John Concrane January 25, 2020

High quality custom hiking front packs online store and hiking guides. A backpacker prepares a meal by adding boiling water to freeze-dried food. For an overnight backpacking trip, plan for dinner, breakfast and a couple of lunches. Freeze-dried backpacking food is your lightest and easiest option (just add boiling water) for entrees, but it’s also pricey. Save money by going to the grocery store instead. You won’t have a cooler, so perishable things like fresh eggs can’t be on the menu. Learn more by reading Meal Planning for Backpacking. Avoid canned food (too heavy) and try to accurately project how much you’ll eat because an excessive amount food adds weight and bulk to your pack. You need some extra food, though—enough for an added day in the wilds. Here are some specific meal-planning tips for your first backpacking trip.

Reducing backpack weight trick : Lightweight camp shoes. There are a lot of lightweight, waterproof camp shoe options. There are also a lot of DIY shoes options that are more or less foam pads and duct tape. Prep by activity. You are either hiking on the trail or resting at camp. Your clothes should be broken up accordingly. You have your hiking clothes that can get sweaty (typically short sleeves) and you have your at camp clothes which stay dry (typically long sleeves). Discover additional details on Custom Hiking Stuff Sacks Online Store.

Don’t hike in winter conditions unless you have experience doing so. Every year I see dozens of preventable hiker deaths in the winter. Hikers attempt a trail that’s straightforward in the summer, but in the winter becomes a mountaineering exercise. Don’t push yourself past your limits. Build your strength and distance in a gradual way. Stay hydrated and fed, even if you aren’t hungry or thirsty. Heed signs and warnings. Sometimes they seem very basic and aimed at beginners, but they’re there for a reason. Stay on the trail, avoid shortcuts, and always know where you are and where you’re going. Check out my “hiking for beginners” post to make sure you haven’t missed anything important. Leave your hiking plans with a friend or family member, along with a time that you will be back by. If you’re not back by that time, let them know that they should call 911 and alert the authorities of your situation. Usually this is as simple as forwarding a link to a hike web page in an email. Worth the 2 minutes it takes. Practice camping overnight with your emergency gear in your backyard (or a nearby park). Learn some primitive skills to help you survive in the outdoors. You can watch videos on Youtube, or even attend classes all over the country. I’ve gone to the Tom Brown Tracker school and it was pretty awesome. And even though I know primitive survival skills, I still bring all of the emergency gear that I mentioned earlier. It’s better to have as many options as possible.

I (Ben) have been a professional full-time photographer for almost 16 years. In that time I developed a strong passion for hiking and backpacking. Like most landscape photographers carrying camera gear efficiently has always been a struggle and solving that problem involved dragging out my old sewing machine. Once I made a few camera bags I moved on to stuff sacks, dry bags and of course Backpacks. Boom! Hilltop Packs was born. Discover more details at https://www.hilltoppacks.com/.