Backpacker Magazine is a Worthless Rag

“So every once in a while I get my hands on a copy of the mag that our store doesn't sell by the time the new issue comes out. I haven't bought one in years because it's pretty much the same old crap. I was just reading through the Feb. issue and came across this gem of an article about a woman that took her elderly stepfather out hiking in order to, you guessed it, confront him about the time he molested her as a child. WTF??? How in the hell is that backpacking related? Because they were hiking and camping when it happened and hiking and camping now?

What a waste of a few good trees.”

“here we go again”

“indeed. really an awful magazine. i used to subscribe. now i won't even visit the web site.”

“dam, that's a whole new level of suckiness!”

“...and they keep selecting as "editor's choice" crappy MSR gear like it's the second coming of christ. these people are so very pwned.”

“The last time I read this rag was the whole "Global Warming Will Kill Us All!" issue. Haven't even been able to look at the the piece of shyt since.”

“read mine while on the crapper.....coincidence?”

“Dudes, is that why Backpacker magazine has a record sell every year? Mr roamyround, is that why i see you strutin yourself over at the other side? Dudes, is it you are just second and want to be first.
wonder why they give away more ger and promote more programs on backpacking than any other ? because they are good and you are jeleous. dudes, get real and stop complaining and support a winning team. Stop being second when you can be the best.
all those dudes who have posted above have been on the other side and most have been there quite often. ROFLMAO”

“Back on ignore, Sarge.”

“Backpacker Magazine is a good read for the car camper wannabe backpacker, or for someone who backpacks once or twice in a lifetime. But I have to laugh when their food editor touts recipes that call for can goods, or of their photo of a Backpacker Magazine group trips that showed a 25 pound cylinder of propane in their kitchen area. One of their recipes in their magazine called for reconstituting dried peas in five minutes of cooking. They obviously did not try the recipe, and obviously confused freeze dried peas (which take five minutes to reconstitute) with dried peas (that take at least an hour of soaking and 15 minutes of cooking to avoid cracking a tooth).

The magazine has occassional lapses of credibility, like with Crash Bang and Maple Leaf, and their phony story of the Pinedale, Wyoming outfitter.

Their website is a whole other story.”

“mr prosecutor dude, i see you at there web site gazillions of times and it promotes there magazine making you look a little triple sided. if your a real lawyer , then you understand that we all have an opinion as a free nation governed by LAW and free speech.
why don't you support your own site and show us all how it's done. I.m sure you too will be judged as the magazine is. but keep supporting the web site cause your also supporting there magazine too. ROFLMAO”

“Who are the people that enjoy reading about personal tragedies? Who are the people that enjoy watching emotional breakdowns?

We can't turn on the television without seeing some poor sap sobbing while retelling a personal tragedy. I don't want to watch people break down, because their trailer is a boat. I want to see the flooded homes the tornado damage and the crime scenes.”

“mr bacpac dude, those people are normal people just like you watching all that you mentioned making you a part of the human race as a normal part of of our thinking. welcome mr bacpac.”

“TruckerJoe, you must be confusing me with another poster. None of my posts at backpacker.com support either the Magazine or the website management. In fact, my posts on backpacker.com has been quite openly critical of management when they make mistakes, or operate the website with biases.

By the way, I am only a "real lawyer" in Illinois, and I am not licensed to practice law in the other 49 states.”

“wow. gee. tt is a piece of sht, and backpacker.com is a piece of sht, and all the other sites are so dead they aint worth going to, i guess we should just all pack our bags and move out of the internet”

“mr prosecutor dude, you have many posts on the other side promoting backpacking as well as being critical to management. you play the game like you are now. and by they way, i met you at Walls of Jerico several years ago. You are a good cook and looking at the other side, you are definetly a promoter to that particular forum.”

“�Someone's got to be the Devil's advocate.�

Buddur
9:28:37 PM
1/05/02

�It's an incredibly superficial magazine which has lost touch with the average backpacker. Yet, I still can't resist reading it. What other publication do we have which even comes close to our outdoor backpacking passion?�

Gear Slut
6:57:12 PM
9/11/01

WHICH IS WHY WE NEED OUR OWN MAGAZINE.

TrailTalk, the magazine. Some of us would have to commit to certain portions of the rag, but it would be a magazine written by the backpacker, for the backpacker.
last edited: 3/23/08 6:00:32 AM”

“mr dawg dude, you are on to something here. hey dude. i just remembered where i met you dude, i think. have you ever backpacked near chatanooga? you were kind acting a little way out there and paranoid on a trip a couple years ago. remember me now.
last edited: 3/23/08 6:10:56 AM”

“The issue that had the flat panel surround sound speakers on the front cover was my last.

I called them and told them to never send that piece of #&%!$ magazine to my house again.”

“Good morning George.......”

“mr chili dude, that magazine has lots of good info in it. you learned how to backpack remember by reading those articles years ago.
good morning mr MarkO dude.”

“It's Fridge, not George.”

“The regulars on this site must be some of the stupidest on the web. Backpacker magazine hasn't lost touch with the average backpacker. By nature it has to be an average magazine for the widest paying demographic. This is not bad or good. It's what it takes to survive as a printed media in the age of the web. Sure they make mistakes, as many of the so-called non-readers have pointed out. Maybe they went over the line on the daughter and father confrontation story. They talked about a subject that many of you real backpackers don't want to read about. Well too bad. You don't buy or read the mag anyway. At least the magazine and website have a target audience who have a few bucks to spend. What can be said about this place? There is no BPing going on among you fakes. Just BS about all the gear you have supposedly made from Tyvek or blather about Sarge and politics. This site has been taken over by gossiping women and fat girli-men who might have backpacked in the past but now just like to sit around and talk about the good old days.
last edited: 3/23/08 6:54:21 AM”

“No it ain't, Chili.

I guess George doesn't figure on ever hiking with any of "us" again, what with crap he's dished out.

Perhaps George should go hiking with a group of the women whom he has trashed here.

After that he might not have a back to scratch.”

“LOLz.. you have to smile at all the trolls.

Tucker -- if you are who I think you are.. yeah.. you are a good guy.. hope we can hike and hang out again one day.

I have no idea who Forklift Elvis is, but you do bring up a good point. The ideas, talents, experiences listed in BP magazine most likely /are/ the norm. The vast majority of people who go to REI et. al, go for TNF clothing, and day hikes in matching outfits.

It would be like saying that the guys who frequent griztrax.net are the typical backpackers.
last edited: 3/23/08 7:07:22 AM”

““wow. gee. tt is a piece of sht, and backpacker.com is a piece of sht, and all the other sites are so dead they aint worth going to, i guess we should just all pack our bags and move out of the internet” ~crash bang

We should go, dare I say it, backpacking?”

“Interesting how tj and elvis almost always show up at the same time.”

“Oui, madame.”

“Perhaps TinkerJoe and ForklessElvis are on to something. Maybe Backpacker Mag/dotcom has decided to reach out to an untapped market in the hiking world: the pedophile hiker. Who are we to judge? As long as a pedophile backpacks, he is one within their community. Thank you Tinker and Elvis for coming here to support your team of pedophile hikers and make us realize that even though they molest children, as long as they hike, they are true hikers.”

“So tell us what you wear Mr. TownHawg? A Tyvek rainsuit? Probably took ten rolls to make it fatboy! TNF still makes some good gear. Some people climbing Everest are sponsored by the company. You don't wear clothes up there just because it has a label on it.”

“Ummmmmmmm...yeah, actually they do wear it on Everest because of the label. Why would a company sponsor someone and not require them to display the label?”

“Baby boom stand back and give some room. Over achieve check the check list author before you leave.”

“I think that article is just reflective of the type of content that interests the mainstream "Jerry Springer/Oprah" social dynamic of America. While not appealing to a lot of people in the backpacking culture, it does serve to appeal to a broader audience which might in turn, patronize the advertisers peddling "outdoorsy" related products.

BPer mag, post Dorn, has been encumbered by a shift in leadership from serving the backpacker culture, to purely moving product off the shelves. They are caught up in a vicious circle of providing product endorsements through their gear reviews, rather than offering objective analysis; lest they lose revenue.

