Do any of your prepping plans have you hiking serious distance on foot? Salty and I hope to not have to walk very far (read about our bicycle plans here), but it is the method of transportation of last resort for almost everyone. After hiking about a hundred miles over a week of vacation this past week, I’ve learned some things about getting from here to there on shoe leather that might help you out.
Spice, gaining valuable experience
Compass and paper maps. Really.
We were about five miles out when the suggestion of a trail became three different game trails going in different directions. The occasional trail blazes had disappeared, too. Nothing to do but pull out the compass, compare it to the intended direction on the map, and start hiking on the correct heading. A mile and a half of this brought a distant blaze into sight.
On the way across the plains, we came across the downed poles that had supported the intermediate blazes. Bison had knocked them down using them as scratching poles. Maybe in your hike it will be a detour around a troublesome intersection, or signs out of sight due to darkness, but you also may come to a point where the path becomes unclear.
The map will help you determine the right direction, and the compass points that way.*
If you don’t know the direction to your destination and have a compass to keep you on that course, you’re stuck. I promise, fifteen miles into your day even a half mile detour to be sure of your path seems like a very big deal. The temptation is to just make the best guess, and that can get you Really lost.
Trekking poles for hiking
Go hiking on any mountain – and some city park – trails and you’ll find people using trekking poles. Are these things worth their weight? There is (or will be soon) a full blog post about them here on 3BY (search trekking poles), but here’s the summary:
On downhills, trekking poles are nice … but is that worth their weight? Not to me.
After some experimentation, I left the poles behind. If my knees or balance were worse, I’d take them on very steep routes. Their real strength lies in reducing the pressure on the knees when stepping down, so downhills in the mountains are where they are most valuable.
Blister kits help you keep hiking longer
Long hiking sometimes produce blisters even with good shoes and socks. (But seriously, make sure your shoes and socks are good for hiking.) This topic also has (or will soon have) it’s own post (search blisters). How do you care for a blister? Well, I’m not a physician. My hiking partner Doc is, and someone who does marathon-length hikes for fun. I noticed she had these things in her blister kit, all available from most pharmacies:
- Lamb’s wool, to put between a toe with a blister and it’s neighbor so they don’t rub one another. (Cotton or tissues work only until they get wet.)
- A little band that holds a blistered toe to its neighbor, again to reduce mutual rubbing.
- Lidocaine to reduce pain.
- Various bits of moleskin, to put around the blisters so they don’t continue to rub.
- Antibiotic ointment for broken blisters. She doesn’t break her own unless they’re too full to walk on.
Wet feet are part of long hiking
Wet feet will happen if you are hiking far in most unpaved terrain. If it’s not rain, it’s morning dew or stream crossings. Some shoe/sock combinations blister a lot more when wet, so make sure yours doesn’t.
Socks made for hiking and wool have done best for me. The wool part also helps with warmth. Water contact really saps body heat fast, so wet feet tend to be cold feet. Wool is one of the best materials for keeping its insulating power when wet.
Doc springs for the waterproof boots. I hadn’t. Mine are lighter as a result. How much do you hate wet feet? In the summer I was happier with lighter boots and wetter feet, but my snow boots take the other route. If you choose to go non-waterproof and use a waterproofing spray on them, test them before trusting their waterproofing. Turns out I hadn’t used enough Scotchgard on my breathable summer boots.
Hiking pants
I’m not a big ‘buy the solution’ person, but this hiking trip totally sold me on hiking pants. Hiking pants are made of ripstop material, dry very quickly, are tough, and allow free movement without rubbing. They often have nice pockets (I love those) and zip-off legs to allow them to convert to shorts.
I’m taking the cotton-based pants out of my bugout bag and replacing them with hiking pants. I buy them a little big so a warm pair of tights will fit underneath for winter use.
Hiking pants can be dry an hour after being soaked, with no dryer trip. That’s really valuable on a hike.
There’s another post up (or will be soon) on how to quick-dry clothes if you have any dry and absorbent cloth handy (search drying clothes). With that method, I could sink-wash hiking pants and have them usable in an hour.
Here’s a link just to show you the kind of thing I’m talking about. They needn’t be expensive. (I’m not recommending any particular brand, and we don’t have any financial relationship with the sellers of the products shown in this article.)
Hiking food
You can walk a long way on not many calories if you’re motivated. The problem is that when your blood sugar gets too low, you get stupid, quit noticing important things, and make bad decisions. You also get more clumsy, making a very troublesome injury more likely. Pack food.
Fun fact: This ration pack looked so little like food that TSA opened my bag to run a bomb chemical detector over it.