Every walk presents reveals different challenges and teaches different lessons. Here’s a few I’ve gathered over the past ten years of backpacking:
Bryce Canyon: Avoid big first days. This was my first trek out West, after a few decades of smaller, flatter walks in the Midwest. 10 miles sounded reasonable, but after a late start, thousands of feet down over tricky footing, with perilous drops, then 4 or so climbs and descents up and down 500-1000-foot buttes, I reconsidered—especially when we got pounded by a hail storm in a box canyon. So, in the AT, we’re gonna start earlier in the day, and the first week keep average less than 10 miles.
Grand Tetons: Climb slowly and steadily. It took us several days to figure this out. The first day our party tried to charge up switchbacks, regain our wind, then resume. But all the breaks meant for slower progress. By the third day, we’d found that slow steady baby steps when the switchbacks seem endless get you to the top a lot steadier than big ones—especially as you start to feel the affects of higher altitude. On our last big climb to the summit, a guy raced past us, hyperventilating. Two hours into the climb, we baby-stepped past him. The AT doesn’t have any 3-5000-feet climbs, but we’ll remember to slow down and shorten our stride as soon as we hit the first switchback.
Glacier National. After summiting and resting, we raced down the sunny side of the face to set up camp near an inviting lake. I was clumsy setting up the tent, and realized that my drunken-like fumbling was an early warning sign of heat stroke. I’d drank some water up top, but not nearly enough and had forgotten to keep sipping in the race to our campsite. On the AT, we’ll always keep a reserve of water and remind each other to drink steadily.
Yosemite: I’d never encountered a bear up close and personal in the backcountry, but at every campsite we saw at least one, usually near dusk, chopping on berries. This is a great reminder to be super-cautious about food storage and to make enough noise on the trail to avoid surprising a mother and her cubs.
Grand Canyon: Until this trip, I’d done always done one big walking session. But after a long, hot first day, not dissimilar to my Bryce start (although we WERE on the trail by 7am-ish), we decided to get up earlier, take a long lunch break and maybe a nap, then resume walking when the heat breaks. This worked great on the last day, even though it meant waking at 3 am, fueling up with a hearty breakfast, breaking camp and and hitting the trail by 4:15 am. We raced the sun and beat (most of) the heat in going 10 miles from river to rim, ascending nearly a vertical mile. We savored our shade and water breaks in shelters on the final push—and definitely earned our ice cream cones up top. On the AT, this means we can do two sessions of 5-9 miles a day and have time to enjoy our progress in the middle. Also, eating the main meal at midday means less food weight to carry on the second leg.
The biggest lesson of all? The mountain always wins. If you respect it and the trail, you’ll be OK. But taking anything for granted can mean discomfort at best, and death at worst.
