Fletcher Vs Kephart

RIP the great Welsh-Californian Colin FLetcher, who pushed me into smart backpacking at age 15. Yet I might say that as pure literature, I much prefer Horace Kephart's equally weighty 1920 "Camping and Woodcraft" in its University of Tennessee facscimile edition. Kephart was champion of Smokey Mt Natl Park and Stevens Favorite though neither was mentioned in C&W.

Rest in peace, indeed.

However, I find the title of your post, "Fletcher vs Kephart," somewhat unfortunate. What appears at first glance to be a tribute to a man who was an inspiration to many who love the outdoors quickly devolves into a comparison of two great outdoorsmen.

As a matter of fact, I have both "Camping and Woodcraft" and "Complete Walker IV" open on my desk right now. I enjoy both immensely, for different reasons. Kephart allows me to journey to an earlier time and learn the so-called "traditional" outdoor skills. Fletcher allows me to learn sharpen my skills with the gear that is readily available today.

From a literary/stylistic standpoint, Fletcher is difficult to top. However, if you feel the need to rate one over the other, you should probably do so on the strength of their non-how-to books--say "The Man Who Walked Through Time" vs "Our Southern Highlanders."

Fletch wins then in my book because I am not so fond of "Southern Highlanders" and would rather re-read "Thousand Mile Summer." But Kephart's writing in C&W is extra special to me and I wish more of his stuff was available.

Fletcher's obituary is sad news indeed, because all of us, really, owe him a debt that can never be repaid. Soon after spending six nights around tree-line in southern Rockies & facing rather grim wood shortage in 1971, I read Fletcher's advice about Svea stoves. CARRA MIA !!!

In general, though, the same could be said for Kephart. I think Fletcher ultimately sold more books, but Kephart held the record for genre for many decades. Both Kephart's writing, and to a lesser extent Fletcher's are/is now archaic and historically peculiar. But Kephart, and the highly conservative publishing culture of his era, did aspire to a higher literary standard than Fletcher and his era.

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Fletcher was a phenomenal influence on more than one generation of backpacker - in fact - it's fun to read the various versions of the Complete Walker to see how he (Fletcher) evolved as technology and equipment changed.

He made me the tarp hound that I am - I'll give him credit for that - and "the man who walked through time" has remained on my "personal top book" list for many years.

http://www.amazon.com/Downward-Bound-Climbing-Menasha-Classics/dp/0897321014 - if you're interested - no - you can't have my copy!

Much like when Warren "Batso" Harding died, the outdoors world has lost a real character with the passing of Fletcher. While most modern outdoors "experts" seem so damn serious, Fletcher kept it light - he knew that the main reason to get out there and backpack was to have fun -

As for Batso - if you consider yourself a climber and haven't read "downward bound" - you owe it to yourself to find a copy - the rantings of this Vulgarian (his term, not mine) can make the darkest days of your life seem just a little brigher -

RIP Colin -

Steve

Steve -
The Vulgarians were (are?) a quasi-formal climbing club based in 'Gunks. Batso was just one of the many famous hardmen and hardwomen associated with that group. http://www.traditionalmountaineering.org/FAQ_Vulgarians.htm

Fritz Weissner (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Wiessner) who pioneered climbing in the 'Gunks in the 1930s, was one of the inspirations of the group when it started in the late 1950s as a rebellion against an increasing amount of regulation and licensing of climbing.

There was an article in National Geographic's Adventure magazine not long ago - http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/0509/sports/rock_climbing.html

I have a copy of a "vulgarian digest" from the early 70's somewhere (probably in a box up in my dads attic) - really good stuff. I recall an in-depth article about different types of cheap wine and their impact on sounds and smells one generates after consuming them.

I also have some friends who can't figure out why I don't take stuff more seriously - but every time I try to I get this mental image of Batso and Dean posing for advert pics while on the dawn wall (aka wall of the early morning light - el capitan) - drinking wine - apparently out of crystal glasses they humped up the wall just for that purpose. I mean when you're thinking about something that absurd - how can you NOT laugh at the chunk of skin that just came off in a rather nasty off-width?

Sure - some 'hard man / gym rat' could probably push the dawn wall free solo in five hours now - but reading about the "bat cart" and the rest of the stuff they tried - I have a feeling Warren and Dean had a lot more fun!

Thanks for the links - I'm gonna go check 'em out -

Steve

The "bat cart" was actually invented by Bill Feuer, the Dolt, and was called the Dolt Cart. Dolt also invented a lot of other stuff, and is the person Dolt Tower on the Nose Route is named after. Dolt pitons were one of the most sought-after kinds of pins, plus he made some of the earliest US-made chocks. I had a rope (120 ft 7/16 white nylon rope I bought from Dolt from the back of his car - a collector gave me a brand new 70 m Dominator in exchange for the 60 foot piece I had left after using it to tow cars after I retired it from climbing). Barb has a miniature Dolt piton (brass) that Dolt gave her that we have been offered several hundred bucks for (no way you sell a gift from a friend like that), plus I still have 2 Dolsters (hammer holsters) and some other items. Crazy guy (in a good way for a climber), who became very paranoid over others stealing his designs and eventually committed suicide. A very sad day for those of us who were his friends.

Didn't Warren Harding drink himself to death in a trailer in California? I associate him more with 1960s Yosemite and not Gunks. Kephart died in a drunken driving accident while doing professional research on moonshiners of the Southern Appalachians. Fletcher was probably healthier than both but for the accident. His hike through the Grand Canyon was interesting and very dangerous. Kephart's physical achievements apart from a few strenous bear hunts were apparently modest.

