The breadth of Laura and Guy Waterman’s experience in the backcountry of the northeastern U.S. might lead readers of The Green Guide to Low-Impact Hiking and Camping — the third edition of the couple’s seminal 1979 work, Backwoods Ethics — to view it as authoritative.
Yet the new title is fitting, for the Watermans always intended the text to be just that, a guide, no matter how adamant their suggestions or convincing their convictions.
As iterated in a new, 12-page introduction by Laura Waterman — Guy famously died of suicide by exposure atop New Hampshire’s Mount Lafayette in 2000 — the work intends “not to provide answers as much as to provoke questions in the minds of all those who are concerned about the future of the backcountry environment.”
Following a forward by Vermont-based environmental scholar Bill McKibben, Waterman does address the technological changes that have altered hiking and camping practices since the second edition of Backwoods Ethics was released.
Camping gear — from boots and clothing to tents and freeze-dried food — is infinitely lighter and more efficient, while the advent of global positioning devices, via smartphone or otherwise, now carries the potential to dramatically alter the experiential landscape while immersed in the natural one.
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I am Jeff Clark, founder of Internet Brothers, producer of this blog, and passionate about hiking. I live in Western NC near the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains. Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests are just out my door, so the content will focus on these areas, but let me know what you would like to see on the site. 
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