What makes a successful hike?

Caboose, Greyhound and Krispykritter at Newfound Gap

To any experienced hiker one word inevitably comes up even before the first boot imprint is left on the trail, planning. Now compound the situation with a multi overnight hike, or a long distance hike and soon questions concerning your hike can become a disorganized jumbled mess of complexities.

Seasoned hikers, including myself, will use planning as a way to lengthen the pleasure of the hike. Through this stage we can extend the euphoria of the hike by thinking and re-thinking about the adventure, days, weeks, even months before actually being on trail.

For example, it is late December and you are with a few of your of friends sitting around the warmth of a blazing fireplace. Outside temperatures are in the low 20 degree Fahrenheit range and a light snow dusting the ground. The purpose of the get together is to discuss the annual backpacking trip the group takes every year. The group decides to backpack the Florida Trail during Spring Break to escape the cold. You can now return home and for the next several months contemplate what type of gear to bring, the splash of an alligator torpedoing through the water, maybe a visit to the beach, and the feel of sand between the toes. And, on a cold wintery night almost feel the warmth of the sun hitting your back. You have just extended your 7 day hike into an exhilarating three month journey.

When I decide it is time to go for a hike, my first step in planning, is to use a pen and paper, or in today’s electronic world a computer, to write down what is called the Six Ws of investigative questioning. Used in investigative reporting and in police investigations, the Six W’s are used as a method to collect information. I use it as a tool to organize my thoughts concerning a hike. The Six Ws are actually five words that begin with W (who, what, when, where, and why) with the last word beginning with H (how). This is how I utilize the Six W’s in hiking:

• Who is going?
• What will be in my backpack according to the where and when?
• Where is the hike taking place?
• When during the year will the hike take place?
• Why – this question has the simplest  answer – to be in nature
• How am I getting to and from the trailhead?

Let me show you how it works.

The Who: Greyhound, my hiking partner and I were itching to get back on a long distance trail. It didn’t matter where the trail was located. What did matter was the time frame that we both could get off from work. We decided on a two week time table for our hike.  Two days for travel to and from the trail head, and 12 days of continuous hiking.

The options to where we were going – unlimited.

The Where:  The time period was too short for a trip out west, or to Europe. Both Greyhound and I agree we would rather spend more time in these locations to make the cost of traveling work for us. Greyhound and I have been doing section hikes for the past several years going north from Springer Mountain on the Appalachian Trail (AT). The southern Appalachian Mountains on the east coast of North America have some of the finest mountain hiking in the world. This would be a good time to knock off a huge chunk of miles continuing up the trail.  Our last AT section hike ended at Newfound Gap in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Knowing my average miles per day is somewhere between 18 – 24 miles, this would be a two week ambitious 260 mile hike beginning at the gap

Krispykritter as a speck going up the Hump

and ending in the small town of Damascus, Virginia. We would walk through the northern half of the Great Smoky Mountains considered by some to be the wildest and most remote section of the park. We would continue north on the AT and climb over some of most scenic landscapes the Southern Appalachian Mountains have to offer. Places like Max Patch, Big Butt Mountain, Big Bald, Beauty Spot, Unaka Mountain, Roan Mountain (where the highest shelter on the AT is located at 6,275 ft.), Little Hump and Big Hump, and Laurel Falls, just to name a few, could be hiked in one continuous hike.

Knowing this was a 260 plus mile hike, I cannot carry all my food for that time period on my back. It would be just too heavy. So, I had to figure where I was going to resupply and for how many days until the next re-supply.

The When: Like I said, Greyhound and I were itchin’ to go for a hike. Considering all possibilities, we wanted to go when it was still quite cool and views could be seen through the leafless winter trees. The date was set for mid March.

The How: We would fly up to Ashville, North Carolina and met a mutual friend by the trailname of Caboose. She lives in Ashville and would meet us at the airport. We would spend the night in Ashville and the next morning Caboose would take us to Newfound Gap. Our return flight would be from Tri City Airport in Tennessee, 30 miles from Damascus. We could get a shuttle ride to the airport from one of the outfitters in Damascus. During this stage of the planning we got a bonus. The flights out of Tri City were only on certain days, so the flight date extended our schedule 5 days (more time in nature).

