Enjoy stories, photos, equipment demos, wisdom, and tips from Wayland resident Dennis Vaccaro. Dennis and his college roommate have shared an annual backpacking trip for over 40 years. Their goal is not speed or distance, but enjoying the wilderness and the solitude. They try to avoid national parks and look for quieter places. Often, once they are a few days beyond the trailhead, they won’t see another (human) soul!
This talk will include a brief history of backpacking, discuss various aspects of preparation for a trip, and will include highlights from several trips to the mountains and canyons of the western US.
Dennis Vaccaro grew up in Pittsfield Mass where he did a lot of hiking and camping while in the Boy Scouts. He is an Eagle Scout and was a campcraft counselor at Camp Eagle in the Berkshires and Camp Alpine on Cape Cod. He has BS and MS degrees in Biology from Tufts and a Ph.D. in Physiology from Harvard. Dennis has been hiking and backpacking since the 1960s covering several thousand wilderness miles. He has hiked the Long Trail from end to end. The Long Trail runs the length of the Vermont’s Green Mountains and is the oldest long-distance trail in the United States.
