Advice For Long-Distance Hikers, Part One

shelters, packs, footwear, pacing, water, blisters, chafe, desert hiking, navigation, bears

My favorite pic of me- taken on the CDT in 2015, with the front-facing camera on my phone which was propped against a dirt clod, while crossing Wyoming’s Great Divide Basin

Part two is here, part three is here

Back when I was long-distance hiking five months a year and blogging every day, I used to write posts about gear and general hiking advice from time to time. I don’t write about hiking much anymore, but I’ve grown to really love teaching people about it- in particular people who’ve only dayhiked or traditionally backpacked, but want to get into long-distance hiking. (I think of traditional backpacking as walking less than 10 miles a day with a super heavy pack, and long-distance hiking as thru-hiking the PCT [where you have to average 18 miles a day for 5 months] or something with similar daily miles and at least a month on trail.) The zoom calls with the clients for my guided trips, where we go through all their gear and food, their clothes and shoes, are SO much fun. So in the spirit of that I figured I’d write up the advice I’d give today, to someone just getting into long-distance hiking. This is just part one, covering a handful of topics, and there’s no way I’ll get to everything in a couple of newsletter posts, but if you’re antsy for more youtube and Mike Clelland’s Ultralight Backpackin’ Tips has the rest.

(I am not sponsored by any gear companies I mention, with the exception of Superior Wilderness Designs whose custom packs I love and who were kind enough to give me one for free- none of these other companies even know I recommend their stuff, ha ha.)

Here’s my gear list if you wanna see it

Advice for ppl who wanna do long-distance hiking:

Read Mike Clelland’s Ultralight Backpackin’ Tips. This is like your textbook, your foundation, which you can supplement with online research, youtube videos and whatnot. This book is four decades of ultralight backpacking theory distilled it into a small, concise book with cute illustrations. It’s what got me into long-distance hiking. Sometimes Mike goes too hard (he suggests packing a razorblade in cardboard [but not regular cardboard, cereal box cardboard because it’s lighter] instead of a one-ounce swiss army knife (what I bring) and he goes to the trouble of telling you how many grams an empty emergen-c packet weighs. But you can easily decide for yourself which of his tips are too hardcore for you, and the section on different ways to wipe your ass without toilet paper is gold, and will give you and your hiking partners years of joke material (my favorite suggestion of Mike’s is to simply scoot bear-assed down a grassy hill- I have yet to try this and I’m still not sure if it’s meant to be satire). 

Having a lighter pack will greatly increase your chances of success! This has nothing to do with how physically strong you are. Let’s use the PCT as an example- you have a 5 month weather window to finish the trail in one go, which means you need to average 18 miles a day (this includes all your half days and days off), which means you actually need to walk 20-25 miles a day in order to buy yourself some rest days/resupply days. That is a LOT of a very specific repetitive motion. Every step you take stresses the tendons and ligaments in your feet and legs, and you are taking a LOT of steps each day. The heavier your pack is, the higher the stress with every step, the higher the likelihood of injury as that stress accumulates over the hours, days and months of walking. No matter how buff you are, if you pack is too heavy on a thru-hike of the PCT, you will get an overuse injury and you will not be able to finish the trail. If you actually want to finish a thru-hike, you must get your base weight (this is everything but food, water and fuel) down to 15 lbs or less. (My base weight is around 12 lbs.) Otherwise you’ll get shin splints/a stress fracture in your foot/crippling tendonitis/terrible knee pain/etc etc, and you’ll have to quit the trail. It has nothing to do with your musculature, and everything to do with how many bajillion steps you’re taking each day, day after day, and how much this stresses your tendons and joints. Luckily, with current lightweight gear (and the handy tips in Mike Clelland’s book) it’s not hard at all to get your baseweight low while still being warm, dry, comfortable, safe and well-fed. (You will have to buy some new gear though. I’m sorry. At least the gear is cheaper than for some other outdoors activities- packrafting, backcountry skiing and bikepacking are all more expensive, to name a few.)

