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CAMPING IN THE
WESTERN MOUNTAINS
by Kenneth Rexroth
(Unpublished manuscript, ca. 1939)
CONTENTS:
1. Minimum Equipment
2. Minimum Provisions
3. Equipment for Larger Parties, Pack Trips, and Fixed Camps
4. The Camp
5. Provisions for Larger Parties, Pack
Outfits, and Fixed Camps
6. Horses, Mules,
Burros, Riding, Packing, and Horse Furniture
7. First Aid
8. Cooking
9. The Trail
10. Climbing
11. Songs
12. Winter Camping
PREFACE
Besides being a wonderful poet, painter, essayist, translator
and social critic, Kenneth Rexroth was also a highly
experienced camper and mountaineer. In his late teens he worked several summers as a
cowboy cook and wrangler (one who takes care of horses) as well as at various
forestry jobs in the Northwest. Once he moved to San Francisco (1927), he
usually spent two to four months every year in the Sierra
Nevadas or other western
mountains, and continued doing so for at least a few weeks a year
well into his sixties. He describes these experiences in a
few pages of his autobiography and they form the
theme or background of many of his poems, but only in the present text can we really see how
thoroughly familiar he was with just about every aspect of natural history and wilderness living.
Camping in the Western Mountains
was written in the late 1930s and was originally intended as a WPA publication.
The WPA (Works Progress Administration) was a New Deal program designed to
create jobs during the Depression. One of its branches, the Federal Writers’ Project,
enlisted out-of-work writers to put together guidebooks to each of the 48 states
as well as to several major cities.
Rexroth contributed to the volumes California: A Guide to the Golden
State (1939) and San Francisco: The Bay and Its
Cities (1940), and he
also planned or worked on several other WPA projects that
never materialized, including “A
Field Handbook of the Sierra Nevadas” and guidebooks
to Sequoia and Kings River National Parks. I don’t know if he
got very far
with any of the latter projects, but he completed Camping in
the Western Mountains. The book was never published by
the WPA. It is thought that this may have been because Rexroth made some
political enemies among the people in charge of the California Writers’ Project,
though the book itself contains no explicit political statements apart from the
passing mention of anarchism in chapter 4. The book was apparently also rejected by the Macmillan Company in 1940.
The manuscript (currently located in
the library of the State University of New York at Buffalo) consists of 242
typed, double-spaced pages, plus a few handwritten and partially illegible notes
that may have been intended as inserts. The complete
text is reproduced here
with the permission of Bradford Morrow, Literary Executor of the Kenneth Rexroth
Trust.
Written more than sixty years ago,
the text is naturally outdated in many regards. In particular, tents,
backpacks, sleeping bags and other equipment are significantly lighter, cheaper,
and better constructed than in Rexroth’s day. Thus, although his
general remarks on the desirable features to look for in camping gear remain largely valid, much of his
specific
advice is now
of purely historical interest. The “very
expensive” backpack he recommends, “ranging in price from $15 to $25,” seems
unbelievably cheap by current standards, but in the 1930s that was
equivalent to several hundred modern dollars, at a time when the
Depression was not yet over and most people could barely make ends meet. People in those days
also tended to be more skilled in sewing, carpentry, handicrafts, etc., so Rexroth’s
detailed instructions on making one’s own backpack or sleeping bag
were more practical than they now
might seem. This
is probably also the case with his
lengthy chapter on pack animals. I
have no experience with that form of camping,
but my
impression is that it is less common than it used to be,
and that those who do it generally rely on professional guides and packers to
take care of most of the matters that Rexroth discusses.
The modern trend is much more toward backpacking (which in the thirties was
not all that common, in part no doubt because the equipment was so heavy and
bulky), traveling as light as possible, and thus rarely staying out more than a
week or so. If Rexroth’s lists of
equipment and provisions
seem rather extensive, it should be borne in mind that he is usually presuming an outing of 2-3 weeks,
with the use of pack animals if
necessary.
Many other things have changed in one way or another —
wilderness areas are more crowded, lightweight
propane stoves may replace wood fires (in many places they must do so due to revised
park regulations), more varieties of compact high-nutrition food are available, “moleskin” is better
than bandaids for
treating or preventing blisters, ziplock baggies could in many cases replace the
homemade “oiled silk bags” he so often recommends. . . . But everything considered, the book remains remarkably
reliable in most regards. When Terry Gustafson, a professional ranger, packer and trail guide with decades of experience in the western mountains, was asked to check the
manuscript in view of possible publication in 1994, he found no more than four or five
significant details to object to. (One is quoted in chapter 6; the others mostly
involved changed theories of first aid treatment.) I
would not suggest that a camper rely exclusively on Rexroth’s book, but it could certainly serve as a useful supplement to
more recent manuals. Newer campers will get good general
guidelines; experienced ones will pick up some fine points while no doubt
fervently disagreeing with one or another of Rexroth’s opinions; and even
stay-at-homes should enjoy the wry comments that are sprinkled throughout the
book.
When I first got the manuscript, I
impatiently skimmed through the lists and technical details in the desire to
get to his regrettably brief remarks of more “general interest” on hiking and climbing, and I
thought that I would reproduce only a few excerpts from the book. But as I
reread it I came to savor the other
parts as well, and soon decided to put
the whole thing online. Like virtually everything
Rexroth wrote about virtually any subject, it
somehow manages to be entertaining and inspiring at the same time. Even the most
dated parts are usually of some human or historical interest.
I have silently corrected typos and
occasionally edited Rexroth’s
punctuation (which was more lax at this stage than in his
later writings), changing commas to semicolons or periods or adding hyphens when
that seemed to make the text read more clearly. Apart from that I
have strictly followed
Rexroth’s text without worrying too much about stylistic consistency.
All remarks within square brackets are
mine. In a few cases where it might make a practical
difference I have noted statements that are no longer true, but it goes without
saying that there are numerous other outdated passages that I have not pointed
out. Information regarding park regulations, first aid, etc., should always be
verified from reliable current sources. I would
appreciate comments from knowledgeable outdoorspeople about any errors they
may notice.
—Ken Knabb
October 2003
Kenneth Rexroth’s Camping in the Western Mountains
is copyright 2003. Reproduced with permission of the Kenneth Rexroth Trust.
[REXROTH ARCHIVE]
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