Essential Hiking Wisdom: Crucial Tips for Comfort, Safety, and Navigation on the Trail

Here are some of the most crucial hiking tips that I've learned over the years. We will start with proper gear fit and usage.

I. Optimizing Your Backpack for Comfort

Adjusting the Torso Length and Load Lifters

On most backpacks you'll be able to regulate the distance between the point where the shoulder straps attached to the backpack and the middle of the hip belt. For example, on this backpack, the shoulder straps are attached with velcro over here and I can just pull it higher if I want to or I can pull it down lower. If the torso length is adjusted too short, like it is right now, then the shoulder straps kind of dig into my shoulder and I will surely have shoulder pain in the evening. But if the torso length is adjusted too high, like it is right now, then the whole weight of the backpack kind of leans towards the back and the whole backpack feels kind of loose which will also cause shoulder pain. Ideally you want the load lifters to be sitting something like this at a downwards angle where the attachment point to the backpack is slightly higher than the attachment point to the shoulder straps. Another thing to watch out for is that there shouldn't be any gaps behind here; the shoulder strap should pretty much be sitting right next to your shoulder.

Water Carrying: Bottles Over Bladders

I often see a lot of beginner hikers buy a water bladder as one of their first purchases, but actually people who hike regularly don't really use water bladders. Instead we use cheap and regular water bottles. They're much lighter, they're easier to refill, and you can replace them very easily pretty much anywhere. And the best part about them is that they don't add any weight to your pack. Now of course if you want to take a sip you'll have to take off your backpack to get access to water, but you'll be doing that anyway every 30 to 60 minutes to have a break, so it doesn't really matter whether you have a water bladder or a regular water bottle.

II. Safety, Power, and Trail Etiquette

The Peril of Mountain Shortcuts

Don't take shortcuts in the mountains. Sometimes when looking at a map it may seem obvious that it would be easier to take a shortcut because the distance would be shorter. I've done this countless times myself and I can tell you that it basically never ends well. If there already isn't a trail connecting two points in the mountains then most likely it isn't there for a reason. Usually I end up navigating steep cliffs, going through rivers or walking through overgrown forests, and I pretty much always regret taking the shortcut, so don't be like me and don't do it.

Power for the Road Trip Hiker

A lot of people, including me, like to combine road trips with day hiking. In this case, having a power station is really beneficial because it allows you to charge up all of your devices and even sneak in some work on your laptop without going back to an urban area to recharge all of it. Eaglet Tech was nice enough to send me their power station, the Plume 300, a few months ago and I've been basically testing it ever since. It has an AC outlet, two USB ports, and two type-c ports. It also has a 260Wh battery capacity which allows me to charge up my phone roughly 15 times or do additional 8 hours of work on my laptop. This allows me to easily stay in my car for at least a few nights and when I run out of battery I can just go to a cafe or recharge it while driving my car. But the best part about it is that it is really small and lightweight. When compared to a more popular option like the Jackery 300, it's roughly 30% lighter, weighing at 2 kg, and it's also only 1/3 of the size. Over the last 2 months I've been using it quite a lot and everything seems to work perfectly. So if you're looking for a small and lightweight Power Station then this thing is a really good option.

Preparing for Unpredictable Weather and Lightning Safety

Prepare for the weather. But beyond just checking the weather forecast, you also have to learn how to deal with unpredictable bad weather. For example, to keep all of your gear dry, put it all in a big trash bag and put it inside the backpack, and it will keep your gear dry. Always do summits and high altitude mountain passes early in the morning to avoid thunderstorms, because thunderstorms usually happen at around 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. And if you do get caught in one, don't hide under exposed trees and exposed rocks because lightning is most likely to hit right there. Instead look for a small forest or a bunch of trees that are next to each other, or a boulder field or something similar that's lower in the valley and get as low as you can before the lightning starts.