Dating back a few years, I have always thought is was odd that this place would basically get "data mined", then read about the gear asked about around here show up in their mag a month or two later with analysis from the author reflecting content very close to what was offered here. After a few months of these obvious "coincidences", I never paid for another BPer mag; rather, employing the Nigal philosophy of "voting with my feet".

I nether deplore BPer mag, or endorse BPer mag. I am honest about the mag to the large amount of people I talk to about hiking. I personally feel that there has been a dramatic drop in the level of content the mag offers; however, part of that could be attributed to me "outgrowing" the mag as well. After I have accumulated "everything I need", how many glowing gear reviews of gear that is obvious junk can I withstand?

The Internet is a beyond any doubt, a much better place to find out information about gear than that mag. IMHO, while BPer has reduced it's content in order to appeal to the fat-pocketed Turon, I quickly out grew the content as well.”

“"This site has been taken over by gossiping women and fat girli-men who might have backpacked in the past but now just like to sit around and talk about the good old days."

Ouch. Touche. Okay, so I am fat. But my good old days were a 69 mile saunder up and down in the Grand Canyon last week. Time to go on a diet.


TuckerJoe, were you the gynocologist Boy Scout leader at Jerico Walls that treated the burned Boy Scout when the Scoutmaster accidently threw a Iso-butane cylinger in their campfire?”

“Nonconformist dude, Yeah you! The person who doesn't read backpacker mag but can tell us all about the latest issue. First off that tells me you are nothing but a liar. And that tells me you are probably not a nonconformist, but one who hides in the herd mindset and goes along with whatever the herd is doing. So the TT herd is flaming me therefore you get some courage to jump in. Obviously you are a coward too. Back off,I'm just telling the truth here. Backpacker magazine has good and bad. I bet everyone of the so called experts here at TT read Backerpacker front to back everytime they can find a free issue. You see that is the heart of the matter, Mr conformist. You can't afford to buy the magazine so you just try to run it down.
last edited: 3/23/08 7:46:59 AM”

“Creek Dancer, they have to wear the label because they are sponsored but it still their a$$es on the line up there. Would you risk death just to wear a free climbing suit?
You wouldn't and neither would they.”

“TuckerJoe, were you the gynocologist Boy Scout leader at Jerico Walls that treated the burned Boy Scout when the Scoutmaster accidently threw a Iso-butane cylinger in their campfire?�
prosecutor
8:43:41 AM
3/23/08

you have got to be shltting me! And they let this clown lead a scout troop? Perhaps he later went on to write the cooking articles for BP mag.”

“"This site has been taken over by gossiping women and fat girli-men who might have backpacked in the past but now just like to sit around and talk about the good old days."

So are all the make believe "backpackers" on the other side also chauvenist pigs, or are you the only one?
last edited: 3/23/08 7:52:22 AM”

“I'll bet the speculum sticking in his butt made the kid forget about his burns.”

“Creek Dancer. What are you complaining about? If you are not a gossiping old woman then don't be offended. Sounds like you're too sensitive. Maybe we should call you Creek Prancer. Are you gay?”

“prosecutor could easily outperform most of you ignorant trolls given your lack of true wilderness experience and your "prettypantypartybackpacking" lifestyles. i know and can say this with confidence because not all trolls are anonymous.”

“Nope, not gay. Sounds like you are dik.

Dang, why do I feed the trolls? I think I am going to eat some more jelly beans.”

“CD: we should write a book: "Feeding Trolls for Fun and Profit" hehe”

“It could be a whole section of TT Magazine.”

“well said yogi. I second that.”

“TT Magazine! Now that would be a hoot.”

“i wonder who we would put in the centerfold each month!”

“We could do a whole expose on outting Sarge.

The Truth Behind the Troll.”

“TT magazine would last for all of one issue because even you regulars would be too cheap to buy it. Backpacker magazine is not the greatest but they do give ideas for places to go and information to people who might want to BP or those just starting out. So all you experts who hate it shouldn't read it for free as you sit in Barnes and Nobles sipping your lattes. Just sit here in TT surping your instant Maxwell House and brag about all the gear you already have and all the trips you used to go on. Leave BPing to the people who can still get out of their computer chairs.”

“i know who you are and you aren't among the real backpackers on this site. the last time you saw anything that looked like "back-packing" it wasn't in the context of hiking...”