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GOING HIGH TO GET HIGH

By Thomas Winnett, Wilderness Press Founder

As I write this, it is nearly 40 years since we at Wilderness Press held a celebration to promote the first edition of Sierra North and the upcoming Sierra South, one-of-a-kind books Karl Schwenke and I wrote to recommend 100 of the best backpacking trips into the northern Sierra and 100 into the southern Sierra.

It was the summer of 1967, and we celebrated in the backcountry with a high-altitude cocktail party. We invited everyone we thought would help get the word out about the book—people from the Sierra Club, outdoor writers, and friends. We held it in August, in Dusy Basin, in the eastern Sierra, 8 miles from the nearest car. The hike went over a 12,000-foot pass, so we were delighted when 15 people showed up. It was a real party. We used snow to make our martinis, ate hors d’oeuvres, and spent the night. In a mention of the event, San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen wondered, “How high can you get to get high?”

It was a spectacular occasion not only because we were launching the books, but because we were starting a new company. We founded Wilderness Press in 1965. Karl, a backpacking friend of mine, and I had been complaining about how hard it was to get accurate information about the out of doors. At the time, there were only one or two guidebooks to the Sierra—our favorite place—so we decided to write our own. We planned to create pre-packaged trips that specified which trails to take and where to stop each night. We would do a series of small books, each covering a 15-minute quadrangle, and they would be called the Knapsacker/Packer Guide Series.

In the summer of 1966, we started doing the field research. Our approach was simple: We wanted to accurately describe where the trails led and what was there. On my scouting trips, I carried more than your average backpacker. In addition to all the standard gear, I packed two cameras, two natural history books to help me indentify flowers and birds, and my Telmar tape recorder. The tape recorder ran about half the speed of the recording devices that are available today, and I’d walk along, dictating into the microphone everything I thought our customers would be interested in reading. So in addition to the basics—how to get to where you start walking, where to go, and the best campsites—we also described what we saw, the animals, flowers, birds, and trees.

By the end of the summer, we had enough material to cover most of the trails in the northern Sierra, so we published a book of 100 trails and called it Sierra North. Next, we set about work on Sierra South, which we published in 1968.

The first edition of Sierra South sold like the proverbial hotcakes; we sold out our entire print run of 3000 books. Since then, this book has sold more than 140,000 copies, and it gives me great joy to see it in its eighth edition. As I think back to that high-altitude cocktail party in 1967, I wonder how many people have used this book to “go high to get high” in the Sierra. I have personally walked more than 2000 miles in this most beautiful of mountain ranges, and although I can’t do that anymore, I am still hooked on the experience—the splendid isolation, the scenery that really lights up your eyeballs, the strength you feel climbing with the weight of your pack on your back, the myriad trout. I hope this guidebook hooks you, too.