My dumbest backpacking mistake was that time I was walking over a footbridge and I decided for fun to use my arms to lift myself on the guardrails forgetting my center of gravity was behind me with my pack on. It wasn’t long before I was flat on my back staring at the sky.
Oh man! I love this guy's site! Tom has some amazing stories on there. The one you linked is one of my favorites as is the one about the missing hiker in Joshua Tree.
It's really fun to have Google Earth open while reading the stories so you can find the places he is writing about.
1) Didn't get familiar with hiking / camping on broken / rough terrain.
2) Didn't plan on how to deal with hypothermia inducing temperatures.
3) Didn't replace shoes quickly enough
4) Not taking black bears seriously enough.
5) Careless / casual with river crossings
She doesn't give great rules of thumb on each point. Here are some based on my experience:
1) Go out with your pack at night and practice moving quickly up and down some stairs. If it rains, even better.
2) Have a layer (usually a wind/rain shell) at the top of your pack. When you stop that layer automatically goes on. When you start walking again that layer goes back in the pack.
3) Replace your shoes when mileage equals 500 - your loaded weight (bodyweight + pack). Do not risk your foot health for a hundred bucks.
4) No RoTs. Bears aren't inherently hostile (usually) but they're not inherently friendly either. Self-education required.
5) No RoTs here, water crossing are dangerous. If you are going to cross you have to have a plan for what happens if you lose your pack or get swept downstream. The force of water can be shocking.
EDIT: If you plan to do any kind of movement over long distance _please_ invest in the book "Fixing Your Feet". Foot problems end more adventures than anything else. Foot care and foot health is the primary predictor IMO of how successful and how non-miserable a movement will be.
https://www.amazon.com/Fixing-Your-Feet-Prevention-Treatment...
> "She doesn't give great rules of thumb on each point." Runs fingers through thicket of chest hair "Guess it's time for yours truly to 'splain the right way to do it."
Thank you for the correction. I now see the error of my ways: The proper way to handle it would have been to passive-aggressively downvote his comment.
> No RoTs here, water crossing are dangerous. If you are going to cross you have to have a plan for what happens if you lose your pack or get swept downstream. The force of water can be shocking.
Just as importantly, consider in advance how being wet is going to affect you. Wet clothes are heavy and fail to insulate, while wet feet inside wet shoes is a very bad combination for a number of reasons.
Yes! Solid point, and a great example of why there aren't RoTs for rivers. It can be a really complex problem. You can't go barefoot. Do you have camp shoes, will they work for the crossing? If you use your main shoes did you make a bad choice (my opinion) and pick Goretex? Do you have dry socks for the other side? Will the environment even allow drying? Is your pack waterproof? Will it float? If you used a contractor bag does it have holes, because if you've been in for more than a few day guess what, it does! In the shitty trail mishap lottery nothing is worse than soaked sleeping bag. And what do you wear during the crossing? If you won't strip to your skivvies what's your drying plan?
I just did a unit conversion of the OP comment. 500 miles = 800km. The 3.5 is to convert weight in kg to lb, then convert miles to km to match the unitless number in the original (2.2*1.6 is ~3.5)... the units don't make any sense, but it's just a rule of thumb
I don't necessarily agree with the rule of thumb, I was just converting it into units I could understand and thought I would share it with the community. They do line up approximately with injury-avoidance running shoe wisdom (replace every 400 to 600 km), so it seems plausible. I think it would depend a lot on the individual (i.e. I hike in trail running shoes, so I should replace more frequently than someone who uses heavier duty boots - might just want to replace insoles occasionally?)
rak00n the numbers are just a rule of thumb I give people when they ask "when should I replace _shoes_". _Boots_ are a different story as the construction of a hiking boot is usually so much more robust than a trail runner. I truly have no idea what mileage a hiking boot can sustain.
My dumbest backpacking mistake was on day 2 of my interrail [1] trip across Europe and North Africa. Exhausted I fell asleep on a Marseille beach in the afternoon without any suncream on.
When I woke up my shoulders was very sunburned. Spent the first week or two of the 6 weeks long trip lifting my heavy backpack off my painful shoulders.
2nd mistake was packing too much stuff. Fixed a week into my trip in a Post office in San Sebastian by stuffing 2/3 of my backpack into a cardboard parcel and posting it home.
My packing rule, slightly tongue in cheek, but not really:
Pack light and then throw out half.
Seriously, I just came back from 3 1/2 weeks in Asia with a backpack with a weight of 11KGs (15, when I returned). I was never short on anything.
This may be slightly different when you have a weighty hobby (scuba diving, or so), kids or go to colder places. But in general my experience is that most people pack far too much.
It's surprising how little you actually need, and as you point out, how little more you need for a 3 week trip than you do for an overnight trip. I don't backpack much but my bikepacking checklist is pretty much the same regardless of the length of the trip. The main (and heavy) variable is the amount of water to bring, and that's more dependent on weather and available water sources than on length of the trip.
Not strictly backpacking, but I went on a car-free trip to Italy a few years back and thought it would be a great idea to buy new shoes for the occasion. After two weeks of walking eight hours a day, the blisters finally healed.
My mistakes are usually that I forgot gloves|hat|crampons|lunch|drink|<vital thing>
I now have a checklist that I carefully check against and actually tick stuff off with a pen (usually do this about 5:30 so needs to be easy to do!).
