Colin Fletcher, 85, backpacking icon

Colin Fletcher, 85, who was considered the father of modern backpacking for his lyrical and practical writings on hiking, including

The Complete Walker

and

The Man Who Walked Through Time

, died Tuesday in Monterey, Calif.

Mr. Fletcher died at Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula of complications related to old age and the injuries suffered in 2001 after he was hit by a car as he crossed a rural road, said Chris Cassidy, a business associate.

"He brought this idea that you didn't have to be a nut case to take long solitary walks in the wilderness at a time when a lot of people were really looking for ways to create holistic lives and escape from the craziness of Vietnam and the stresses of the '60s," said Jonathan Dorn, editor of Backpacker magazine.

Bruce Hamilton, deputy executive director of the Sierra Club, said that Mr. Fletcher helped start a movement by "speaking as an adventurist who would share his own exploits, then tell you to lighten your load by cutting your toothbrush in half."

The Complete Walker, published in 1968, is an exhaustive guide to outdoor travel that is regarded as the backpacker's bible. The book brims with advice on gear, and frank observations, such as why someone should consider wilderness walking: It "remains a delectable madness, very good for sanity."

In 1958, Mr. Fletcher decided to hike the length of California from Mexico to Oregon so that he could engage in "contemplative walking" and decide whether to get married.

Six months and 1,000 miles later, he married his girlfriend and wrote his first book, The Thousand-Mile Summer (published in 1964), which detailed his route across the Mojave Desert and up the Sierra Nevada range.

The marriage ended within weeks, but the man some call "the J.D. Salinger of the high country" had discovered a way to communicate.

In 1963, beckoned by the Grand Canyon's beauty, Mr. Fletcher became one of the first humans to walk the length of the chasm. He wrote about the two-month trek in The Man Who Walked Through Time (1968). The feat rarely has been repeated.

"I saw that my decision to walk through the Canyon could mean more than I knew. I saw that by going . . . deep into the space and the silence and the solitude, I might come as close as we can at present to moving back and down through the smooth and apparently impenetrable face of time," he wrote.

Mr. Fletcher exited the canyon with new purpose. He devoted himself to walking and writing about it. In all, Mr. Fletcher wrote seven books in a 35-year span.

At 67, Mr. Fletcher hiked and paddled solo 1,750 miles down the Green and Colorado Rivers and recounted the experience in River: One Man's Journey Down the Colorado, Source to Sea (1997).

Born March 14, 1922, in Cardiff, Wales, Mr. Fletcher was an only child who traced his love of walking to his mother, who enjoyed venturing out in the rain.

He first backpacked as a commando for the Royal Marines in World War II and spent five years in Africa, mainly farming. Several odd jobs followed, including prospecting and laying out roads for a mining company in Canada and janitorial work at a San Francisco hospital.

Well into his 70s, Mr. Fletcher continued to hike and backpack. He was working on an autobiography when he was struck by a car while walking near his house.

Mr. Fletcher had no known survivors.