Backpacking Skills

Scenario Analysis On my latest Appalachian Trail section hike from Southern New Jersey to Southern Connecticut, I hiked 173 miles over a 14 day period in cold and wet weather. While I could give you a blow-by-blow account about each item on …

Many outdoors men and women measure distance in the backcountry by using a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver. GPS receivers are reasonably accurate, real time, and provide distance traveled and distance to a destination. But what does the hiker do if they …

When Wysteria, Sherpa, and I arrived at the trail head we found 4 foot snow drifts covering the trail. It was late March, and we’d planned to backpack north over Mt Greylock past the Massachusetts/Vermont border. We knew that there might be some …

You should never underestimate the importance of local knowledge when planning a backpacking route or day hike. Trail conditions tend to change far more quickly than the reference information coded in maps or guidebooks and the only way to factor in that …

It’s a common courtesy among winter hikers to wear snowshoes when hiking on winter trails that are covered in unpacked snow deeper than 8 inches. Hikers who don’t wear snowshoes usually posthole, plunging knee or waist-deep into the snow and creating a …

Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) is a grid system that describes a person’s location in the backcountry.  It is wonderfully simple to understand and use because: It is intuitive –  it’s concepts can be understood quickly It can be easily self-taught Young hikers …

Freezer Bag Cooking is a great way to reduce your pack weight and helps eliminates the need to wash your cooking pots after a hot meal like breakfast or dinner. The principle behind Freezer Bag cooking is simple. You prepackage all of …

Sometimes you can’t leave your tent to take a pee. There might be a rain or snowstorm outside, it might be frigid cold and windy, or you might be surrounded by other campers at a crowded tent site where you can’t simply …

Bulgur is a quick cooking form of wheat that is an excellent alternative or substitute for rice or couscous in one-pot backpacking recipes. Best known as the grain ingredient in tabouli salad, Bulgur has a pleasant nut-like flavor which is high in …

If you liked the Polenta Mush recipe I published last week, you’ll probably like this one too. Mountain Gruel is another simple, one pot backpacking meal that you can eat as sweet hot cereal or a savory vegetable porridge depending on what ingredients …

I was giving a talk about hiking the White Mountain 4000 footers last year and one of the attendees asked me “How often should you update your maps?” She asked me this question because several major trails in the White Mountains have …

Alpine Spaghetti is a simple pasta dish that’s easy to make and quite filling. However, I’ve had to make some changes to the original recipe published in Simple Foods for the Pack to make it work for a single person as a …

Hot Pot Soup Serves 1 as a main course, 2 as a first course: 1/2 cup finely chopped sun-dried tomatoes 1/3 cup polenta 1/4 -1/2 chili pepper, seeds removed and finely shredded, to taste 2 bullion cubes or 1 tablespoon powdered bullion …

I’ve been testing two GPS navigation devices this summer: a higher-end GPS unit and a smartphone app that has very good maps. Except for having a longer battery life and being waterproof, I can’t see what the value is in having a …