17 Newbie Backpacking Errors to Keep away from – Bearfoot Idea

Embarking in your first backpacking journey might be an empowering, enjoyable, and adventurous expertise, nonetheless, the path to changing into a seasoned backpacker is usually paved with a couple of avoidable missteps.

I began backpacking in 2005, and my first few backpacking journeys didn’t go easily. My first time was close to Mt. Rainier in Washington, and once we bought to the trailhead, I spotted I forgot my climbing boots. Not eager to drive all the way in which dwelling, I ended up climbing in Chacos your entire time. For sure, my ft had been a bloody mess by the tip of the journey. We additionally didn’t pack sufficient meals, and I used to be ravenous the entire time.

One other time in 2007, my associates and I took an early season journey in California’s Emigrant Wilderness. A pair miles in, we discovered the path coated in snow, with the entire path indicators being damaged in half. Regardless of not having a map or GPS, we haphazardly determined to hold on. We bought fully off observe and had no concept the place we had been. Twenty-four hours later after tenting close to some unknown lake, we had been post-holing our approach up a snowy hillside once we randomly stumbled again on the path.

The errors I made on these early backpacking journeys taught me quite a lot of priceless classes to the way to be protected and have a extra fulfilling time on future journeys, together with the 22 nights I spent on the John Muir Path.

Beneath I share the commonest newbie backpacking errors so you possibly can hit the path feeling assured – and make sure you don’t make the identical rookie errors as I did!