What I learned from my first backpacking trip
Hopefully, you never have to make the mistakes I did
Last weekend, I learned more than I expected or wanted to. I am currently involved with Boy Scouts and now that has COVID has started to subside a bit more, we are able to do many more events than before. One of these things includes backpacking and preparing for a high-adventure trip this summer, whatever that may be. Now if you don’t understand what I mean by ‘backpacking’ or ‘high-adventure’, then let me explain. Backpacking involves carrying everything you need for a camping trip or trip of some sort all in a backpack. This includes toiletries, a tent, food, cooking equipment, all on your back. It’s also always accompanied by a hike. Most backpacking trips involve hiking a certain amount of miles, camping for the night, then packing up and doing the same thing in the morning, although not always. My troop hiked about 1.5 miles in, did a day hike and went 1.5 miles back out the way we came to the parking lot.
Second, high-adventure is a term commonly found in scouting, which refers to any sort of activity that is a bit more intense and different than normal scouting activities. This includes climbing mountains, camping for long periods of time, canoeing, zip-lining, etc. The list goes on and on, it provides arguably the most fun experiences in scouting. My troop is undecided on where we are going to go next, but either way, it is going to be very fun.
Back to my trip last weekend. It was cold-weather camping, and I had never backpacked before. Even with the emails sent out and recommendations I had gotten for what to bring, there were some significant mistakes I had made, varying largely in size.
#1: Not bringing enough food
From an outside perspective, this may seem like an easy thing to remember to do. However, packing light is important and sometimes you don’t always remember to do so for other reasons. In my case, it was because I did not realize how many days we were going to be gone. It’s not an easy error to make, but I doubt I am the first one this has happened to. To solve the weight issue, dried foods can be surprisingly good and very lightweight. If you research enough you will find some great options.
#2: Cooking pancakes on a camping trip
Pancakes are amazing. They taste awesome, they come in a dry mix, and in some cases are very protein-rich. With being easy to cook, it seems like a no brainer, except for one key component: the batter. Pancake batter is a pain in the butt to clean and it gets a whole lot of stuff dirty. Some of my dishes I had to clean back home because the batter stuck too hard. It’s not worth the time and effort. If you decide to make them instead of using my advice, make sure to get a non-stick pan, a good spatula, and an extra bowl for mixing the batter instead of using the only pot you have which you boil water in. Some great breakfast alternatives include oatmeal and in some cases eggs, depending on the type of backpacking. These are easy to cook, clean, and nutrient-rich.
#3: Test your equipment
As this was my first backpacking trip, I didn’t know what was going to happen with the trail stoves. I’m not sure what brand they were, but the basic premise involved having a small white gas fuel bottle hooked up to a small tube that fed into the stove. Without getting into too much detail, as simple as it was, it took a really long time to get down. This cost my troop a lot of time in getting our meals done and it did not feel good to have everyone else waiting on me. Point is, know how your equipment works before you go on the troop. You will not regret it at all.
#4:Do not sleep on the ground, and use a pot lid
One of my biggest pet peeves in camping is packing everything back up. For this reason, usually, I do not use a sleeping pad, despite it bringing a lot of comfort and being a lot softer than the ground. The ground usually suffices, but when the cold comes, you do not want to be on that ground. Inflatable sleeping pads usually get you an inch or two off the ground and is filled with air that can be somewhat warm. That inch or two is crucial because it allows you to stay much warmer than if you were on the ground, where your heat would be drawn out of you. I usually get about 8 hours a night in typical conditions, but without that sleeping pad inflated I only got an hour at the max. It takes an awful amount of layers to do more help than getting your body off the ground, so just use a sleeping pad.
One handy tidbit I learned is that when it comes to boiling water in general, using a pot lid really helps keep the heat in and get the water boiling very fast. This was especially important when in the cold climate and in high altitudes. In case you haven’t noticed a trend here, we didn’t bring a pot lid with us. We didn’t think we would actually need it, so it just did not come with us. We got away without using one, but we probably would have cleaner equipment if we had done so, and not used so much time boiling water.
#5: Don’t beat yourself up too much
I felt quite shameful during this outing. All the above mistakes I made felt like a huge deal at the time. I lost plenty of time worrying about what was going to happen with the meals, which contributed to my lack of sleep. If you have a strong moral obligation to help people and fulfill your duties as I do, you might get what I mean. I realized I wasn’t doing a good job and it really was not a fun feeling. But after talking to members of my patrol and thinking about it more, ultimately it worked out fine. My patrol didn’t hate my guts for not giving enough food to them, and the adults present didn’t laugh at me (much). After all, big mistakes become big lessons, and I think everyone else realized that. People are often nicer than you think. These sorts of things work out in the end, they’re just temporary hardships, even if it’s very hard to keep things in perspective.
Conclusion:
As you can tell, I learned a ton over the course of this trip. I learned what not to cook, how to better prepare, and some valuable advice. Besides, most of these mistakes were involving cooking, and cooking wasn’t the entire trip. (cooking merit badge) We still had a great hike that tested our limits and gave us amazing views. It’s good not to obsess about what went wrong because it’s unnecessary and simply not fun, so just don’t do it. While it felt like a bad experience while I was on the trip, I don’t regret going on it at all, and I wouldn’t change what happened. Now I’m interested in doing it more to redeem myself anyways. If you are ever considering backpacking, heed my advice and go do it because it will provide some awesome experiences.
