Health & Hygiene

Compression socks can help reduce swelling and improve blood circulation in your feet and lower legs if you’re recovering from a sprained ankle, plantar fasciitis or Achilles tendonitis, which many hikers experience at some stage in their hiking “career”. I’ve used them to relieve the pain and symptoms of all …

Sprained ankle injuries can take four to eight weeks to heal but it’s important to strengthen your ankle during recovery to prevent a recurrence of the injury. That means engaging in targeted physical therapy exercises that work the ankle from multiple directions using a beginner set of Therabands, household props, …

If something bad happens to you on a hike and you’re alone or with a friend, would you be able to self-rescue, or would you need to contact search and rescue and request help? That is a question I ask myself whenever I go hiking. It dictates the routes I …

Nobody gets just one chigger bite. You get a whole mess of them, more often than not, and they itch like hell. But chigger bites are preventable and the itching they cause goes away in a few days. Unlike ticks, chiggers do not carry any diseases that can affect humans.  …

Permethrin is an insect repellant and insecticide that bonds to fabric and can be used on your clothes, tent, or hammock to prevent Lyme Disease, Rocky Mountain Spotted fever, or the Zika Virus by killing ticks, mosquitos, and insects that land on your stuff. The liquid Permethrin application techniques discussed below …

DEET and Picaridin-based insect repellent sprays and lotions are available from a wide range of brands and in a variety of forms factors. How effective are they are repelling mosquitos and ticks? What are the best concentrations to get? Which one’s are the safest to use for children and pregnant …

I wear a Sea-to-Summit Head Net with Insect Shield when I hike and backpack during bug season. When coupled with a wide-brimmed hat like my OR Bugout Brim, wearing a head net is far more comfortable and effective than coating my ears, head, chest, and shoulders with insect repellent. I’ve …

Some people think I’m cracked when it comes to the preventive measures I take to avoid tick bites and getting Lyme Disease. But I still haven’t contracted Lyme Disease after 5000 miles of hiking, backpacking, and off-trail hiking through prime tick habit on the Appalachian Trail, in the northeastern United States, or …

Getting blisters during winter hiking or mountaineering can slow down your pace and significantly compromise your safety. But preventing them can be tricky because in addition to your boots, you also need to wear crampons and snowshoes, which cause friction on different areas of your feet. During the past few …

While the popular media bombards us with tales of stinky long distance thru-hikers, you don’t have let go of your personal hygiene on a backpacking trip. The fact is, you’ll stay a lot more comfortable and avoid a lot of health issues by washing up daily and staying clean. Here …

Badass hikers aren’t born, you have to train to become one. In addition to learning advanced hiking and backpacking skills, you need to train your butt and legs. Here are 10 functional exercises that work the big muscles and smaller stabilizers in your legs to help you become a badass hiker. …

The best knee brace I’ve found for hiking and backpacking is the Cho-Pat Knee Brace. I’ve used one when my knee bothers me from carrying too much weight and I have a few hiking buddies who swear by theirs. They wear two braces whenever they hike, one for each knee. …

One of the oldest pieces of gear that I still carry with me on overnight trips is a portable travel toothbrush, called The Toob. It’s a completely self-contained toothpaste and toothbrush system that lives in my bear bag. It’s quite simple really. It’s a plastic tube that breaks into 3 …

Like many others, my backpacking plans are dictated more by available time than by the weather outside! Getting on the trail means carefully orchestrating time away from all my “big kid” responsibilities. Once I request time off from work, get someone to pick up the kid, and sweet talk my …