What I learned on my first 4-day trip that I have NEVER seen on anyone else's lists

Am now professional backpacker. Everyone pay attention.

I recently returned from my first 4-day backpacking trip. Prior to going, I watched all of the "What you should know before your first backpacking trip" videos on the internet (yes, all of them). I also watch all of the "What I wish I'd known" videos. I knew absolutely everything there was to know about backpacking before going. I was perfect. A diamond-cut backpacker for sure. I would never make any of the rookie mistakes that are so laughably prevalent in the backpacking community. 

You can imagine my shock when I discovered that there were things I did not learn from these sources, and that further, I made mistakes.

I know. It's almost unfathomable.

But I did survive, and I even described the trip as "Great! Mostly." There is already a massive amount of content out there about how to prepare for backpacking (remember, I watched all of the videos, I know what I'm talking about here). I don't want to replicate that stuff. It's available from popular content creators (see my link list for good starting points). 

However, I did learn a few things that I have genuinely never seen discussed anywhere else, so I thought I'd share them. This is in no particular order, just random by what I remember first.

If you have ADHD, you do not have enough lists

I'm gonna do a whole separate post on the logistics of planning and executing a backpacking trip with ADHD, but this should get you started thinking. You have a packing list? Oh, that's cute. You've only just begun.

Trekking poles are great, but don't overuse them

Day 2, mile 15, and my shoulders are killing me. But why? My pack is on properly. It's supposed to distribute the weight from your shoulders! That is why frame pack! *makes adjustments* Yeah, pack is good and oooowwww why shoulders ooooowwwww. 

I had been using my trekking poles like I was a damned machine all day. 

Don't misunderstand me, I love trekking poles. They're great at adding another set of muscles for ascents, and saving your joints on descents, and they are the GOAT for balancing in difficult terrain (e.g., creek/water crossings). But generally speaking, on reasonably flat terrain, if you aren't really trying to make time, you don't need to power walk with them. You can be a lot more chill, just to help your arms keep moving. Or heck, stow them completely. Because if you just crank away with them all day, your shoulders will want a word with you.

Your pack has a spot for a water bladder for a reason

My CNOC bag. SO WORTH IT. Get it at GarageGrownGear (not an affiliate link)

I have a 3L CNOC water bladder. I love that thing. I typically use it to grab water when I find it to filter later, like when I'm stopped for lunch or at camp. The trail I was on had unreliable seasonal water resources, and I was very paranoid about getting it when I found it, and as much as I could carry. But trying to get that filled bladder into the holder in the back of a full pack is almost impossible.

Do it anyway. The holder puts the very heavy and sloshy weight of the bladder right against the middle of your back in an extremely well secured fashion so it doesn't unbalance you. It also tends to be a bit cool to the touch, which is nice.

On day 2 of my hike, I filled my bladder and tried to get it into the holder. After some struggling I gave up and instead put it in the mesh holder on the outside of my pack. Yeah. I put 6.615lbs of sloshy weight basically hanging off of the back, and I put another full 1L collapsible CNOC bottle with it, for a total of 8.82lbs of unstable weight pulling my whole pack backwards off of my shoulders. This is a terrible idea don't do it. 

On Day 3 I realized how dumb I was being, stopped on trail, and rearranged everything. I had to almost completely unpack my pack in order to get the bladder into the back pouch. And it was 100% worth it. The change in weight and feel of the pack was positive, immediate, and dramatic. 

Mummy bags and quilts are the same thing

Mummy bag vs Most Expensive Sleep System Known To Man (ZenBivvy)

I have a Kelty Cosmic Down 20* that I got at the REI resupply, which I was grateful to find. And now I have buyer's remorse after watching every Big Name YouTuber talk about how great quilts are and they won't ever use anything else and like that's great but I don't have a spare $200-500 to see if I'd prefer a quilt damnit.

So here's a secret. Quilts = mummy bags. Just unzip the damned thing all the way and turn it so the opening is in back. Presto! Quilt! 

Okay, it's not identical, but if you want to give a quilt a trial run, you don't have a way to borrow or rent one, and you don't feel like spending triple digits on an experiment, then This Is The Way. Yes, my mummy bag has a hood that was kind of in the way, but not really, I just folded it down. It gave me the chance to try out what a quilt is like, and I gotta admit, damn, it was pretty awesome. But it also let me still use my bag as a mummy bag as the temperatures dropped and I ended up zipping myself in to be nice and toasty. So sort of best of both worlds really. 

And if you truly fall in love with a quilt, you can go $1500 deep into some of the best sleep systems out there. Good for you. 

Be conservative with your planning, then fricking stick to it

The trail I was on was very restrictive on where you could camp--in fact, between the lack of water resources and camping options, it presented quite the planning challenge. I was concerned about some of the extremely long hikes I could end up with. I tried to base estimates for how long I could hike per day on what I'd seen others do, but the truth is, I'd never hiked all day with a full pack and really had no idea what was reasonable. So I stayed conservative, and planned a 4 day, 35ish mile hike.

