A weekend hike trip can be more fun than docking yourself at
a pub or blasting your woofers while driving down an expressway to a downtown
bar. Hiking is rejuvenating, it is exciting, the adventure will replenish your
energy instead of fatiguing you and you would learn more than you can imagine.
No matter how old you are, where you live, how much you earn and who you have
living with you, there is always enough opportunity to plan and go hiking. It
doesn’t really matter if it is for a weekend or a weeklong vacation.
But, planning such a trip calls for smart thinking. If you
haven’t planned a similar adventure before then you need some tips to guide you
along (more here). Here is some advice that can help you to have a great weekend, hiking on
some of the easiest or some of the toughest trails that you consider accessible
from where you live.
- A weekend is a short period. Don’t plan a huge trip and don’t go very far. If you spend hours or perhaps more than half a day traveling, then the whole purpose of a hike trip becomes irrelevant. You should not tire yourself or anyone during the traveling. Pick a place that is close to where you stay. If the place is far enough, then choose to take a train if possible or a bus. Try and avoid driving. It is likely that one person will not be doing all the driving but being in a car for several hours is always taxing. Hence, pick a place that is nearby which would take just a few hours. Else, take a different route or conveyance option which will get you to a far place faster and more conveniently. The bottom line is, travel less and hike more, toil less on traveling and spend more energy and effort on hiking. That is the secret to a great adventure.
- The next tip on planning a good hiking trip for the weekend pertains to the choice of trail. You cannot pick a trail randomly, especially not considering the expertise of the people. You cannot go on a trail that involves rock climbing if you or those traveling with you are not accustomed to or trained in rock climbing. Choose the challenges based on your expertise or abilities and then add some. There should be something new that you have not done but that should not be beyond the possibilities for everyone involved.
- Take the right equipment with you! Even a short weekend away, hiking in the mountains or forests, you need to pack the most essential equipment. If you're sleeping in a tent, you shouldn't forget to make the agreement who packs the tent. How many can sleep in the tent is important as well. Everybody should take a sleeping bag as well. If it's really warm then a thin cotton bag should be sufficient. Next to the tent and sleeping bag, you need to eat. So make sure you bring a camping cooker and food with you. Take a torch with you so you have some light at night. Nowadays almost everybody hikes with a GPS device and if you have one, you should know how to use the navigation maps etc. If you don't have a hiking GPS then you should bring normal maps with you which is smart anyway (also when you have a GPS) because a map will never run out of batteries! Good hiking GPS devices (read more hiking GPS here) are for instance Garmin eTrex, Monterra and Montana and the Magellan eXplorist.
- The selection of people who would go on a weekend hike trip is also very important. You cannot take all your friends. You cannot all be novices or amateurs. There has to be a blend of experience and inexperience, friends and professionals and more importantly, everyone should be on the same page. If you take one unhealthy person or one person who is unwilling to go the distance then your entire group will fall back and all of you will have a very poor experience throughout the trip. Thus, choose your group wisely. If you all are inexperienced, then have a guide or a pro take you through the trail.
