As the ancient saying goes: you’ll catch more bees with honey, but you can’t catch ducks with duct tape. Or something like that; I wasn’t sober when I heard it. Despite the title, this extremely useful little book doesn’t just deal with the myriad useful applications of our favorite sticky gray tape: the subtitle says it all: Tips and Tricks for Repairing and Maintaining Outdoor and Travel Gear.
There are ten chapters with repair tips for each: fabric, zippers, boots, packs, tents, sleeping bags and pads, stoves, water filters, cookware and hydration systems. An appendix includes "50 fixes with seam grip" for extra credit. I’m always optimizing my expedition repair kit and I got a number of ideas from this little gem of a book.
For example, I’m thinking of leaving the moleskin at home since I can just use duct tape. Likewise the condoms. Slightly less useful but worth noting is the tip to cut a plastic coat hanger so that you can slip a hydration bladder over it for drying. Seriously, for $7.95 just pick up a copy and read it. If you’re a newbie you’ll get a ton of good tips; if you’re Grizzly Adams you can use the refresher.