Protecting Your Electronics and Group Dynamics

Don't rely on just dry socks and rain gear to keep all your electronics dry. Instead, put them in Ziploc bags, which will act as a backup. When I just started out hiking, I left my phone inside the pocket of this rain jacket which supposedly is waterproof, but of course it got soaked and I had to throw out my phone and I didn't have any way of navigating for the rest of my hike. When hiking in a group, always hike as fast as the slowest person in the group. Because if you want to be hiking with that person again, you want them to have a good experience. And if they're always the last one and nobody waits for them, chances are that they probably won't enjoy the hike. So just chill a bit, wait for them, and enjoy the outdoors, because that's why you're there, not to run a marathon.

III. Gear and Packing Strategy

Correctly Distributing Pack Weight

If you attach something heavy to the top or the middle part of your backpack, like a tent, a sleeping mat, or a sleeping pad, then it basically pulls the weight away from your shoulders and it causes a lot of strain and results in shoulder pain. If you're running out of space, you can attach something lightweight to the bottom of the pack, for example a foam sleeping mat. It isn't as bad because it distributes some of the weight around your hips, which isn't as bad. But ideally, you want to keep all of the heaviest items inside the pack and preferably closer to your back.

The Controversy of Trekking Poles

Figure out if you really do need trekking poles. They're kind of a controversial subject in the hiking world. Some people say that you can't hike without them and others say that they're basically a waste of your money. Here's my own take on them: if you'll be hiking in the mountains, if you have problems with your knee, or if you'll be hiking in mud or in other technically difficult terrain, then you do need trekking poles. But if you'll be hiking on easier flat trails, for example like this forest over here, then you probably don't need to buy trekking poles. As for the trekking poles themselves, you definitely don't want to buy expensive ones at first. You can just buy cheaper ones and then find out if you like using trekking poles or not.

The Importance of Insulated Winter Boots

When I just started out, my feet were pretty much always cold when hiking in winter, regardless of how many layers of socks I wore. But that changed when I bought insulated hiking boots. Of course my feet still get wet after a long day of hiking because of all the sweat, but they're much, much warmer. So if you'll be hiking in late autumn, in winter, or in early spring, definitely invest in a pair of good insulated hiking boots, because you'll have a much more pleasurable hike.

IV. Mastering the Art of Navigation and Rest

Finding and Navigating Trails Offline

Learn how to navigate. To find a good hiking trail, go to wikiloc.com or alltrails.com. Both of these websites contain hundreds of thousands of very good hiking trails. The only difference is that Wikiloc is more popular here in Europe, so it has much more trails to choose from over here, but AllTrails is much more popular in North America. If you go to either of these websites from your PC, you can choose a trail that you want to hike and then download the GPX file for free once you log into your free account. Then you need to go to your phone and download an app called Gaia GPS or Locus Maps for actually navigating the trail. I would recommend either of these two apps because they're both free, they work offline, and they have very good maps to navigate. You basically need to download the GPX file from your PC, then send it to your phone and upload it to the app. But before you set off, you need to make sure that you'll be able to navigate offline because you maybe won't have any internet there. The way it works on the free version of either of these apps is that you have to zoom into the trail that you'll be hiking and it will automatically download in the cache of your phone the data from the map. You can check that it works by turning on airplane mode on your phone and then checking if all the data from the maps have been downloaded. The GPS on your phone should still work if there's no internet or cell reception, and that's basically it. Now you're all set to go out hiking if there's no internet.

Simple Tricks for Sleeping Well in a Tent

If I haven't slept in a tent for a while, I usually have trouble falling asleep during the first night. Of course, over time you get used to it, but the first time specifically, I usually don't sleep very well. Most commonly, I wake up roughly 10 times during the night and have nightmares about something or someone trying to break into my tent, but the reality is that it's just my imagination. From all the camping that I've done, I've only had a bad experience once. I found personally that the best way to fall asleep is to stop thinking. And the best way to do that is to focus on my breath and not think about anything else. Doing this, I usually fall asleep within 5 to 10 minutes. So next time you're having trouble falling asleep in a tent, try this method and see if it also works for you. If you know of any other important hiking tips, please leave them in the comments below because it will help other people who are just starting out.