5 Things You Can do Today to Prepare for Your Next Hike
5 Things You Can do Today to Prepare for Your Next Hike
Intro
I am currently writing this in April 2020 and if you are like most people right now, there are not many options for getting out of the house other than for work if you are lucky and the essentials. Out of an abundance of caution, even the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) has closed all of their huts, parking lots, camp sites, and visitors centers until further notice. This is making one of the most socially distant activities - getting out in the woods away from everyone - that much more difficult. I put this list together with inspiration from the 5 stages of grief so that when you have no more chores left to do and all the beer and whisky are gone you can find a few things to do to get you ready for the next trip in the mountains.
1 - Research Future Trips
Stage one in the grieving process is denial… so it's time to ignore everything else going on in the world and plan your next trips like nothing is going on. You were probably scrolling through social media or surfing the web when you came across this anyways (like every day for the last month or so) so why not be more productive and start planning your next few trips?
Where to start
Time of Year
Figure out when in the next 6-12 months you will likely have some free weekends or weeks if you're lucky and search for areas that are good to hike during those times. You can tough it out and go hike Alaska in the dead of winter but I bet you’d have a better time going in the summer when the climate is more pleasant, the scenery is not just a white out everywhere, and more likely to convince a few friends to join you.
Trip Length
I am a big fan of all trails and guthook as resources to plan trips. They offer distance, maps, parking, other hiker notes, and estimated length of hike in time. The free offerings will be enough to at least identify your next few trips and either upgrade to the premium versions or look to other resources for more information. A rule of thumb that I use for a comfortable hike is to plan for 1 mile an hour and 8-10 hours on trail per day giving you 8-10 miles of travel per day or a max Friday after work to Sunday night trip of about 22-25 miles depending on how much hiking you want to do Friday night. Especially if you're going with novice hikers (or you are a novice hiker (everyone starts somewhere) you wont get on trail as soon as you think, you will take more breaks, and you’ll want to make camp and eat before the sun goes down to maximize the enjoyment of your hike.
Interesting Features
Lastly when planning your next trips, prioritize trips that have interesting or epic features. These could be waterfalls that are coolest in the spring when the snowpack is melting or overviews of endless fields of flowers or overlooks that most likely to be cloud free during certain times of the year. These are the moments that will inspire you and your buddies to get out as much as you can and make for some very brag worthy photos as well.
2 - Exercise as much as you can
If your emotions turn to anger like mine every time you turn on cable news, exercise is your friend. Based on personal experience, getting into an exercise routine and keeping it is very difficult while taking an easy excuse to stop like oh say the government shutdown the entire economy is very easy. Now is the time to get the prison workouts and street runs going. At the very least maintaining your physical fitness will keep you sane for the time being and keep you ready to crush miles again when things ease up. Alternatively, if things do go south in a bad way and you need to leave quickly on foot, you will be able to do so.
3 - Inventory your gear and find some deals to upgrade your gear
After you have a plan to look forward to and have sweated out all the anger it's time to inventory your gear and look for all the bargains you can to upgrade and help keep the economy going. I have a whole post on my preferred gear but if you are reading this I assume you already have at least a basic set up going. Go through everything and write down somewhere (I use google sheets):
1) every item 2) where it is located 3) its weight, and 4) its condition
After you have cataloged everything and as you have the means, it is a great time to upgrade your kit. Several manufacturers are running promotions to try to boost sales while many retail locations are closed.
The items that I have found most helpful in upgrading have been:
In-line water bladder filler - for under $10 the Sawyer Products SP115 Fast Fill Adapters for Hydration Packs kit allows you to fill up your water bladder without taking it out of your pack. I sweat a lot and need to hydrate constantly so I put up with the extra weight to be able to drink easily on the move throughout the day. For a small investment, being able to fill up my bladder without dumping my pack and taking the whole thing apart saves time at the water source keeps items drying in wetter weather.
Amazing socks - going from sore blistered feet to no problem at all was due to shifting to quality socks. I prefer Darn Toughs but any good quality merino wool sock should do. Bonus, Darn Toug are an American company and Made in the USA
Sleeping bag - A lighter weight, more compressible, warmer sleeping bag will help free up room in your pack, lower your base weight, and for the trifecta help you sleep better at night. Upgrading from a synthetic to down bag will usually achieve these three goals.
4 - Soak up the comfort of the couch
On every 2+ night hiker I have been on there has always been at least 5 minutes of the trip where I have said out loud to myself and anyone in ear shot - “why am I doing this, I could be comfortable at home relaxing on the couch.”
So - with that in mind, take the opportunity now while you might not be able to do much else to lay on the couch and soak up the comfort. Hell, take a picture on your phone so look at and reminisce the next time you are 2000 vertical feet into a 6000 vertical foot climb and you have at least one more to go before camp and think to yourself, why the hell am I doing this right now.
5 - Harass you buddies to do the same
I have been known to look forward to a solo hike or two but for my money hiking with a few friends is hard to beat. It is now the time to accept the fact that you can not really go out right now and have done most of what you can to get ready for the next time. The only thing left is to go and bug your buddies to go on a trip with you. When they are likely itching to get out of the house away from their kids and spouse it is the perfect time to lock them into a trip that halfway through they will be questioning their life choices leading to that moment.
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