Collins Complete Hiking and Camping Manual: The essential guide to comfortable walking, cooking and sleeping. Rick Curtis
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Keep track of all expenses on a Trip Expenses Form (page).
Fill out your Trip Log (page) as you hike so you have detailed information on hiking times, campsite locations, and water availability for future trips.
Document any close calls, accidents, or first aid treatments. These should be reviewed after the trip. (See “Safety and Emergency Procedures.”)
Notify your emergency contact person as soon as you return, and let him or her know you have returned safely.
Return any borrowed personal or group equipment.
Clean all gear. Water bottles and water containers should be treated with iodine or chlorine bleach solution if they have contained potentially contaminated water. (See “Water Purification,”.)
Dispose of rubbish and properly dispose of human waste if you packed it out. (See “Leave No Trace Hiking and Camping.”)
Dispose of any medical waste properly (see page).
Settle up finances.
It’s good to talk about the trip afterwards and see how well it met the goals you set out as a group and each individual’s goals. Are there things that you’d do differently next time? Identify and discuss any problems on the trip, including close calls or accidents. (See “Safety and Emergency Procedures,” and “Outdoor Leadership.”)
Whoever decides to plan the route should first determine the physical condition of the people going, which can be difficult. It’s best to rely on some form of objective measurement rather than counting on the “Yeah, I’m in great shape” reply. After reviewing thousands of health and fitness forms from college students I’m still amazed how often people either overestimate or underestimate their physical fitness level. Assessing physical fitness ranges from asking some basic questions about health and exercise activities to administering a required physical exam. Base your degree of assessment on the level of difficulty for the trip: If the trip is of low to moderate difficulty, staying relatively close to civilization, then you’ll have greater resources to fall back on in case of a problem. If the trip is more difficult or ventures into a remote location with limited access for evacuation or medical care, you need to do a much more thorough screening. In some cases, you may even require a specific conditioning regimen. Part of making sure that a person is going on the right trip is giving the individual as detailed information as possible about what the trip will entail. Having someone attempt a trip that is too physically demanding can lead to friction within the group as well as real safety issues.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could look in a guidebook and find out how easy or difficult a particular hike would be? Unfortunately there is no commonly used system for rating trail difficulty. Lots of other outdoor sports, like rock climbing and whitewater paddling, have systems for rating the difficulty of a climbing pitch or a whitewater river. These systems are very useful for matching your skill level with the difficulty of the trip.
There are so many factors that can slow down or speed up a hiker that rating the difficulty of a trail is extremely subjective. Take the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania: In the southern part of the state, it is on a fairly flat ridge with good trails, then it moves northward and you enter the dreaded “rock zone,” where the trail requires constant rock-hopping for miles that slows down hikers significantly. I look at the following factors and rely on my own hiking experience as a gauge.
Daily mileage
Daily elevation changes—how many feet/meters you go up or down over the course of the day
Steepness of ascent or descent
Trail conditions (smooth, rocky, switchbacks, off trail, etc.)
Amount of weight the person is carrying, as a percentage of their body weight. (See “The Backpack,”.)
If you are over 8,000 feet (2,438 meters), consider the effect of reduced oxygen and acclimatization on hiking pace. (See “Altitude Illnesses,”.)
I like to start with guidebooks when planning a trip. Since the maps that you would typically take on a trip are pretty specific (and buying lots of maps can get expensive), it’s best to focus on the general area that you are interested in first, and a good guidebook is indispensable. Most guidebooks will give you an overview of the area and some basic maps, so you can get an idea of where to go. A good guidebook will also have specific trails and trips described in detail with mileages, elevation changes, campsites, places to visit, etc. Since guidebooks are so regionally specific, there are lots of different publishers, and finding guidebooks outside your local area can be difficult. Whenever I travel I make it a habit to stop at local bookstores or outdoor shops to see what local-area guidebooks and maps they have. Here are a few of the larger publishers and sources of information you might check out:
Bradt Travel Guides (www.bradt-travelguides.com)
Cicerone (www.cicerone.co.uk)
HarperCollins (www.collins.co.uk)
Maps International (www.mapsinternational.co.uk)
The Ramblers Association (www.ramblers.org.uk)
Rough Guides (www.roughguides.com)
Once you’ve located a specific area, get some maps and start working out the details of your trip. (See “Maps and Map Reading,”.)
See “Estimating Travel Times” to determine how long each day’s hike will take. For each day, establish a Time Control Plan that includes your hiking time along with other factors to calculate your total travel time for the day. During the day, monitor your Time Control Plan; you may have to modify the trip if you are not able to keep to your planned schedule.
Use the Trip Logistics Plan (page) to help document your route and to give to your emergency contact person.
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