delicacy can be made by cooking powdered cheese with powdered eggs for a tasty Welch rarebit poured over a slice of toast. Inventing ingenious concoctions is a knapsacker's prerogative, and he is inordinately pleased with himself over his culinary discoveries. I am no exception, but some of my most remarkable stodges over the fire seem to bring joy to me alone. Some knapsackers chew gum and suck hard candy to allay thirst on the trail. This ever-present thirst which sometimes will pursue one for hours up hill and down, brings us finally to the delicate question of water. With gruesome tales of horrible deaths from thirst a part of the folk-lore of the Southwest, I hardly have the temerity to advise knapsackers to leave their canteens behind unless they are absolutely necessary. However, a filled quart-and-a-half canteen weighs four pounds, eight ounces, and that is only a drop in the bucket, figuratively speaking, to your daily need. I took part in army desert tests during World War II which showed that in a temperature of 80-85° F. an active man lost over a gallon of water every 24 hours. Sooner or later he must make up this dehydration. But toting 10 to 12 pounds of drinking water doesn't seem to me the wise way to do it. Better, I think, is my rule: Never take a knapsack trip into an area which has no water. Learn before you start the exact location of all springs, streams, pools or tanks, then be sure that drought hasn't dried them up and that it is the right season for them to be filled. It has always been a surprise to me how many sources of water there are in this arid land, and in all my wanderings with a pack on my back I have never yet made a dry camp. If you are not sure of a good source of water for your night stops -don't go! With a 16 to 18 pound pack on your back and two good legs to carry you, thousands of square miles of the great Southwest lie open and waiting for you. There are endless possibilities to explore and enjoy remote and little-known areas from Coachella Valley's Santa Rosa Mountains to Boquillas Canyon in the Big Bend country of Texas. Maybe you and I will chance to meet some day deep in Aravaipa Canyon, by the Gila cliff dwellings in New Mexico, or even high on Nevada's Wheeler Peak. Then you can tell me about your experiences with your home on your back, and that evening we'll sit beside the glowing campfire and compare notes on this fascinating business of knapsacking.
load up my rucksack more than foods of my own selection. Furthermore, I am apt not to want to eat a particular meal at the time I'm supposed to have it. That is my main objection to definite daily rations planned beforehand. But if you prefer a ration system, even if you make it up yourself, a handy method is to pack each meal in a tough, thin, waterproof plastic hag about 4x4x8 inches and seal it with scotch tape. But no matter how much advice old hands can give you, satisfactory food for knapsacking trips can be worked out through experience by each individual. People's tastes and requirements differ greatly and even the weather and length of daily hikes will alter your appetite. But in every case, the food lists prepared by so-called experts prescribe far greater amounts	than I have ever needed. On a checkup of several authoritative knapsack and camping manuals, I find that the food considered necessary for one man for three days varies from 8 pounds, 4 ounces to over 12 pounds. Although I weigh 175 pounds and make no claims to a bird-like appetite, my own three-day food supply checks in at from 5-1/2 to 7 pounds, and even then there is always something left over. Another knack that comes with experience is getting the most out of your food. Here are two out of many dodges that add pleasure to my trips. I always carry a couple of one-ounce packages of concentrated fruit flavoring powder. Nothing is more refreshing on the trail than, a cool drink of lemonade or orangeade, and the sugar added gives you a needed boost of quick energy. Then an appetizing

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