wallet or food bag containing bachelor buttons, large-eyed needles, linen thread wound on a card, sail needles and waxed thread as used by the shoe-sole sewing machines, safety pins, four blanket pins, rubber bands, extra shoe laces, copper split-end rivets, and a small whetstone.

The wilderness traveler doing photography must work under adverse light conditions occasionally and must take a tripod. A rapid rectilinear lens will produce good pictures if you use it right. We are apt to expect too much from the fine, expensive anastigmat

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lens; we will use it for most work at f. 6, 8, or 16, and the f. 4.5 is good for the reserve light power we may have need for in poor lighting. I prefer a small size, z}ix-$}i inches, and if I get negatives worth anything at all they are worth enlarging; and to get detail for enlarging one must stop down the diaphragm and prolong the exposure; and so we must use a tripod.

A general rule for an amateur is to stop down to f . 16 and give one-twenty-fifth of a second exposure; but to be more accurate on all types of subjects under different light conditions use a Wellcome Exposure Calculator or a Harvey Meter. A portrait lens is needed for close work on flowers, etc. Experimenting to get the proper distance between camera and subject should be mastered before taking the trip. A ray filter is necessary to get full color correction in most scenic work. The light in deep woods is hard to gauge without an actinometer such as a Watkins or Trilux. Camp-fire scenes are happy mementoes of any camping trip; they are taken by flash and we prefer the flash sheets to the powder which, if spilled, is lost. If using roll film, order that it be put into waterproof cartons as prepared for the tropics. Film packs are best carried in pry-up tins to exclude moisture.

In considering the hunting unit for knapsack trips we must use a special gun of general utility and light in weight. Stewart Edward White has the right idea when he states in The Forest: "During the summer months in the North Woods you will not need a rifle. Partridges, spruce hens, ptarmigan, rabbits, ducks, and geese are usually abundant enough to fill the provision list. For them, of course, a shotgun is the thing, but since such a weapon weighs many pounds and its ammunition many more, I have come gradually to depend upon a pistol. The instrument is single shot, carries a six-inch barrel, is fitted with a special butt, and is built on the graceful lines of the 38-calibre Smith & Wesson revolver. Its cartridge is the 22 long rifle, a target size that carries as accurately as you can hold for upwards of a hundred yards. With it I have often killed a half-dozen of partridges from the same tree. The ammunition is light. Altogether it is a most satisfactory, convenient and accurate weapon and quite adequate to all small game/* Mr. White likely refers to the Stevens make of gun. My personal preference is the Game Getter of two barrels each, single shot, one barrel handling the 22 long-rifle cartridge, and the other, a 44 bullet or shot cartridge.

No hiker should hit the trail into a country where there is a possibility of getting fish without at least an emergency fishing kit — short rigged lines, hooks and minnow hooks, the barbs cut down with a file one half. For more serious fishing the kit will be governed by the species one is after; if for trout take a suit-case bamboo rod or a telescoping metal rod, a single action reel, narrow pattern, twenty-five yards of size E enameled line, a half-dozen best quality gut leaders in an aluminum case, and an assortment of flies in a book, and several split shot.

The essentials in the mess-kit unit are : A collapsible handled steel frying pan, nine-inch size, a deep plate, a quart bucket with a lid, a common pint cup with handle riveted on, a dessert spoon, a fork, and for cutting purposes depend on the jack- or sheath-knife.

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The above can be assembled at any ten-cent store. The ordinary fry pan handle should be cut off to a two-inch length and a metal ferrule riveted on to accommodate a stick lengthener at the camp fire. The boy scout outfit, which nests compactly, can be purchased in aluminum, which is in every way desirable, with the exception of the cup, which must be of tin to prevent burning of the lips.

It is hard for the average amateur to provide properly the provisions unit, as he usually makes the mistake of trying to get too much concentration of food at the expense of the stomach. Foods for the hiker must be first of all nourishing, next palatable, and lastly must be light in weight, which means that water must be eliminated. Thus, evaporated vegetables and fruits are a boon to the knapsack traveler. Recent studies of evaporated foods show that many of them lack the vital vitamines so essential to health. All evaporated fruits are O. K., and evaporated potatoes, onions and soup greens are recommended. We figure on a basis of two pounds per man per day. The components for one man one week, without fish and game secured en route, would be as follows:

Flour Ration Seasoning

Graham flour 32 ounces Sugar., in cubes. ... 39 ounces

Yellow corn meal. . 16 ounces Salt 7 ounces

Baking powder ... 4 ounces

Soup powder 7 ounces Cereal Ration

Rice 16 ounces

Meat Ration Two-minute oat food. . 12 oz.

