You know why you haven’t taken up backpacking?
Because you think you have to hike with 40 pounds on your back with every footstep you take.
Well, you don’t. If every backpack trip we took involved lugging a full pack for days on end, we wouldn’t backpack, either.
Editor’s note: We run this piece every year around this time. The extra hour of afternoon daylight that Daylight Saving Time grants us means we can hit the trail after work. But that comes with a caveat — and some advice, which follows.
For much of the winter, the sun set long before we had a chance to enjoy it after getting off work. Now, it stays out later and later, and so do we. Sometimes later than we anticipated.
Despite the cold, the forest floor is coming alive with splashes of color: carpets of delicate white spring beauties, patches of starburst white chickweed, bursts of purple periwinkle, flashes of yellow green-and-gold.
The spring show has begun, but it won’t last forever. Here are five spots where you’re likely to find the season in full flower for at least the next couple of weeks (longer in the high country).
Patience.
Sometimes that’s the key to exploring a trail. Patience, as in following a trail that isn’t well blazed — or blazed at all. Patience in finding the trailhead. Or patience in even finding clues on the internet that the trail even exists. Thank heaven for friends who somehow found it and hiked it.
Last week, we extolled the virtues of basecamp backpacking : that is, hiking in a short distance with your camping gear to establish a basecamp, then doing day hikes from there. You get the advantage of backcountry camping minus the burden of hauling 35 pounds with you wherever you go.
You know why you haven’t gotten into backpacking?
A simple misconception.
When you think of backpacking, you likely think of hiking with 40 pounds on your back all day. In fact, you don’t. If every backpack trip we took involved lugging a full pack for days on end, we wouldn’t backpack, either.
