Planning Complex Backpacking Trips: Best Practices

It gets way easier. So much so that a week long trip in your own country won’t seem complex at all.

Practice near home on simple overnights till you are comfortable with your kit and skills before biting off more than you can chew.

Agree?

Emylene, I wish you well on your return to the coast. I’ve wanted to hike the WCT for decades, and visiting Tofino last year only made me more motivated to put a trip together for myself and one of my regular backpacking friends. Thanks for this article, and I’m sure I’m not alone in looking forward to the next. Good luck!

It gets way easier. So much so that a week long trip in your own country won’t seem complex at all.

Practice near home on simple overnights till you are comfortable with your kit and skills before biting off more than you can chew.

Agree?

I agree.

As a society and as backpackers, I think we tend to over analyze and over think just about everything.

When I got out of the military as a young man I flew home, landing at LAX. Sitting in the terminal, I realized I didn’t want to go home and didn’t know what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. The Air Force had shipped all my belongings to a storage facility and all I had with me were a few clothes and some odds and ends, because I didn’t know when my belongings would be shipped or arrive at the designated storage facility. I went to the ticket counter and asked where the next available flight was going to. Fresno.

So I bought a ticket to Fresno. After a couple of days in a Fresno motel I decided to go backpacking, something I had done as a teenager and when on leave in the military. My gear was a mishmash of military and cheap department store stuff and was in the storage boxes, other than a military mess kit and canteen I had put in my luggage. I had a few thousand dollars in the bank I had managed to save while in the military and probably had around $1k in cash wirh me.

I went to an outfitter and bought everything I would need for an extended backpacking trip and threw away all my clothes and items in my luggage. Luckily I got good gear advice from the outfitter. It was spring and there was too much snow in the Sierra near the Fresno area. So I hitchhiked to the most southern part of the Sierra ending up in Kernville. From there I walked to what is now the Golden Trout Wilderness. Still too much snow, so I spent time in the Greenhorn Mountains and the areas along the drainage of the South Fork of the Kern River. Spent time in what is now known as the Domeland Wilderness and visited the Needles. I used large scale USFS maps and was solo.

When the snow had melted enough, I hiked through the Golden Trout Widerness, up through Tunnel Meadow and then to Horseshoe Meadows. A trail sign pointed to Mt. Whitney, so I hiked to the summit. No permit was needed in 1971. Along the way, I saw trail signs for the JMT, which I had never heard of. From Whitney I walked to Lone Pine to resupply, get a map and information at the Ranger Station about this part of the Sierra.

I then hiked the JMT, but stopped short when it got too crowded as I approached Yosemite Valley, so I turned around and walked back to Tuolumne Meadows and then down to Bridgeport. Spent a month in the Sierra north of Bridgeport and then walked back to Kernville. Ended up spending 6 months in the Sierra with no planning and no companions.

Apparently I did everything wrong. But it was a time of no Internet and no information. Backpacker Magazine wouldn’t come into existence until a couple years later. Colin Fletcher had written the Complete Walker in 1969, but I wouldn’t read it until a year later. It was a time when people figured out what to do on their own, and because I figured out what to do on my own, travelled to unknown places with a large scale map, had no definitive plan, resupplied every couple of weeks, it was my best adventure ever.

I’m not saying some trips require advance planning, such as when permits are needed. It’s the uncertainty of the simplest things.

Look at all the Main Page posts where people can’t figure out what underwear to use (Ryan Jordan just published an article on that), or what shelter, hat, sunglasses, water bottle, stove, etc. We have become a society of people who cannot make a decision without polling their friends and social media to find out what they should do. How about the threads that start with “Talk me into… ”

Too many people can’t figure out where to hike or how to get to a trailhead without help. Too many people need trail guides, GPS tracks, and data books to go anywhere. As a people we have lost self-sufficiency and confidence. How can we make important life decisions if we can’t figure out a simple thing like going on a backpacking trip?

Too many people can’t figure out where to hike or how to get to a trailhead without help. Too many people need trail guides, GPS tracks, and data books to go anywhere. As a people we have lost self-sufficiency and confidence. How can we make important life decisions if we can’t figure out a simple thing like going on a backpacking trip?

True. I get what Nick is saying, and I try to leave my trips fairly open when possible. OTOH, there are times where permit availability, transportation issues, resupply, etc. are enough of a concern that a solid plan can really make a trip more enjoyable, and that’s the kind of useful advice I see Emylene providing.

I see the Outdoor Badass Reality Show Syndrome coming into play with some of this, too. When there’s so much focus on the Look At Me! / Facebook factor, what should be a relaxed trip in the backcountry can seem too sedate to impress, which can lead someone to opt for a more difficult trip than they’re really prepared to complete. Too often, I see more concern given to saying “Look at what I did!” than to enjoying the experience. Add that component to inexperience, and you get people fretting about the best backcountry toothpaste, and whether they should take a backup Spot to make sure they can post a live track to their Facebook. It’s just another sign of the connected world. It’s also why I turn my phone off whenever I can. :)

I think John Muir summed it up best

throw a loaf of bread and a pound of tea in an old sack and jump over the back fence

:)

He did walk or two here and there…

I could be wrong, but my gut feeling is that soon as a route or trail gets an alphabet soup designation, it becomes complex all of a sudden versus  just being a simple backpacking trip.

I am sure the West Coast Trail is a wonderful jaunt. I’ve seen photos of it and such. But this a 50 mile trail. Five days of backpacking for an average backpacker. Less so for many however…

Is it really that complex?

Fifty miles of backpacking, a five day trip, used to simply be called a “backpacking trip”.

Get some maps, square way the permits, pack five days of food and off you go.

And an alphabet soup route typically has guidebooks, designated maps sets and even resources on exactly how to do the trip.  Even easier..

What am I missing here? :)

(I’m a no hair backpacker.but I’ve been that way since I was about 27 or so..)

I guess complex is a relative term then.

I would say that is correct in relation to the article.  To me it was a basic “how to prepare for a trip not close to home” piece.  Could be going to the beach or traveling to Europe.  Choosing travel companions, logistics on getting there, money, gear etc. all to insure a good time when you get there.  Particularly when you have only a certain window to do the trip then you want to maximize it and not waste days and dollars.

I completely agree with Nick’s social observations but that is aside from the article on how to go about planning for a big trip.  I fly frequently to the West to backpack and as much as it is mentally appealing to just throw stuff in a bag and go without a plan, I don’t (and most folks don’t) have that luxury.

My most “complex” walk was a long section of the Hayduke with very limited resupply options, infrequent water and 300 miles from the nearest airport on either end, I had to resort to a spread sheet to ensure we would have the right amount of food and fuel at resupply stops and how long the waterless stretches were which dictated how long the walking days would be,etc.  Sometimes you just have to plan, it has nothing to do with being “risk averse”, I just try not to have regular Death marches anymore ;).  Some people also really enjoy the planning and see it as part of the whole pastime of backpacking.

Part 2

This is my approach to finding secret places and keeping them secret and it applies to both camping and backpacking.

Let’s call it a cultural thing perhaps.

Absolutely. I have worked with and around young people all my life and we cannot generalize about any generation.

A lot of people my age couldn’t fix a leaky sink faucet, and the most exercise they get is walking from the TV chair to the fridge. For many of them experiencing nature is taking a picture of Half Dome while sitting behind the steering wheel of their car and getting back to the Ahwahnee Hotel (or whatever it is called now) in time for Happy Hour.