Trimmed bacon. . . 48 ounces

Dried beef 10 ounces Fruit Ration

Cheese or nuts. ... 7 ounces Raisins 14 ounces

Dessicated egg. ... 12 ounces Apricots 7 ounces

Butter 14 ounces Prunes 7 ounces

Milk powder 14 ounces

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Drinks

Milk chocolate 14 ounces

Soluble coffee powder 1 ounce Tea tabloids 21 tablets

Miscellaneous 1 plumber's candle 500 matches in pry-up tin

Notes on Cuisine

Rice is one of the most compact and concentrated of foods, easy to pack and cook and very sustaining. It replaces in food elements potatoes and bulky breakfast foods. Cooked with raisins by adding slowly to furiously boiling and salted water, and cooking for twenty minutes when they are drained of water and set aside to steam and swell.

Sugar must be considered not alone as a sweetening agent but a powerful producer of heat and energy. It cannot be replaced by saccharine, which bulk for bulk is many times sweeter than sugar, but which has no food value and will upset digestion. The cube or domino sugar can be recovered after a spill.

All powdered rations should be carried in balloon-silk paraffined bags; egg powder, butter, and matches in tins with pry-up lids; salt in board mailing cartons, and meat wrapped in cheesecloth and waxed paper.

Excellent soup stuff is produced by taking common canned beans of the corner grocer, spreading them out thin in a broad bake pan, drying them in the sun or in an oven without scorching, and then pulverizing the crumbling crust and packing in a food bag. This is better than the pea-meal soup stocks; it makes a fine gruel or soup and the nourishing qualities of beans are well known.

Plenty of washed cheesecloth provides dish cloths for

[ 25 1 the commissary, and this cloth is popular with mountain club members as a substitute for toweling. A bar of good soap which lathers well in cold water and can be used for washing woolens does duty as hand, face, and dish-washing soap.

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Chapter III

The popularity of vagabondage a la automobile is firmly established. One need not reason far for the causes: Most every family owns some sort of motor car or has one at his disposal, which solves the vacation problem of how to "get there", and makes the highway voyager quite independent of railroads, hotels, and garage rentals — cheapening travel. Motoring America is awakening to the necessity of good roads, and even the remoter corners of our scenic wonderlands, which formerly appealed to us as the untracked wilderness, are now feasible for motor vacations. Finally we are changing as a race of sedentarians and stay-at-homes to a people who enjoy the outdoor life and realize the need of recreation for efficiency and longevity — for surely Nature is a better tonic and rejuvenator than any medicine or healing "ism" which man has contrived.

This combination of favorable circumstances has so increased the travel range of vacationists that remote landmarks in our unrivaled playgrounds have become cosmopolitanized and the names of little streams, bizzare rock formations, canyons and the high passes of towering peaks have become fireside bywords. Statistical data from the seasonal reports of national parks' superintendents surprise us in their tabulations of the great numbers of motor tourists who

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yearly are putting the "See America First" slogan into an actual accomplishment, and who, by doing it with gasoline, are seeing things right. Cities have awakened to the equipping of special parks and community accommodations for the creature comforts of these petrol tourers, and prosperous towns have sprung up in arid waste lands, solely on account of their being advantageous supply points on some motor highway.

In equipping for motor camping certain precepts govern our choices just as in any kind of camping. The kit must be suited to the means of transportation, and it should be as light, compact and efficient as it is possible to make it. With its weight- and bulk-carrying capacity, the motor car permits the use of an outfit which insures comfortable living, particularly for those who have looked upon camping in general as more or less of a hardship and a deprivation. Yet the motor outfit may be vastly overdone — one is apt to take along too many items, and his choice of what we may call the essentials is woefully unwise.

Witness the daily procession of motor tourists with an occasional flivver moaning under a load of duffle more suited to a truck — young trunks lashed fore and aft, wire bottom, rigid beds reposing alongside, kerosene stoves, which should have been left at home in the kitchen, unsanctimoniously toted on an auto-running board, together with baby chairs, large shovels, and lengthy canvas-covered bedding rolls, heavy bulky tenting stuff, and long poles jabbing the landscape. Individually they undoubtedly present needful parts of our kit, but they could be easily replaced by compact folding equipment.

MOVABLE MOTOR CAMPS

Thor1rne°n T<m ° and 3) U ideal for the m°torist. It can be A bed and tent combined (2) A bed slung over the seats (4).

Certain indispensables are commonly agreed upon as essentials, hence this is no place to exploit some pet freak in the way of a camp outfit, but rather is it incumbent upon me to tell of an outfit which has stood the acid test — one which has served me well on week-end trips near home, on longer summer vacation excursions in our national parks, and on a year's transcontinental and coastal tour, and one as suitable to a week's outing as a year-long cruise.

To enjoy camping at its best we will steer clear of hotels, cafes, and garage rents, and our nighttime camps will be found in some timbered valley away from the business-frenzied throngs, and this means that one must carry his own bedroom, shelter, kitchen, and provisions. The enjoyment of any camp trip is safeguarded if one sleeps well. With a motor car we have the carrying capacity for a real bed. Some enthusiast has contrived a bed to rest on the backs of the front and rear seats of the touring car, and when the curtains are adjusted this makes a cozy, quickly prepared overnight abode. It you are camping for the fun of it, you will take more time for making camp and will put up a tent.