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.
Today, we focus on the sometimes traumatizing prospect of hiking a trail with creek crossings — creek crossings that don’t have bridges, and sometimes don’t even have a decent rock-hop. Streams that may come above your knee, streams that may have a strong flow.
We’re looking at our first 90-degree weekend of the year and it’s only mid-Spring! If you’re like us, your hiking hormones have only recently become activated. And since there’s no harnessing an unleashed hormone, there’s no sense canceling your hiking plans for the weekend. You just need to alter them a wee bit.
The weather is finally turning springlike, which means that many of you are starting to think about the epic hikes you have planned for summer. Since nothing can torpedo an ambitious hiking trip quicker than legs that aren’t up for the task, it’s time to start getting your gams ready for game day.
For the past decade or so, the highlight of my hiking year has also been a bit of a lowlight.
The first weekend in November our GetHiking! group traditionally has a grand finale in Hot Springs, NC, hiking the Appalachian Trail from Garenflo Gap into Hot Springs on Saturday, and from Tanyard Gap into Hot Springs on Sunday.
We rerun this post, tweaked and updated, around this time of year to help minimize the chances of finding a closed road leading to your favorite trailhead, especially your favorite mountain trailhead.
The winter sky is dry and clear, the temperature cold, invigorating. It’s the perfect weather for a long mountain hike. Then, your car loaded with gear and enthusiasm, you find your travels and day-hike dreams shattered by those two little words on a barricade baring access to the trailhead:
