This is a part of this blog I wanted to have done a long time ago but other things just kept having higher priority. As a result, I don't even have time to edit the things I wrote, let alone complete the portions I never started. So this is still very raw. But there is some good information in here and I am hoping some people find it useful.

There are a lot of things a hiker can do to make things more comfortable when hiking distances they may have never hiked before. The tips listed below can make all the difference in the world. They can be the difference between hiking a long ways in agony or doing the exact same hike in a way that doesn't feel much worse than your average hike. We first noticed people doing this type of hiking in Montana. Loop trails that we thought needed to be done backpacking three days were being done in a single day. We are talking about 20 to 30 miles per day in somewhat rugged terrain and over two or three tall passes. While it is true that people backpacking the Pacific Crest Trail get to the point of hiking this distance over the course of a month or so, your average day hiker cannot because they are not hiking every single day with nothing else to do. So how do these day hikers turn in mileages like this? Some of it is conditioning. They hike a lot and some also cross train in a very specific way. But conditioning alone usually isn't enough. That's where strategies like we have listed below come in. You don't need to do all of them because almost every strategy listed will produce noticeable improvement in your hiking. But it is also true that the more of these strategies you master, the more you will surprise yourself by what you are able to do. Still, you can't get there all at once because these techniques need to become second nature to you to have their maximum effect. So work on a few at a time and add in more only when you are certain that the techniques already learned are pretty much in place for good.

We can't even begin to tell you how amazing it is to be able to cover this amount of ground on a day hike and the be able to go out the next day and do another amazing hike. As you'll see, you are absolutely not rushing when you hike this way. If anything, you are more relaxed, comfortable, and observant. You will be able to enjoy the whole hiking experience even more than you always do while not paying a heavy price. For many, distance hiking changes everything and raises their passion to whole new level.

All information copyright (c) Bill Smith 2013

Friday, March 22, 2013

Aim High


When hiking, shoot for a distance that would be amazing if you hit it. This is easy to do in the SMB because you are hiking laps.  Say you usually hike 4 miles, but you think 10 is possibe. Try for 10 and chances are good that you will hit 6 before you know it.  Many people have already had this
experience.  The one that comes to mind most for us is the trail to Bullhead Lake in Glacier National Park.  The trail to the lake is a pretty easy 3 miles in and 3 miles out.  But it didn't always seem "easy."   Well, this is the same trail that you take to hike to Swiftcurrent Pass, a 12 mile round trip hike and definitely not easy.  The first time we hiked to the pass, we were surprised by how fast we got to the lake and how good we felt when we got there.  This is, in part, because the switchbacks start just after you pass the lake.  Our minds were on those switchbacks the whole time and so we barely even noticed any difficulty getting to the lake.  

The reason why that is such a good example is because the story doesn't stop there.  That trail to the pass, of course, continues to trails on the other side.  If you can arrange a shuttle, you can do an amazing 15 mile one way hike to the park's center of activity--Logan Pass.  You may have already guessed what I am about to tell you.  The first time we hiked all the way to Logan Pass, we found we got to the top of Swiftcurrent Pass faster than we thought was possible and with a lot less difficulty than we have ever experienced before. But the story doesn't even stop there because, at Logan Pass, there is a short, but somewhat steep 1.5 mile hike to a scenic overlook.  It is a great hike to take because the whole area is just so beautiful and you always have lots of bighorn sheep and mountain goats close to the trail.  Plus the chances of see a grizzly or even a wolverine are very high as well.  So one day we got started early on our hike to Logan Pass and started talking about doing the Overlook trail when we got there.  The further we hiked, the more we liked the idea because  it was also a perfect day.  Well, by now you already know what I am about to say. When we got to Logan Pass, it seemed like it wasn't anywhere near as difficult getting there as it had been in the past.  So we continued to the Overlook.  Now this part you won't be anticipating, but it still illustrates the point.  We got on the Overlook Trail and soon started hearing stories from people coming back down who had seen a wolverine at the top.  We've never seen a wolverine in the wild and so getting to the top fast enough to have a chance to see it became our focus.  The truth is it seemed like it was now taking forever to get to the top because we wanted to be there half an hour ago.  But we really did get there in record time even though it felt like it was taking longer.  And when we got there, we weren't even feeling tired.  We looked and looked for the wolverine and couldn't find it.  Talking with others, we learned that it continue in the direction of the lake that is below the overlook.  You guessed it, we continued down the steep trail to the lake knowing full well what we were getting into but not caring either.  It isn't the easiest downhill you will do and coming back up can be even more difficult.  But we made it to the lake without much problem.  If only we had seen the darn wolverine, all would have been fine.  The adrenaline would gave easily got us back up to the Overlook.  But, and this is only my theory, the wolverine was hiding close by and laughing at us.  I swear I heard the wolverine laugh.  It quickly dawned on us that our legs were shot and that even though it was only 1.5 miles to the top, it was going to be a difficult 1.5 miles.  That's when we sat down and started figuring out how to do it.  The other tips in this blog will give you some idea of what we figured out.  Having a good plan gave us a mental advantage for what we were about to do.  I'm not going to tell you it was easy, but it was definitely easier than we had originally thought.  We ended up hiking over 21 miles that day when we started out with a plan to go 15.  We didn't even feel very tired until about 18 miles because of the unique circumstances of that day.  Most important, after sleeping VERY good that night, we were out on a different trail the very next morning.
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