A Day on the Trail

What can you expect your days to look like when backpacking? And how can you make them go more smoothly? Here's a typical day on the trail for me, and a few things I learned along the way (after I made a bunch of rookie mistakes).

Morning routine

I usually set my alarm for 6:00, since my morning routine is kind of long. Once I talk myself into getting out of my toasty sleeping quilt, I get dressed, stuff my quilt in its stuff sack, deflate and roll up my air mattress, and pack up any stray belongings. For efficiency's sake, once I've stepped out of my tent, I don't crawl back inside, so now is the time to get everything in my tent packed up, and all the stuff sacks piled up by the door.

Once I'm out of my tent, I grab my bear can, pull out my hand sanitizer, and head out for my morning trip to the bathroom.

Next up is grabbing all those stuff sacks out of the tent, piling them on top of a nearby boulder, and packing up my tent. If it was a wet night, I'll fling my rainfly and tarp over some nearby rocks to dry in the sun while I make breakfast, and finish packing it later.

Now, time for breakfast! I start by grabbing my Sea to Summit 5L Kitchen Sink and filling it with water. After my trip to the bathroom and packing my tent, my hands are pretty dirty, so I wash them first. Then I set up my stove and frying pan, boil some water for hot chocolate, and fry up some fry bread. (I'll write about this more in a separate post, but high-calorie breakfast helps me keep my energy up while hiking, and this is a plain enough meal that I can choke it down even while suffering from altitude-induced nausea or loss of appetite.)

Once I've eaten, I grab my sink of water and do the dishes. And then it's time to pack my pack. A coat of sunscreen, a spritz of bug spray, and I'm off!

On the trail

I usually hit the trail around 8:15 (or 8:30, if I can't get out of bed in the morning, which definitely happens).

This stretch depends very much on what kind of trip I'm taking, and how hard a day I have planned. Some of my trips are very low mileage (and more about scoring hammock time than covering real ground), and some have 10-mile days (which is about my max, though I can do 12 or 13 miles if I have to, to get where I want to go). I don't have a real lunch on the trail, but if it's a long day, I'll bring more of my day's snacks in my pack's hip-belt pockets, and take breaks about every 3 miles or so to rest, reapply sunscreen, and eat something.

My goal is to get to camp by around 2:00 p.m.

Afternoon at camp

I take my time finding a good campsite. In addition to making sure I'm following all the area's guidelines with regard to distance from the trail and water, I also like to stay away from buggy, meadowy areas, and have a good boulder or two as camp "furniture," some shade, a couple of good trees if I've brought my hammock or plan to string a clothesline, good access to water, and a nice view. Some people backpack because the love the hiking part; I backpack because I love the camping part, so finding a good campsite is important to me.

First I set up my tent, then I go down to the water and fill up my kitchen sink. Filtering from the sink (often more comfortable to do in camp that crouched by the lake, getting bitten by mosquitoes), I fill up my water bladder for the next day's hike, and also filter water to drink that afternoon. I have a 2 liter water bottle I use to store a supply of clean water, and a 14 ounce Nalgene I use to actually drink from. Then it's time to mix up a lemonade and have the rest of that afternoon's snacks (usually an enormous hunk of Parmesan, along with crackers, if I haven't eaten them already).

At this point, I have a couple of hours before dinner, so I usually do some combination of chores (laundry, hair washing, giving myself a wipe-down), and lounging around, enjoying the view.

Dinner and getting ready for bed

Before dinner, I'll layer up into a warmer combination of clothes. A puffy jacket is great protection from mosquitoes (who often emerge around this time), so even if it's not that cold, I'll usually throw it on. And this is the important part! Even though it's an hour or two until sunset, I'll put my headlamp in my jacket pocket right then. I found out the hard way that you don't want to wait until it's dark before trying to find your headlamp.

When it's time for dinner, I'll grab another sinkful of water, and filter a little more, topping off my supply so that I have plenty for that evening and the following morning. Then I'll wash my hands in the sink, and then cook up dinner. After that, it's time for dishes.

After dinner, I'll usually wander around taking pictures, or read, or just stare at the view. This is one of my favorite parts of the day -- all the hard work is done, and I get to reap the rewards of seeing mountains and lakes at sundown, when they're at their most beautiful, miles from civilization, with a yummy meal in my tummy and feeling pretty clean after the day's efforts.

When I'm ready for bed, I grab my clothes off the clothesline, throw all of my gear into my tent (including my pack), go to the bathroom one last time, brush my teeth, make sure everything that smells (including my chapstick and hand sanitizer) is in my bear can, and stash that about 50 ft. away.

Once in my tent, I take about 10 minutes to organize my stuff for the next morning. Something that helps me enormously, once I figured it out, is putting everything in the same place every night, so I can find it more easily and get going more quickly the next day. So the empty stuff sacks for my sleeping pad and quilt go in one place, my hat and sunglasses go in another, my clothes for the next day go in another, and so on.

I set my alarm and put my phone in the toe box of my sleeping quilt (to help preserve its battery, which drains more quickly in the cold), and then it's a bit more reading and off to sleep, ready to do it all again the next day.