The What: This is probably the most important W for me to consider.  Now that I knew we would be in the Appalachian Mountains in early spring, my backpack, or kit, would be put together for the nasty cold, windy, and wet weather found during this time in the mountains. I look at the weather, terrain and wildlife that I will encounter on any given hike and as a safety precaution evaluate what gear will ride on my back. Top on my list on this particular hike would be gear to prevent hypothermia, a life threatening condition in this type of weather. No matter how big or small my hike will be, it is always in the back of my mind what will be in my backpack for a safe and comfortable hike.

Next, I want to determine what I initially was going to eat for the first three or four days in the way of meals and snacks. I also want to consider what my possible choices would be during resupply.

And finally the WHY, and we already know that answer.

As you can see, planning is a very important function for a successful hike. By using the Six W’s one can take the confusion out of planning to organize a safe hike. In fact, most experienced hikers will tell you they enjoy the planning almost as great as the actual hike.

The Golden Hour

Palm trees in The Golden Hour

It was the night before Lady Kritter’s birthday and when asked what she wanted to do on her special day, her reply was not what I expected. I was pleasantly surprised by her response, “Be out in nature.” It was too late to go on any overnight trips, so the choices ranged from going to Cape Canaveral National Seashore on the coast to the inland waters of the St. John’s River basin on kayak. Or take a day hike in one of the many state and national parks in the area. The diversity of outdoor activities was one of the reasons I moved to this area of Florida. Lady Kritter had so many options she decided to wait till morning for the go ahead plan.

Both Lady Kritter and I love a painted sunset whether it is reflected on water or suspended above the horizon of the land. In recent days the high altitude, late afternoon cloud formations had created magnificent sunsets of blue, pink and orange colors. Lady Kritter decided to take a chance and have her birthday present of another possible glorious sunset of colors painted on the canvas of blue sky. The only local hotspot for wildlife and possible light-show at dusk that we could think of was unanimous, Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge.

The Golden Hour over Lake Woodruff prairie

The Golden Hour, or as some photographers call it, the magic hour, occurs just after sunrise and just before sunset. The sun is near the horizon causing sunlight to travel through more of the atmosphere. This reduces direct sunlight and creates a warm, soft, diffused light from the sun that appears more reddish-orange. The warm glow adds a pleasing feel to the scene, and long shadows help to pick out details, adding texture and depth to the image. 

Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge is nestled in western Volusia Country, 7 miles north of Deland and west of DeLeon Springs. According to the US Fish & Wildlife Services Lake Woodruff is…

 a habitat for migrating and wintering birds. The refuge contains 21,574 acres of freshwater marshes, 5,800 acres of Cypress and mixed hardwood swamps, 2,400 acres of uplands, and more than 1,000 acres of lakes, streams, and canals. The bilogical diversity of the wetlands provides nesting, overwintering and stopover habitat during migration for neotropical songbirds, migratory waterfowl, shorebirds, wading birds and raptors (215 bird species have been counted).

No two sunsets are ever the same and now that we were in the winter season, Lady Kritter and I would hopefully get that once in a lifetime sunset with a bonus display of abundant wildlife.

When Lady Kritter and I arrived at the refuge the cloud cover was heavier than expected. So many times I would arrive at a location, wait for a break in the clouds, only to be disappointed by thick clouds covering blue sky, spoiling the anticipated display of oranges, pinks, blues and who knows what color would appear with the setting sun.

Otter playing in the water

Lady Kritter and I get out of the vehicle, walked less than 100 feet and are stopped in our tracks. Less than 50 yards in front of us, nestled on the elevated dirt walkway between two dugout canals was an otter eating a fish. We stood silently as otter finished his evening meal and bounded back into the water towards our left. Slowly moving forward we could see the otter swimming in the water and cleaning his face. For about 20 minutes we watched the slick looking rascal play. When the playful antics of the otter waned I realized I failed to take the camera out. I succeeded in only getting one of two photographs with otter swimming away surrounded by cattails. “We could turn around and go home”, Lady Kritter said, “I just got my present”. However, in just under an hour the sun would be setting and hopefully the light show would begin.

