Category: (Book)
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Here's what reviewers said about the first edition of The Essential Outdoor Gear Manual
"The trouble with outdoor equipment is that everyone has an opinion--one usually based on advertising hype, personal bias, or hearsay. Finally, here's a book that gives you all the information necessary to make objective buying decisions. This book, with its sound advice, will save you money and make you a better backcountry traveler."--Nancy Prichard, outdoor adventure journalist
"Think about something that we all need, yet we'd all hate to have to write a book about. After mouthwash, we'd probably settle on gear repair and maintenance. Thank goodness Annie Getchell came along with her artist's sensitivity for detail, a flair for language, and best of all, her wit. From repairing zippers to selecting 'green' adhesives, she nails it and keeps us smiling the entire distance."--John Viehman, Publisher of Backpacker and Executive Producer and Series Host of Anyplace Wild
"The Essential Outdoor Gear Manual has set a new standard for books about gear."--Backcountry
"All of us should be grateful to Annie Getchell for creating what is the best book I have ever seen on caring for and repairing your outdoor gear. If you want to know how to make your gear last longer, you need this book. . . . This is the complete word on care and repair."--Adventure West
"The big challenge with this sort of book is to make what is essentially an instruction manual into something that's pleasant to read, functional, and authoritative. Annie Getchell pulls it off."--Alan Kesselheim, writer and noted long-distance paddler
Good, but poor photo editingReviewed by C. Hartje, 2008-09-28
The book has a lot of topics that would be helpful to those that do their own repair and want to protect their outdoor gear investment. However, the photo editor of the book seemed to leave in a lot of notations, instead of cleaning it up. There are dozens of photos that say "FPO: Please slip in provided film" it is very annoying.
Truly essentialReviewed by Arturo DiGenero, 2001-04-01
This is a comprehensive and thorough guide to caring for, and to a lesser extent, buying, backpacking and paddling gear. There are also short sections on climbing and ski-touring gear. The authors have a distinct bias towards repairing rather than replacing gear, which leads them to give less info about what to buy than "Rock and Ice Gear" by Clyde Soles.
The book is full of clear and useful drawings and photos. The lists of essential tool kits for different trips are invaluable.
The pun-filled prose and the Getchells' earthy-crunchy, smarmy preaching quickly grow tiresome if you spend a good deal of time with the book, however.
