
My Dumbest Backpacking Mistakes (2018) [video] - curtis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrCNj8wabBQ
======
crikli
TLDW version:

1) Didn't get familiar with hiking / camping on broken / rough terrain.

2) Didn't plan on how to deal with hypothermia inducing temperatures.

3) Didn't replace shoes quickly enough

4) Not taking black bears seriously enough.

5) Careless / casual with river crossings

She doesn't give great rules of thumb on each point. Here are some based on my
experience:

1) Go out with your pack at night and practice moving quickly up and down some
stairs. If it rains, even better.

2) Have a layer (usually a wind/rain shell) at the top of your pack. When you
stop that layer automatically goes on. When you start walking again that layer
goes back in the pack.

3) Replace your shoes when mileage equals 500 - your loaded weight (bodyweight
+ pack). Do not risk your foot health for a hundred bucks.

4) No RoTs. Bears aren't inherently hostile (usually) but they're not
inherently friendly either. Self-education required.

5) No RoTs here, water crossing are dangerous. If you are going to cross you
have to have a plan for what happens if you lose your pack or get swept
downstream. The force of water can be shocking.

EDIT: If you plan to do any kind of movement over long distance _please_
invest in the book "Fixing Your Feet". Foot problems end more adventures than
anything else. Foot care and foot health is the primary predictor IMO of how
successful and how non-miserable a movement will be.
[https://www.amazon.com/Fixing-Your-Feet-Prevention-
Treatment...](https://www.amazon.com/Fixing-Your-Feet-Prevention-Treatments-
ebook/dp/B01I8S7U44)

~~~
jeremy0x4a
> No RoTs here, water crossing are dangerous. If you are going to cross you
> have to have a plan for what happens if you lose your pack or get swept
> downstream. The force of water can be shocking.

Just as importantly, consider in advance how being wet is going to affect you.
Wet clothes are heavy and fail to insulate, while wet feet inside wet shoes is
a very bad combination for a number of reasons.

~~~
crikli
Yes! Solid point, and a great example of why there aren't RoTs for rivers. It
can be a really complex problem. You can't go barefoot. Do you have camp
shoes, will they work for the crossing? If you use your main shoes did you
make a bad choice (my opinion) and pick Goretex? Do you have dry socks for the
other side? Will the environment even allow drying? Is your pack waterproof?
Will it float? If you used a contractor bag does it have holes, because if
you've been in for more than a few day guess what, it does! In the shitty
trail mishap lottery nothing is worse than soaked sleeping bag. And what do
you wear during the crossing? If you won't strip to your skivvies what's your
drying plan?

Bridges are really great, is my point.

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arethuza
My mistakes are usually that I forgot gloves|hat|crampons|lunch|drink|<vital
thing>

I now have a checklist that I carefully check against and actually tick stuff
off with a pen (usually do this about 5:30 so needs to be easy to do!).

Edit: I also _completely_ panicked once after a large noisy animal blundered
into my tent in the middle of the night - was convinced it was a bear. Of
course, there haven't been bears here in Scotland for a long time.... (I
realised this in the morning when sanity returned - it was a red deer).

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adrianN
The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans [1] is full of interesting information
about hiking in dangerous terrain

[1] [http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-
hun...](http://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hunt-for-the-
death-valley-germans/)

~~~
scriptkiddy
Oh man! I love this guy's site! Tom has some amazing stories on there. The one
you linked is one of my favorites as is the one about the missing hiker in
Joshua Tree.

It's really fun to have Google Earth open while reading the stories so you can
find the places he is writing about.

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flurdy
My dumbest backpacking mistake was on day 2 of my interrail [1] trip across
Europe and North Africa. Exhausted I fell asleep on a Marseille beach in the
afternoon without any suncream on.

When I woke up my shoulders was very sunburned. Spent the first week or two of
the 6 weeks long trip lifting my heavy backpack off my painful shoulders.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interrail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interrail)

~~~
flurdy
2nd mistake was packing too much stuff. Fixed a week into my trip in a Post
office in San Sebastian by stuffing 2/3 of my backpack into a cardboard parcel
and posting it home.

~~~
CaptainZapp
My packing rule, slightly tongue in cheek, but not really:

Pack light and then throw out half.

Seriously, I just came back from 3 1/2 weeks in Asia with a backpack with a
weight of 11KGs (15, when I returned). I was never short on anything.

This may be slightly different when you have a weighty hobby (scuba diving, or
so), kids or go to colder places. But in general my experience is that most
people pack far too much.

~~~
mvexel
It's surprising how little you actually need, and as you point out, how little
more you need for a 3 week trip than you do for an overnight trip. I don't
backpack much but my bikepacking checklist is pretty much the same regardless
of the length of the trip. The main (and heavy) variable is the amount of
water to bring, and that's more dependent on weather and available water
sources than on length of the trip.

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js2
My dumbest backpacking mistake was that time I was walking over a footbridge
and I decided for fun to use my arms to lift myself on the guardrails
forgetting my center of gravity was behind me with my pack on. It wasn’t long
before I was flat on my back staring at the sky.

Is there a TLDW for this video?

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oblib
I made a tent out of those plastic "SOL" emergency blankets that heats up
inside via solar or a small campfire. You can dry out clothes pretty fast with
it.

I know you can't have campfires out west, but I live in the Ozarks where
forest fires are not an issue most of the time and it's easy to check the fire
risk at
[https://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/fire_wx/fwdy1.html](https://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/fire_wx/fwdy1.html)

So, the reason I bring this up is it's pretty easy to fashion a UL clothes
dryer if you carry one of those blankets, a bit of clear plastic, and some
tape.

Here's a link to a very short video of the tent:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdekfNtx65c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdekfNtx65c)

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pseudobry
Couple things off the top of my head from experience:

* Running out of food is lame

* Carrying way more food than you really needed is lame

* Forgetting means to light a stove is really lame

* Little critters will chew through whatever to get to your food, so keep it outside your tent (hang it high off a tree)

* (Mountaineering) Exposed skin will be scorched by sun reflected off the snow

* Separate your "keep me dry" layer from your "keep me warm" layer, don't go cheap

* You need to drink more water than you think you do

* Unless you have guaranteed means/opportunity to dry yourself/clothing, avoid getting wet (avoid cotton, jeans)

* Everyone should know the route, if there's a fork or ambiguity in the trail, everyone needs to be together

* Have a backup means of filtering/purifying water

* Always tell someone where you're going and when they should expect you back

* Check the weather and recent trip reports

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RandomBacon
Any (former) Philmont Rangers here?

I'd be interested in hearing about the dumb things you've seen crews do.

------
joevandyk
Any recommendations for how to start backpacking? Books, stores, guides, etc.

~~~
oblib
Go to [https://backpacking.net](https://backpacking.net) and check out their
"Tips" page and other content and I highly recommend you go to
[https://backpacking.net/bbs.html](https://backpacking.net/bbs.html) and sign
up for their forums.

That site has a lot of top notch info and the forum members collective
experience is a great resource for those looking to get started and those
who've been backpacking for years.

Go there before you start buying gear and you'll save a ton of money and have
better gear. And you'll be lugging a lot less weight.