Footwear- long-distance hikers wear trail runners, not boots. Long-distance hiking is less like traditional backpacking, and more like running a marathon. When planning your clothing and shoes for long-distance hiking, ask yourself- “would I run a marathon in this?” Now, imagine running a marathon in hiking boots. What you’re imagining is exactly what happens to people who try to long-distance hike in boots. It is truly awful. Boots will turn your feet to hamburger. People think they need to wear boots to protect their ankles. When walking 18-30 miles a day for five months, one rolls one’s ankles on occasion. But when your baseweight is 15 lbs or less, an ankle roll does not become a sprain- it’s just a roll, sometimes painful sometimes not, and you quickly recover. Boots are from a time when packs weighed 60 lbs, and you couldn’t roll your ankle without risking a sprain, because of all the downward pressure. That’s not necessary anymore, thank god! I’ve hiked eleven thousand miles in trail runners, and I’ve never sprained my ankle while long-distance hiking. The two times I’ve sprained an ankle were 1) trail running on a perfectly flat dirt trail 2) stepping off the curb outside a laundromat. If you’re prone to lots of ankle rolls because of previous injury, you can tape your ankles with KT tape every day and this will greatly reduce how much they roll. A youtube video will tell you how to do that.

More shoe info: don’t get waterproof shoes. All shoes get wet- waterproof shoes never dry. Throughout the day, your trail runners will get wet, then dry, then wet, then dry. This is normal and fine and good. If you get waterproof shoes they’ll just be forever wet, and you’ll get blisters. If you’re hiking a trail that’s more than a few weeks long, size up at least a half size. Your feet are growing to grow, and they may never shrink again. (On their first five month trail like the PCT, most people’s feet go up a full size, and never go back down again after.) If your shoes are a bit too big initially, it won’t hurt you. Shoes that are too small will DESTROY you. (Again, imagine the marathon.) I kind of like that my feet grew- it felt like I was reaching my final form. Like, we’re meant to walk a lot, and this is what it did to my feet, so that’s probably how my feet were meant to be. Also, lace your shoes loose enough that you can slip them on and off without unlacing them. This will mean they’re roomy enough inside to accommodate all the swelling that happens on a long hike (especially when it’s hot). If your shoes are a bit too loose they won’t hurt you, but if they’re too tight you can get tendonitis on the top of your feet.

Some of the most popular trail runners on long trails are the Altra Lone Peak (zero drop, wide toe box) and Brooks Cascadias (not zero drop, narrower toe box). I’ve always used Brooks Cascadias, but my feet are pretty narrow. There are other popular trail runners if neither of these work for you- you can find them by poking around on the internet- but these two are the most common.

Socks- the cushier the socks, the more friction and heat, the more friction and heat, the more blisters you’ll get. I use a thin non-cotton sock with no cushion- smartwool run phd socks that are ankle height, but any thin running non-cotton running sock without cushion is great. Lots of people like Darn Tough socks because they’ll replace them for free when they get a hole. If you go with this option, get the thinnest ones.

I call this hiking photo “why do I have diarrhea? I can’t think of any possible reasons…”

Pacing- for your first long-distance hike, you’re going to want to start out slow. On the PCT, for example, you need to average 18 miles a day, but the strategic way to do this if you’re new to the activity is to start out slow and then later, when you’re strong, ramp up the miles and make up for what you’ve missed. This is important because muscles get strong faster than tendons and ligaments- so even though you’ll start feeling physically stronger within a few weeks on trail, your tendons aren’t ready yet- so if you push too hard at this point you’ll get injured. In my experience, it takes a month to really strengthen tendons and ligaments. Starting out, you’re going to want to pay attention to your body’s signals, especially pain- you might only hike 15 miles a day at first, with a full day off in every town, and then as the pain decreases you can increase your mileage and decrease your rest days, but still pulling back if the pain returns. Once you’re about a month in you’ll really feel the difference- the pain is (mostly) gone!! This is when you can open the throttle all the way, and zombie-walk to your heart’s content, the only limiting factor being how much you want to sleep at night.

