Top Posters

Hey all, I have been a novice hiker for a long time, but recently I have been really wanting to get into back country hiking. I thought a forum would be a good place to start and gain information from the more experienced people. At the moment I am starting to acquire gear. I have a compass, hiking shoes and camel back. LOL. I'm taking my time because I have no idea what would be the right gear needed hence why I am hear. Any information would be so appreciated. I am currently living in California, but I am originally from Maine. Hopefully, I can make it to some meet ups and meet some great people and enjoy God's beauty. Cheers.

Greetings and welcome to the group. There is a lot of good information here and some great people, I hope that you can find this forum as helpful as I have. Again, welcome.

Welcome to TrailGroove and best of luck getting started and getting all the gear assembled. For some tips in that regard feel free to browse past issues of the magazine - as a Premium Member you can download all the past issues here to catch up on all our past reviews and tips on gear. You can also find reviews and guides on everything from pack selection to sleeping pads over on the blog: https://www.trailgroove.com/blogs/ Lastly, feel free to ask any questions that might come up here on the forums!

Thank you, Aaron for this blog posting. I've been a regular Gaia user, using it for downloading gpx. routes to the app and then tracking my hikes. I've now just become a premium subscriber (to Gaia that is; I sure wish I'd known about TrailGroove's special offer regarding a free premium membership to Gaia with a $20 premium membership to TrailGroove!!) to create routes myself, let alone having the confidence to play around with all the possible map layers. This blog posting of yours allowed things to really start coming together for me. I'm taking myself on my first hiking tour in the Southwest and I'm very grateful to have this wonderful Gaia app more useful for that.

Hey Everyone. I'm Andrew I'm hoping to gain experience from on the boards. I'm very new to hiking and backpacking. I'm from Philadelphia and I'm trying to get back into hiking. I did some small group hikes years ago. I'd like to get back into in and maybe do a multi day backpacking trip. I'd like to meet some people and get suggestion on easier hikes i could try.

just saw this on an instragram post a few weeks ago and tried it for the first time while mountain biking the other day and was surprised how accurate it was! being that i was down in a canyon the sun sets at a different time than I am used to at home so this trick came in very handy! held up my hand and figured I had about 45 minutes of good light left and sure enough exactly 45 minutes later ( within a minute or two ) the sun dropped and it started getting dark. Very cool trick and awesome skill to have when spending time in areas where the sun set is different! Thanks for sharing !

welcome!

Indeed. Going on a 900 miler starting next wk. All my food and gear had already been on sale purchased 12-18 months long before I decided to commit to the trek simply taken out of storage and given the once and second over. Same with the daily supplement paks. I'll still set everything out spreading it all out in an organized fashion on the basement floor all set to be pre posted, addressed, and mailed out by someone at home about 2-3 wks before pick up with me mailing out the first three boxes a couple of days before the start. This also helps quantify and decrease on trail expenditures. When considering daily and each resupply food wt with limited places to buy/supplement(not all hikes have the abundance of road crossings and uber food resupplying ease as the AT and PCT) I have to take into account whether I'm going to be more of a hiker or camper(95% of the time it's 14-18 hrs every 24 on the move), how many hrs I'll actually anticipate being on the move, difficulty of the trail and hike, how far resupply pts are spaced apart, what my body fat % is going in, how long I'll be out on the hike, and season. Daily food wts can range between an absolute low of 1 lb on trips less than a wk to about 1 3/4 lb on LD hikes. When resupply pts are very close together and I'm only hauling 3 or so days chow I might carry more than 2 lbs of food per day. This allows to make up a bit of the calories. Food is aimed at 130+ cals/oz with a sharp eye on overall nutrition beyond just calories. A calorie is not just a calorie. A calorie of simple carb sugar is not the same as a calorie that includes other nutrients in the food. having a good amt of fiber in trail food rather than empty "junk" cals and drinking plenty of fresh clean cool water helps to stay satiated.

I try to get my essentials as light as possible so I can splurge on the luxury items. I always bring a beer or two. I have found that anything from Oscar Blue's brewery in Colorado is a good bet. They pack a punch and come in cans. Particularly fond of the Old Chubb Scotch Ale. Other than that I bring a good book, my fly fishing gear, camera, bourbon or peppermint schnapps (depending on if I bring spiced cider or hot chocolate), and my iPod if I am going it solo. I know some people poo-poo at extra electronics in the backcountry but man...getting the right tunes at sunset with a cold beer is priceless.

Chair, hammock, hot chocolate, iPod, and a book? Why settle at just one? (note: I'm definitely not a gram-weenie!)