No, Harding did not "drink himself to death in a trailer".

http://www.supertopo.com/articles/harding.html

http://www.huecotanks.com/Capitalists/mountainTools/warren.htm

Looking at what he accomplished on those lovely granite walls, I'd say it's more likely that Batso lived himself to death than anything else. In my personal opinion, that cannot be a bad thing.

Where does it say that Harding didn't drink himself to death in a trailer? (Sadly, he did.) Harding was an accomplished and romantic figure, regardless of means and locale of his demise. Harding had a major influence on climbing and even the larger culture, but his influence as derived soley from writing is very minor compared with Fletcher or Kephart. I doubt very much that Harding ever visited the Gunks.

Calamity - you show ME where it says that Batso "drank himself to death in a trailer" - if it's on-line I'd like the URL - just for my own edification - not that it matters - he was what, 77 years old when he passed which in my eyes is a pretty danged good life and having your friends and family around you when you pass (mentioned in his obit) seems like it'd be a great way to go. Romantic? Perhaps not - but then again - what form of death is romantic?

As writers, neither Fletcher nor Harding could be considered either prolific nor influential. Both Fletcher and Harding wrote with a fantastic sense of humor but neither could be considered members of the literati. Both wrote in a somewhat journalistic and instructional style rather than attempting to create great literature.

I'm not a fan of Kephart, his writing is interesting but his methods are from a different time. He was quite influential in creating the Smokey Mountain National Park - so that's a positive, but to camp today as he did early in the last century would be, at a minimum, unethical and for good reason, our understanding of personal environmental impact has grown well beyond that of Kephart's time.

I don't know if Batso ever climbed in the Gunks or Joshua Tree or Eldorado Canyon for that matter - as his thing was big walls, I don't know why he'd have bothered.

So - Fletcher verus Kephart - well Kephart is interesting from an historical point of view - the methods he describes having used are fine examples of how not to camp in the modern world. Fletcher, coming from a more modern time, better reflects the real world ethics and concerns of wilderness travel in the late 20th to early 21st centuries.

Batso? Batso wrote about suffering and hard work with such a great sense of adventure and humor it made you want to climb - it made you look at quarries and cliff faces and "see" routes. Batso also let you know, as a young reader, that if convention was holding you back or standing in the way of your dreams - to say to heck with convention and follow those dreams and see where they could take you. His audience may have been limited - but for many of us who read DB when we were young - he was quite influential.

Plus - any of 'em were more fun to read than Camus.

Steve -
I can personally attest to Batso having climbed in JTree and at least one visit to the Gunks. The statement about drinking himself to death in a trailer is, to put it kindly, a gross distortion of the facts, with a large embellishment of fiction. A statement like "where does it say he did not" is in the same category as "when did you stop beating your wife and kids?" Even though you can find the truth in a quick search of the web, once loosed, such canards just don't go away.

Bill - thanks for the clarification. As they used to say in the TV show the X files - "the truth is out there" -

Steve

Even I, a Canuck who has never been to California or was especially impressed by a lot of the "wildman" antics so popular among some climbers, knew of Warren "Batso" Harding.

I cannot understand WHY ANYONE would post something so cruel and derogatory as Calamity's comments; this is really a crappy way to demean a fascinating character.

Of course, from what I have seen in previous posts, I am not surprised.

Sad and deplorable as it may be, I only find snippets on Harding's mode of death on the Web in very brief search. I can post LA Times obit excerpts at later date if anyone is interested.

This excerpt from Yosemite Association.org, of which I know absolutely nothing. suggests Harding's gruesome death in his trailer:

"(The late) Galen Rowell went to visit Mr. Harding on his deathbed three days before he died. He said his friend woke from a semicomatose state to ask for a glass of wine, which Rowell obliged."

Changing the subject, to Kephart you are quite right to point out his obscelesance, yet see also his description of British ultra-light kit that included down sleeping bag, Silk tent with bamboo frame, and rubber mat and alcohol "pad" stove weighting about the same as the similar modern gear. Kephart dismissed this kit completely, and advocated browse bags in lieu of mattresses--- a disatrous plan today, except where dry leaves and pine needles are available in great quantity.

Kephart was a classically trained scholar who worked aa rare manuscripts librarian in Italy for a number of years around 1900. His book on camping sold massively for three or four decades in the U.S.

Fletscher's influence on camping in past thirty years, is if anything, more significant than Kepharts previously, and is widely attested. Fletscher was a little more honest than Kephart, although his writing wasn't as refined. I do hope to read Harding's book some day.

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Calamity -

A glass of wine is hardly what I would call "drinking himself to death." As for the "trailer", Batso was a carpenter by trade. He and his companion had been working to build a house for some years on his property, living meanwhile in a modular house. Yes, some people call those "mobile homes", and others call them "trailers" when disparaging them. But modular houses are pretty permanently emplaced, with permanent utility hookups. If you had to tow them to another location, it would require several days of preparation and a towing tractor like that used for an 18-wheeler. As kutenay said, to characterize the situation in the extremely negative way you did is demeaning, to say the least. Currently in this area, there is a court case in which the wife of a famous defense lawyer was brutally murdered in the modular house they were living in while their multi-million dollar mansion was being completed (the teenage son of a neighbor has been found guilty, but appeals are on-going). By your characterization, this world-famous defense lawyer and his wife (a well-known professional in her own right) were "trailer trash."

One thing that I have learned over the years is that twin children named prejudice and ignorance which seem to thrive in the minds of some humans seem to know few, if any, boundaries.

I've learned many other things as well, but at this moment in time the above is the only "G" rated tidbit I can share ...

ig·no·rance –noun the state or fact of being ignorant; lack of knowledge, learning, information, etc.

prej·u·dice
–noun 1. an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason.

We ALL have predudices and ignorances, no matter who we are.