Water- I carry a liter for every five miles when it’s cool, a liter for every three miles when it’s hot, and two extra liters if I’m going to dry camp (camp where there’s no water source). You’ll want to carry water in a few containers, so if one gets a hole you’re not SOL. I use a Steripen Ultra but I am the ONLY one who likes the steripen (a friend calls it “raw dogging the water”). (FWIW, it works- it’s the only thing I’ve used for 11k miles of hiking and I’ve never gotten sick while using it.) The vast majority of long-distance hikers use the Sawyer Squeeze (the full size- the mini clogs too fast). The bladder that the sawyer squeeze comes with breaks, so people use a bladder from CNOC or a smart water bottle to squeeze, which also fits. Some hardcore hikers just carry a visine bottle of bleach, and add two drops to each liter of water. I think this might be bad for you? And I wouldn’t personally do it, but to each their own. Speaking of water-

Desert hiking- the United States has huge deserts! If you wander around in this country’s western half, you’ll likely walk across a few. Desert hiking is its own whole thing, and I won’t go into it too deeply here, but some basic tips are

·      Take breaks in the shade (the first and most important rule of the desert)

·      Wear a dorky hat with a big brim

·      Cover your skin with lightweight, non-cotton clothing (like a sun hoodie or button-down shirt)

·      Use electrolytes that have salt in them (life changing!)

·      Drink plenty of water (with electrolytes that have salt) but not too much water (the body can’t absorb more than one liter of water an hour, and too much water can dilute your body’s electrolytes and make you sick)

·      Eat food

·      If it’s gonna be too hot, get up in the dark and hike until it’s hot, siesta in the shade and then hike again once it cools down

·      Rattlesnakes will not come for you- give them space and they’ll leave you alone

·      The first signs of heat exhaustion are the umbles (it’s the same with hyporthermia): you’ll get mumbly, stumbly, fumbly and grumbly. If you feel yourself getting a little too warm in the brain area, get out of the sun, drink some water with electrolytes, eat some food, put a wet cloth on your forehead, and rest. You’ll recover, although you might feel like ass for a bit.

hiking realness: my legs after the bushwhack in the Goddard drainage on the Kings Canyon High Basin Route

First aid- you don’t need a traditional first aid kit, but you do need specific items and knowledge to deal with blisters, chafe, pain, hyporthermia, heat exhaustion and dehydration. I carry white cloth medical tape and leukotape for blisters (KT tape works great too). When you start getting a hotspot, put a length of tape over that part of the foot, to transfer the friction to the tape. If you get a full-on blister tape that too. The tape will slow or stop the progression of the hot spot or blister. I take the tape off at night (leukotape is too sticky for this, but best at staying on during the day in really wet environments) in order to let the blister dry out, and re-tape each morning. If the blister makes a raised bubble I pop it with a sewing needle that I sterilize with my lighter (I carry the sewing needle in my dental floss) and put antibiotic ointment on the blister. You can also cut the dead skin off to make it easier to keep clean, and then put a bandaid over the raw part and then tape over that (I carry a couple of bandaids for this).

For chafe, I carry wet wipes and some sort of salve (a little tin of burts bees salve works, or just Vaseline). Chafe is fungal- salve asphyxiates the fungus and kills it. If I start getting chafe I clean the area with wet wipes before bed, and put salve on it overnight. If I do this every night the chafe stays away.

Ibuprofen and Aleve are the best painkillers (anti-inflammatory) for the kinds of muscle and joint pain you’ll have on trail. A little pain reliever is fine, but don’t go too hard- you need to listen to what your body is telling you in order to know if you need to dial it back, to prevent injury.

I cannot sing the praises of electrolytes with salt in them enough! (I like nuun.) These are crucial for preventing (and treating) heat exhaustion and dehydration.

The best way to avoid getting hypothermia is to carry non-cotton layers and a rain jacket for when the temperature plummets and it starts hailing, and to have a good waterproofing system inside your pack (trashbags) to keep your gear dry, and to practice pitching your shelter really well and really taught so that it can weather storms, and to have a warm enough sleeping bag, and to be fastidious with your gear so that it doesn’t get wet. And to eat and drink, because your body needs fuel and water to make heat. And to check the weather before your trip, and not go out if the entire backpacking trip consists of 24/7 freezing rain. If you do end up cold in your sleeping bag, you can stuff whatever extra stuff you have in there for insulation, you can do crunches, you can eat a high-fat dinner (fat helps you sleep warm), you can drink hot tea.

Navigation and planning your hike- the most popular trails are navigated with the Far Out app- you download the background maps and waypoints in the app and then you’ll be able to access them when your phone is in airplane mode. The most popular trails also have facebook pages for information, some for each specific year (PCT class of 2024, for example). These are a great place to ask questions, although you’ll get a mix of good and very bad advice. It’s not too hard to sort through though- if you ask what shelter people like and 20 people recommend the same lightweight single-wall shelter and one person says they’re bringing a six pound tent that’s not waterproof anymore- well.