Edit: I also completely panicked once after a large noisy animal blundered into my tent in the middle of the night - was convinced it was a bear. Of course, there haven't been bears here in Scotland for a long time.... (I realised this in the morning when sanity returned - it was a red deer).
That site has a lot of top notch info and the forum members collective experience is a great resource for those looking to get started and those who've been backpacking for years.
Go there before you start buying gear and you'll save a ton of money and have better gear. And you'll be lugging a lot less weight.
I made a tent out of those plastic "SOL" emergency blankets that heats up inside via solar or a small campfire. You can dry out clothes pretty fast with it.
I know you can't have campfires out west, but I live in the Ozarks where forest fires are not an issue most of the time and it's easy to check the fire risk at https://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/fire_wx/fwdy1.html
So, the reason I bring this up is it's pretty easy to fashion a UL clothes dryer if you carry one of those blankets, a bit of clear plastic, and some tape.
31 comments
[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 77.3 ms ] threadIs there a TLDW for this video?
[1] http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hun...
It's really fun to have Google Earth open while reading the stories so you can find the places he is writing about.
1) Didn't get familiar with hiking / camping on broken / rough terrain.
2) Didn't plan on how to deal with hypothermia inducing temperatures.
3) Didn't replace shoes quickly enough
4) Not taking black bears seriously enough.
5) Careless / casual with river crossings
She doesn't give great rules of thumb on each point. Here are some based on my experience:
1) Go out with your pack at night and practice moving quickly up and down some stairs. If it rains, even better.
2) Have a layer (usually a wind/rain shell) at the top of your pack. When you stop that layer automatically goes on. When you start walking again that layer goes back in the pack.
3) Replace your shoes when mileage equals 500 - your loaded weight (bodyweight + pack). Do not risk your foot health for a hundred bucks.
4) No RoTs. Bears aren't inherently hostile (usually) but they're not inherently friendly either. Self-education required.
5) No RoTs here, water crossing are dangerous. If you are going to cross you have to have a plan for what happens if you lose your pack or get swept downstream. The force of water can be shocking.
EDIT: If you plan to do any kind of movement over long distance _please_ invest in the book "Fixing Your Feet". Foot problems end more adventures than anything else. Foot care and foot health is the primary predictor IMO of how successful and how non-miserable a movement will be. https://www.amazon.com/Fixing-Your-Feet-Prevention-Treatment...
> Be civil.
> Don't be snarky.
> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names.
> Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.
> Please don't post shallow dismissals.
Just as importantly, consider in advance how being wet is going to affect you. Wet clothes are heavy and fail to insulate, while wet feet inside wet shoes is a very bad combination for a number of reasons.
Bridges are really great, is my point.
Choosing the right clothes can help mitigate this detail. Wool, flannel and sometimes knits can keep you warm while wet.
I have no clue what kind of knits do so. I just know I had a cotton sweater once that was insulating while wet.
Converting units to metric (km and kg), Replace your shoes when they are worn 800-3.5*(loaded weight)
I don't necessarily agree with the rule of thumb, I was just converting it into units I could understand and thought I would share it with the community. They do line up approximately with injury-avoidance running shoe wisdom (replace every 400 to 600 km), so it seems plausible. I think it would depend a lot on the individual (i.e. I hike in trail running shoes, so I should replace more frequently than someone who uses heavier duty boots - might just want to replace insoles occasionally?)
When I woke up my shoulders was very sunburned. Spent the first week or two of the 6 weeks long trip lifting my heavy backpack off my painful shoulders.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interrail
Pack light and then throw out half.
Seriously, I just came back from 3 1/2 weeks in Asia with a backpack with a weight of 11KGs (15, when I returned). I was never short on anything.
This may be slightly different when you have a weighty hobby (scuba diving, or so), kids or go to colder places. But in general my experience is that most people pack far too much.
I'd be interested in hearing about the dumb things you've seen crews do.
I now have a checklist that I carefully check against and actually tick stuff off with a pen (usually do this about 5:30 so needs to be easy to do!).
Edit: I also completely panicked once after a large noisy animal blundered into my tent in the middle of the night - was convinced it was a bear. Of course, there haven't been bears here in Scotland for a long time.... (I realised this in the morning when sanity returned - it was a red deer).
That site has a lot of top notch info and the forum members collective experience is a great resource for those looking to get started and those who've been backpacking for years.
Go there before you start buying gear and you'll save a ton of money and have better gear. And you'll be lugging a lot less weight.
I know you can't have campfires out west, but I live in the Ozarks where forest fires are not an issue most of the time and it's easy to check the fire risk at https://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/fire_wx/fwdy1.html
So, the reason I bring this up is it's pretty easy to fashion a UL clothes dryer if you carry one of those blankets, a bit of clear plastic, and some tape.
Here's a link to a very short video of the tent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdekfNtx65c
* Running out of food is lame
* Carrying way more food than you really needed is lame
* Forgetting means to light a stove is really lame
* Little critters will chew through whatever to get to your food, so keep it outside your tent (hang it high off a tree)
* (Mountaineering) Exposed skin will be scorched by sun reflected off the snow
* Separate your "keep me dry" layer from your "keep me warm" layer, don't go cheap
* You need to drink more water than you think you do
* Unless you have guaranteed means/opportunity to dry yourself/clothing, avoid getting wet (avoid cotton, jeans)
* Everyone should know the route, if there's a fork or ambiguity in the trail, everyone needs to be together
* Have a backup means of filtering/purifying water
* Always tell someone where you're going and when they should expect you back
* Check the weather and recent trip reports