Lady Kritter at The Golden Hour

Lady Kritter and I took our time exploring the water world on either side of the dike road. The low lying stratocumulus clouds departed and sunlight broke across the prairie. As the sun slowly lowered towards the horizon, the prairie began to turn into a golden color, The Golden Hour. At one point, as I walked ahead of Lady Kritter, movement along the dike’s edge caught my attention in the shrubs that separtated the wet prairie from the dike. Tiny, black masked face birds the size of warblers, called Common Yellowthroat, would suddenly dart out of the woody limbs, fly just above the shrub tops. and just as suddenly as the birds appeared, fly a short distance ahead of me and disappear back into the scrubs. What was truly amazing about this physical phenomenon was how the birds would fly up into the setting sun-ball causing their bodies to be shillouted against the bright golden light. Their wings were transformed into a dream-like white opaque color against the sun. What came to my mind first was this surreal feeling of being surrounded by flying little Tinkerbell fairies. I looked back towards Lady Kritter, pointed to the birds and told her, “fairies” and that we were truly in The Magic Hour.

The beginning of a Lake Woodruff sunset

And then, there was the sunset. Bright orange at first against a baby blue sky, framed in purple clouds. The colors became softer oranges, pinks and blues that had somehow been brush stroked across the sky by a master artist. I turned towards the east and saw Lady Kritter looking in the same direction at the many shades of pinks streaking across the gray-blue sky. “Happy Birthday”, I told her.

Each step back towards the car brought a different hue in the sky. It took a long time for the night to envelope the light-show. Instead of ending this story in words, I”ll let the pictures finish this writing.

Another sunset picture at Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Preserve

Sunset at Lake Woodruff National Wildlife PreserveAnother sunset picture at Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Preserve

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Down Sizing Water Purification Treatment

December 24, 2010 | By Kristin Hostetter, Backpacking Magazine December 16, 2010

Q.} With chemical water purification tablets, almost all of them give instructions for a full quart or liter. If I want to clean just 8 ounces, could I divide the dose by breaking tablets into quarters (or cut the number of drops by 1/4), and would the treatments still be effective? Submitted by: Jeremy, from the Get Out More Tour

A.} When I first received this question, I was intrigued, because in the 15 years that I’ve been answering reader queries, I hadn’t heard it. So I sought the help of some chemical experts, who confirmed that it is NOT a good idea to split dosages (more on why, below).

But as I thought about it more, I realized, that even if the answer was “Yes, you can safely divide tablets or drops to treat smaller amounts,” it still doesn’t make sense to do so. Why would you only want to treat 8 ounces of water on a hike? It’s like eating a single M&M. You’ll eventually need that water, so treat a whole bottle and share it or save it for later. Plus, chemicals require up to four hours to be effective, and if you’re hiking hard, you should drink more than that amount in that time frame.

OK, enough preaching. Maybe you have a perfectly reasonable explanation for wanting to treat only 8 measly ounces at a time. But you shouldn’t, according to Brian Roche of McNett, the makers of Aquamira. “As a general rule we would not recommend going against the instructions on the packaging for the drops or tabs,” he says. “It’s safest to treat water one quart at a time. And while increasing the dose for larger quantities of water is easy, it’s just too risky to recommend that consumers use less treatment for smaller amounts of water. It’s hard to get an exact measurement on the container for the correct amount of Aquamira to add.

Bill Bussler of Wisconsin Pharmacal, maker of Potable Aqua tablets, agrees. “It’s actually very difficult to cut one of the tablets exactly in half. So, the concentration of available iodine in the water might not be enough to treat the water, which poses a potential health risk,” he says. But since it takes two PA tabs to treat a liter, you could treat a half liter with just one tablet, he says.