The less populated trails and routes are navigated with the caltopo app and the gaia app, usually- you download the track from the creator’s website (sometimes for free, sometimes for donation or a fee), or from the facebook page. Information for these hikes is found on the creator’s website, or the facebook page, or both.

Bears- There’s no one-size-fits-all practice for keeping your food (and yourself) safe from bears. Essentially, bear behavior is different in different areas, and it’s up to you to research where you’re going to know what to do with your food (and yourself) there. Many, many areas in the lower 48 have very few bears, only black bears, and you’d be lucky if you saw a bear at all. Some areas have naughty black bears that act like giant racoons and will try and steal hiker food, and a few small areas of the lower 48 have grizzlies. These areas with these naughty black bears or grizzlies are well known, and if they are part of the trail you want to hike you’ll learn about them in your research, and what precautions to take (a bearcan, a bear box at a popular campground, making lots of noise and carrying bearspray [in the case of grizzlies], etc.) In general, if you’re hiking through an area without grizzlies or black bears that act like giant naughty racoons (most of the PCT and CDT, the AZT, the Hayduke, etc etc) hikers sleep with their food in their shelters (always keeping an eye on it) and do not carry bearspray. This is because, in most areas of the lower 48, the only bears are black bears that are VERY afraid of people. Petrified. Because of their fear, keeping your food close to you is the best way to keep it away from these bears. I’ve done this in all eleven thousand miles of my hikes, only changing my behavior in the specific areas where it was appropriate- on the PCT, for example, there are a few short stretches each year where there are naughty black bears (you’ll hear about them, I promise, and you can carry a bearcan in these areas or choose not to camp in them) and then in the High Sierra a bearcan is required. I haven’t personally hiked the AT, so I can’t speak to that trail, but similar to other trails, in your research you’ll learn what the bears are like there and how people deal with their food in response.

Ok now let’s start to talk about gear (fun!)

Here is my gear list again if you wanna creep on it

A note on where to get your gear- the best long-distance hiking gear comes from cottage companies, founded by long-distance hikers, that design gear specifically for long-distance hiking (and usually only sell online)- not from REI. These small companies have higher production costs but since they only sell online there’s no store markup, so the price of this gear is often similar to what you’d pay at REI. Because less of this gear is in circulation, it’s harder to find “deals”, but if you’re spending a month or more on trail, paying full price is absolutely worth it, and choosing well-designed gear specifically for long-distance hiking over REI gear will absolutely make or break your hike.

zpacks pocket tarp in Alaska

Shelters- there are two kinds of hiking shelters, double wall shelters and single wall shelters. Double wall shelters are the tents we’re most familiar with- one layer that is the floor and mesh walls, and one layer that is the rainfly. Single wall shelters have just one layer- kind of like if you just used the rainfly, but designed (by brilliant UL nerds) to be a complete shelter. Lightweight shelter design has come a long way (and also sort of merged into just a few, nearly perfect designs), and you can get a really comfortable and light one-person single wall shelter for not that much money (like $250, $200 if it’s black Friday). Single wall shelters, instead of having poles, stay upright with your trekking pole(s) and the tension in their guylines. Each one sets up in its own unique way, and this can be intimidating, but don’t let it scare you away- there are helpful youtube videos, and you’ll become a pro at pitching your shelter in no time. I’ve only ever used single wall shelters, and when pitched properly they do so good in storms, better than double-wall shelters, IMO, because of how taught they are when pitched well.

The downside of single-wall shelters is that the condensation collects on the inside of the fabric (as opposed to the inside of the rain fly, with double wall shelters) and if you brush against the walls you get wet. For this reason, they’re designed to be roomy enough inside that you can easily stay away from the walls (and this makes them super spacious as well, which rules!).

six moons designs lunar solo in Arizona

The biggest determinate in cost of your shelter is the fabric. The two main fabrics are silnylon and dyneema cuben fiber- silnylon is less expensive but the heavier option, dyneema cuben fiber is crazy light but VERY expensive. If you’re hiking for more than a month, the investment is dyneema can be worth it, but IMO current silnylon shelters are light enough, if you’re not trying to spend $$$.