Day 2 of my hike: do you notice a theme here? I made most (but not all) of my mistakes on Day 2. Left my camp site at 7:30am. Hiked 8.5 miles or so, and arrived at my next planned camp site at 11am. Crap. Really? I have nothing else to do. I didn't even bring my damned hammock. I'd finished lunch and filtered my water by 11:30am. The next camp site was 11 miles away. *internal math* Yeah, I should be able to get there by like 5 or 6pm no problem. I abandoned my careful, reasonable, conservative plans, and pushed on.

Turns out there is a vast difference between hiking 8.5 miles in one day and hiking 19 miles in one day,  especially when you're fairly new to longer distance hiking, and extra especially when the 19 miles turns into 22+ miles when you see that just because you got to the campground that doesn't mean you've gotten to the camp site. 

I was exhausted. Every part of me hurt. I'd f*cked up my water placement and my pole usage (see above), and I just wanted to die. I was living for jumping in the lake at the campground, or getting a shower (it was a state park campground after all), or at least getting a damned cold soda. None of these were available and I almost cried. I did make it to the campground by 6pm, so there is that.

The truth is, I made the plans I did when I was calm and reasonable and not in the middle of things, honoring the fact that I was new to all of this, and I would have an 11 mile day on Day 3 and a 14 mile day on Day 4 without any options, so I should be conservative. I made that plan for a reason, but in the moment, I scrapped it.

So here's some advice--whenever you can, leave yourself still wanting more. I mean, if I could've just pushed another 3-5 miles or something, that was probably reasonable. But another 11-that-turned-into-13 miles? That was a mistake. There will always be another day. There will be more challenges. You can work up to it. This is not a race, don't make it one.

Water weights 2.205lbs per liter

That's it. Water is heavy. If you're going somewhere with limited water resources, plan accordingly. The water in my pack pushed it from 27ish lbs to almost 40lbs. 

Relax your shoulders

Right now. Do it. And then when you're out on trail, every time it even vaguely crosses your mind, relax your shoulders.

Stop that I did not say slump over and hunch your back, I said relax your shoulders! If you do not know the difference, you really need to learn it. There's probably a YouTube video out there somewhere that will explain it, but if you go to any yoga studio in the world and ask someone there to teach you how to relax your shoulders while maintaining good posture, they'll do it, probably for free. Bunch of hippies.

Mentally prepare for sleeping in a shelter

This one caught me completely off guard. I knew my first night I would be at a shelter. But I'm not sure I really knew what that meant. I mean, I'd seen pictures of shelters, I suppose. Three walled things, platform to sleep on. You sleep in it I guess? Or on it? Inside it? Is there an inside to a shelter? Ontology starts breaking down.

Home Sweet Home

Funny story, I had not realized how much of my internal view of safety and security was tied up in being inside a tent. Okay, quit whining, just set up a tent then. There wasn't a place to set up a tent. I mean, I suppose I could've forced it. But at some level I was like, no, people sleep outside all the time. There's cowboy camping and whatnot. What are you afraid of?

Snakes. (what, are they gonna sneak up and eat me? Bite me just out of spite? Seriously.)

Bears. (there are no bears in my state)

Mice/rats. (way more scared of you than you of them.)

Mosquitos. (I used picardin and permethrin right?)

Raccoons. (This one is fair actually)

What is really scary is actually just the lack of barrier. The feeling of being exposed. It didn't help that I was alone. I'm pretty sure more people would've made the shelter feel much less intimidating. But alone, honestly, I was freaked out. But I ran through all of the good reasons that "I'm really being silly" and it worked, and it was actually a great night's sleep.

But man do I need a better sleeping pad.

It is difficult, but not impossible, to kill yourself putting up a bear hang

When you tie the line you're using to a rock, and throw the rock over a branch, physics takes over and the rock-line turns into a pendulum. Unless you've moved, that pendulum will be headed right back for you, possibly your head. I was fortunate that I hadn't released enough line that went low enough to connect with my head, but I could have genuinely hurt myself very very badly. 

Also, there are no bears in my state, and racoons probably make short work of a bear hang, so I'm not quite sure why I bothered, but it seemed like the thing to do.

Green tunnels negate satellite communicators

My Personal Safety Assistant

Oh holy Christ in a sidecar this was bad. I have a satellite communicator--a Zoleo. It's quite nice. I'd tested it, it worked pretty well. My safety partner had guidelines for when she didn't see movement or get a message in X amount of time to alert help for my safety. We had a plan.

Then I entered the Green Tunnel Trails of Southern Indiana. There is no view of the sky, there is only Zuul--I mean, only tree. Tree cover. Trees everywhere. The sky might be a myth. Satellite communicators will never punch through that.

Day 1, no messages went through after about noon. None. Not one. No movement uploads, no checkins, nada. I didn't realize that, although I can't imagine what I would have done if I had. I mean, what, climb one of the 50' trees to get signal? 

So what do you do? You look up every once in awhile, and when you find a view of the sky, you sit your butt down and push some messages and checkins through while you can. And you do this so that the people who love you aren't absolutely having an aneurysm in fear of what has happened to you. You love them, don't hurt them this way.