Hikers remind me a lot of skydivers. They come in may forms and backgrounds, united in a common pursuit of an interesting, challenging and meaningful experience, with a shared affection for the same. For the sake of mutual gratification, and peace on the playing field, somebody along the way figured out it’s best to leave things like politics back at home, otherwise people get too wound up and somebody invariably gets butt hurt.
Here’s a couple of adages that I’ve picked up from other hikers that can be applied to a lot of worthy endeavors.
HYOH hike your own hike
YMMV your mileage may vary
Hiking was never on my bucket list, or for that matter on any to do list either, but walking 7.5 miles a day to the chow halls, to eat my 3 daily meals, while working in Iraq and Afghanistan, gave me time to think about hiking, as my hiking companion “over there” lived near the trail in CA, and had hiked the entire PCT (2,650 miles) six times over the course of his life. We had many conversations leading up to my conversion. Lol.
I will be going back to work-work, once I get these last 900 miles knocked out. FWIW- I have about 4 months of temporary work coming up starting in June.
It wouldn’t hurt to carry a few items in a fanny pack just in case something happened while on your hike. Cell phone, whistle, bear spray, medical tape, poncho, space blanket, water, fire starter, first aid kit, knife, cord, bug spray, hiking poles, etc. The idea being that if you became disabled and had to overnight out in the field, you would be able to survive extreme weather exposure.
They make a personal locator beacon device to help a SAR team find someone that is lost or disabled. One such piece of equipment is called a SPOT device. It’s bought outright then a subscription is purchased to keep you in touch with a monitoring agency.
Stay safe out there.
I like the “hike around hike” saying. I’m going to print that up somewhere.
Let’s see, I always carry a pack so I’ll see what I’m missing from your list. And the Sierras, we didn’t have any cell coverage. So I always brought my spot. And of course bear spray. Black bears were pretty rampant there. And a bear whistle. Most times they seemed much more scared of me then I was of them. But given the element of surprise, and possibly a mother bear, I didn’t want to take any chances.
That’s interesting that you got interested in hiking in the desert area. I did the same as well, and Ridgecrest. Even though the scenery wasn’t quite as breathtaking, just miles and miles of walking and letting your head clear I is amazing. The best kind of meditation or prayer. I always said that once I walked out my backdoor it took me two or 3 miles to hit my zone. Where life is good, everything was peaceful, and I was able to just let go of all my problems and put them behind me. Of course I usually picked them back up on the way back :(. But then I always got to hike the next day, which is why I try to make it a daily thing around here also.
Cell phone - I do carry one here
whistle - check
bear spray - check
medical tape - got to get some. Do have bandaids...
poncho - check
space blanket - check
water - check
fire starter - check
first aid kit - need, but will need a bigger pack :-)
knife - hmmm, how could I have forgotten that?
cord - ?? Is that to hang myself if all seems lost?
bug spray - check
hiking poles - can’t use those, I found with my RSI, falling is better. jk, but I can’t use them for long.
etc - sunscreen and TP, and baggies. Dog food and granola bars. foldup hat. Extra batteries for the SPOT and GPS.
“Hike your own hike” is what I said. Stupid microphone