plan your route, develop a daily evacuation plan and document it on your Trip Logistics Plan. For each day of the trip, know, in general, where you would go to get help in case of an emergency. Obviously, this information will change all the time, but you should know the area well enough to find nearby roads or towns or other resources in case of a problem.
Where is your starting point? Where is your ending point? What type of road or other access is there to the trail?
Is everyone traveling together to get to the trailhead or going separately?
Is this a loop route, or an in-and-out route back to your original starting point (A to A), or a one-way route (A to B)? If A to B, do you need to get back to A to get to your car? Can you do your own shuttle? Or do you need to be picked up at B? Are there taxis or public transportation available?
Once you are out on your trip, keep an accurate daily trip log about where you went, what you saw, how long it took, and so on. This will be a great help in planning your next trip.
TRICKS OF THE TRAIL
Timing is Everything There are a lot of environmental factors that can impact your trip route. For example, in mountainous regions like the Rockies, afternoon thunderstorms are very common in the summer. If you are going to travel on exposed ridges or summits, you want to plan your day to leave very early and be back down off exposed areas by the early afternoon. Another mountain issue is snowmelt. The stream crossings in parts of the Alps, Iceland and Norway are legendary. During the summer, as the temperature rises during the day, there is greater snow and ice melt. What can be an easy low-water crossing in the early morning can become a dangerous or impassable current by the afternoon.
Trip planning is often done from campsite to campsite. You need to make sure that at the end of the day, you will have a place to set up your tent or tarpaulin that isn’t in the middle of a bog or perched on a steep rockslide. A lot of campsite selection can be done using guidebooks and maps. Select a site that allows your group to set up a good Leave No Trace campsite. (See “Leave No Trace Hiking and Camping.”) Unfortunately, sometimes you don’t have the information you need to determine a good campsite in advance, and you’ll have to locate a spot as you hike. More than once, I’ve looked at the map contours and thought, “That looks flat; there must be a good campsite there,” only to discover thick underbrush with no open spaces. Here are some general guidelines for campsite selection:
Water Availability Preferably you want a site near a water source; otherwise, you may need to carry in enough water for dinner, breakfast the next day, and possibly the next day’s hike. Is the water source reliable at all times of year? Is it drinkable or must it be treated?
Campsite Space You want a site that provides enough open space for sleeping, cooking, and washing. (These areas do not have to be right next to each other.) In locations like bear country, it is best if you have a campsite with enough space to keep these areas separate (see page).
Campsite Location If you don’t know of a specific campsite, start looking for campsites early in the day. It’s better to stop at a good campsite earlier on and make up the mileage the next day, rather than continue hiking, only to find nothing there—which means either backtracking or continuing to hike on, which could be difficult or even dangerous if it’s getting dark.
Private Land Be sensitive about hiking on private land. In some cases hiking through is permitted but overnight camping is not. If conditions (bad weather, an injured group member) require it, you may decide you need to. If so, recognize that you may be breaking the law and must live with the consequences. Most people are understanding about emergency situations.
Restricted Areas Don’t camp in a restricted area (unless a group member’s safety is at stake). The area is restricted for a reason. If you choose to camp in a restricted area, recognize that you may be subject to tickets, fines, or even arrest. Explain your situation to rangers or other officials and ask for their assistance. Get them involved as allies in helping you in a difficult situation rather than as law-enforcement officials prosecuting you for an offense. In most cases involving safety (like an injury), rangers and wilderness managers are very understanding. They may still require you to move but may be helpful in finding another location.
As part of planning your route you want to figure out how long it’s going to take you each day. Getting a truly accurate estimate of travel times for your trip is difficult since there are so many factors: your physical condition, condition of the trail, elevation gain/loss, amount of weight you are carrying, rest stops, how much you want to stop and enjoy nature, etc. Guidebooks can be a real help here, since some give estimates of how many hours are required for the hike.
Here is a general formula for estimating travel time for backpacking trips. Use this only as an estimate: On a day hike with less gear or if you are going ultralight, you will move faster than with a heavy pack; a packed dirt trail will be faster than sand dunes or powder snow. In a group, people with different physical abilities or of different ages may move faster or slower, changing the pace of the entire group. This gets back to our earlier discussion about physical condition levels. If you have a broad range of physical condition levels, it may be hard to find a pace that everyone is comfortable/satisfied with. Talk about this before the trip and arrive at a decision that the whole group can live with. As a rule of thumb, the larger the group, the more slowly it moves (there are more stops for pack adjustments, bathroom breaks, etc.).
General Travel Time Guidelines
An average person’s hiking speed on generally flat terrain is 30 minutes per mile (1.6 kilometers), so 1 hour equals 2 miles (3.2 kilometers). If you know that your hiking speed is faster or slower than this, adjust the formula.
Add 1 hour for each 1,000 feet (305 meters) of ascent.
Plan about 5 minutes of rest for each hour of hiking. The more people you have, the more rest stops, bathroom breaks, and equipment adjustments there will be, so adjust accordingly.
Calculating Miles per Hour
Divide the number of miles to be hiked by 2. Calculate the total feet of ascent, divide it by 1,000, and multiply that number by 1 hour. Add up all the hours to find the total hiking hours for the day.
(miles traveled ÷ 2 mph) + (elevation gained ÷ 1,000) + (miles traveled × 5 minutes) = travel time
Example: A group hikes 8 miles (12.8 kilometers) in Rocky Mountain National Park. The day includes a total ascent of 2,000 feet (610 meters). The estimated time to hike this route would be:
8 miles ÷ 2 miles per hour = 4 hours + (2,000 ÷ 1,000) × 1 hour [ascent]
4 hours + 2 hours = 6 hours + (6 × 5 minutes for rest breaks) = 6 hours 30 minutes
Calculating