My current recommendations for single wall shelters (including the ones I use) are

• The Six Moons Designs Lunar Solo (this is the one that often goes on sale for around $200 during black Friday) (I use this shelter in Alaska, or any trail where there’s a chance of sustained bugs or lots and lots of rain, but would also happily use it for any trail in the lower 48 if it was my only option.)

• The Zpacks Hexamid Pocket Tarp With Doors (I pair this with a polycro ground sheet and the sea to summit nano net in case of bugs) (I used this shelter on the PCT, CDT, AZT, L2H and others)

• The Zpacks Plex Solo Tent (like the pocket tarp but with a built in floor and mesh, so a bit heavier and more expensive but less fussy in case of rain/bugs) (I haven’t used this one bc I have the pocket tarp but it’s super popular)

• The Durston x-mid 1 is really popular right now- I haven’t tried it personally but people love the design, it’s good for tall people and it’s one of the more affordable shelters.

And if you need a two person shelter or just want to have a ton of space (or bring your dog), the best single wall shelter on earth is the Zpacks Duplex (I used this on the Hayduke, Mogollon Rim Trail and other hikes where I was hiking with a romantic partner). People also like the Durston x-mid 2, if you need something more affordable and still well-designed (albeit heavier).

zpacks duplex in Alaska

If you really want to use a double wall shelter, the most common ones you see on the long trails are the Big Agnes ones.

me and my ULA OHM in the Alaskan Arctic

Packs- There are so many small companies making brilliantly designed, affordable packs for long-distance hiking! You can really fall down a rabbit hole with this one. I’m only going to recommend two, but I know there are other good ones out there. These are just my tried and true recommendations, and the ones I use.

Packs can be “frameless” or have a frame. The “frame” these days is generally an aluminum stay that weighs seven ounces and makes a huge difference in how the pack sits on your back- the frame helps the pack cantilever off your hips, which is most comfortable. Without a frame the pack just hangs off your shoulders, like a school backpack. If you want to save weight by removing the frame, I recommend cutting ounces in every other way you can first- in your shelter, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, etc. Getting a lighter shelter can save you more than a pound, with no expense to your comfort- taking away the frame in your pack can cause you to be in constant pain for your entire hike whenever your total pack weight is higher than 15 or 20 lbs (like when you have to carry water, or a warm sleeping bag, or more than a few days of food). Some people do eventually get their base weight low enough that they’re able to go frameless without (significant) pain- but I wouldn’t start out that way. (I carry a framed pack because my base weight is 12 lbs and I often hike trails that require long water carries.)

Pack recommendations (these are the ones I use):

·      The ULA OHM. Everyone likes different things in a long-distance hiking pack, and many packs are polarizing for this reason. Except for ULA packs. They’re probably the most common packs you’ll see on the popular long trails, and I’ve never met a single person who didn’t like their ULA pack. They’ve got all the features without being overbuilt, they’re comfortable as heck, they’re roomy enough for any trail in the lower 48 without being too large, they have excellent customer service. And they’re like $250. The ULA Circuit is just as popular as the OHM, and slightly roomier, so if you want to be slightly less fastidious about how you pack your pack the Circuit is also good option. You can’t go wrong with either one. When choosing a torso size, I tell everyone to get the small, unless you’re like six feet tall- packs are sized for giants for some reason, and anything but the small can end up being too long on your back, and cause discomfort.

·      Lighter weight/more minimalist/custom pack: I use a Superior Wilderness Designs pack that is fully custom, but closest in design to this one (with hipbelt pockets added). (SWD was kind enough to give me this pack for free.) SWD has some really nice pre-made designs, and also as you figure out what you do and don’t like, this is a great company to get a custom pack from, with all the specifications just how you like them.

this was my gear for the Mogollon Rim Trail- you can see my SWD pack here

That’s all for the first installment of long-distance hiking advice. Next time we’ll cover sleeping bags/quilts, sleeping pads, food, stoves, training, shitting in the woods and… what else do you want me to carry on about? Leave a question in the comments and I’ll include it next time!

Also, speaking of hiking, there are still spots in my summer 2024 Brooks Range Trips- do you want to galavant around in the arctic under the midnight sun? Trip deets and the link to applications are here.

Best,

Carrot