Remembering my FIRST Backpacking Trip
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- Опубликовано: 9 сен 2024
- Oh memories...follow along as I take a trip down memory lane to discuss my very first backpacking trip, including several valuable lessons learned.
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#firstbackpackingtrip
Filmed on a Google Pixel 2 with Purple Panda external mic
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Welcome to my random musings on all things backpacking. If you haven't already guessed, my name is Dan. I was bit by the backpacking bug in 2014 and since then haven't gone one day without thinking about my next adventure. I'm from Chicago, a great city but...not so much known for its bountiful backpacking opportunities. Nevertheless, I haven't let that stop me from enjoying the outdoors. Hope my videos leave you with one or two takeaways, or even better, inspire you to head out on the trail. Thanks for watching! Have fun out there!
- Dan
Tell us about YOUR first backpacking trip! What rookie lessons did you learn?
Starved Rock is AWESOME
My first trip was miserable. Got lost, got cold, got temporary nerve damage. But all subsequent trips have been great, and I love trying to lighten my pack
Well, it had been about 25 years since working for Uncle Sam. I had watched a ton of RUclips videos, what could go wrong? Appalachian trail here I go. Oh btw not only was my backpack heavy so was I. It went bad to worse. But I loved every minute. Trying again next year.
My dad took me out for the first time when I was 11. He is a life long backpacker and I think he was dying to get me out there as soon as he could. We drove from Oklahoma to Colorado and did a few days in the Rawah Wilderness. I remember catching and eating fish, meeting a forest ranger, and being stuck in the tent for a full day because of rain. This was back in 1992 so we had our Kelty external frame packs and UL wasn't really a thing yet. My dad sherpa'd a lot of the shared gear and I can't imagine how much his pack weighed.
Whatever it was about backpacking stuck with me and I've been hooked since that first trip. Being a lifelong midwesterner makes going out with frequency tough, but I try to do at least one trip in the Rockies every year to supplement the shorter (and flatter) hikes that are available around the Chicago area.
Hopefully I can get my daughter to fall in love with backpacking too. God only knows how many stuffed animals she'll make me carry 😳 The "non-flat" longer trip each year feels essential living in the Midwest.
I might eventually make a video of my first trip; but during my first backpacking trip, my group and I had to deal with a mother bear and two cubs. Good times! haha
Great video, it is always great to look back and see how far we have came :) New Supporter here from Europe
Hi Dan, great story - it's a wonder you ever went on another trip. I guess it would've put many off for life.
My first trip was a solo 80-mile Dales Way walk from Ilkley in Yorkshire to Windermere in the UK Lake District. My son had done it with the scouts, so there was no way I was going to be beaten by a bunch of youngsters, when everyone knows maturity and wisdom is more than a match for youth, fitness, determination and confidence. Ha! I borrowed his tent and basically got together all the gear with no idea. I rooked my back big time on the morning of the second day, having suffered a slipped disc a couple of years before. Oh man! I thought I was finished but I was determined to complete the walk. If Alex could do it, then so too could his dad!
Lessons learned? Many, but I learned a lot about myself - I loved the feeling of freedom and the fact that my time was my own. No deadlines, no organisational stress. Just the physical stress that brings justified fatigue and a deserved sleep. I also learned a lot about human physiology which, as a medical practitioner obviously interested me. Why did my sedentary patients with musculoskeletal disorders fare worse, whereas my patients who remained more active seemed to do better and need less analgesic medication? It dawned on me that through evolutionary history survival depended on remaining active. Our ancestors gave us a legacy of rapid healing through remaining active - they had no choice. Do or die. Ordinarily an acute but severe low back non-disc related injury would take 4-6 weeks to settle in a man of my age. By the end of day 3, having done about 20 miles on each of days 2 and 3, my back was completely better. Since then I have done a lot more thinking about the physiological (and psychological) benefits of walking and I intend to produce a series of videos describing why I believe walking is truly the best medicine. So glad you didn't give up. You've been an inspiration to me and no doubt many other hikers besides. 👍
Wow! 80 miles for your first trip! You sure are putting the rest of us to shame 😊 Glad your back healed so quickly. I always thought laughter was the best medicine 😆 but I think you may be right about the amazing benefits of walking. Hiking in the wilderness is rejuvenating in so many ways. I'm glad I stuck with it and I'm glad many others have done the same. And thanks for the kind words!
I lived in Aurora, IL for 10 (regrettable) years. Starved Rock is an oasis in the otherwise rather bland northeast IL landscape.
One trippy thing I will never forget is the trail that touches the IL canal, because at that point there are always several venomous eastern massasauga snakes lounging on bush branches, inches from hikers and nothing ever goes wrong. The hikers pass obliviously and the snakes ignore the hikers. The rangers will deny they exist there, but the snakes have the telltale, heart-shaped heads of pit vipers.
My first trip was with my best friend and my future step-dad, in 1977, up the Liberty Spring Trail in Franconia Notch, NH when I was 13.
I had a tiny, cheap, external-frame pack. My step-dad had a canvas laundry bag from the navy. He was a smoker then. We stupidly carried a pineapple, a ham, an axe and a machete., but no tent! We had cheap, ancient, cotton sleeping bags.
My step-dad was very athletic, but he gave out before we got to the campsite, let alone the peak of Mt. Liberty - a failure that was agonizing to me. (Years later I realized we were only about 15 minutes shy of the camp site.)
So we slept off the trail. If you know that trail, you know it is nearly impossible to find a place to lay three sleeping bags above 3000'.
The ham and pineapple could not have been more delicious. My step-dad brought a role of magnesium that he burned. I am sure it damaged our eyes, it is/was that bright.
In the middle of the night my step-dad awoke. Something was in his bag. A salamander. It ended his desire to ever go backpacking or even car camping. One and done. But I was smitten from the start.
My next trip was at age 19, after I got my first car and license, driving back to that trail with a different friend, getting to the top of Liberty, then over to the Bridal Path trail coming off of Mt. Lafayette over two days. It is a tough hike, and we certainly did not go ultralight. But it was a good trip.
Quite a first trip! I always love fresh pineapple and a whole ham on the trail...as long as someone else carries it 😁
@@DanGoesHiking ,
You just got me to laugh aloud.
The best way to work that is to recruit a new friend, telling him/her it is tradition for the newbie to carry the ham and the pineapple.
now that's a great story, keep em coming
For me it started with a 9lb beginners backpack from Amazon :)
Great to find some fellow Illinois backpackers from the Chicagoland Area!
I am just getting back into backpacking. I was able to start car camping again once my son joined scouts. Previous to that the last times I went camping are not so affectionately names by my wife as the times I tried to get her killed while dating. First was in WV whitewater rafting the upper gauley river and car camping. The second was in Indiana dunes car camping in a huge thunderstorm.
First time backpacking was on a 14 outward bound winter trip in Colorado. The pack + snowboard I carried had to have been 65-70 pounds no joke. We also had 2 huge team pulk sleds about 150lbs we took turns in groups of 4 pulling at altitude in snow shoes.
Despite that it was awesome and I was hooked.
Subscribed looking forward to more Illinois regional content! Keep up the good work!
Sounds like a memorable experience! Thanks for the story and the kind words!
Sounds like pure Type-2 fun! I just had my first night out with lightning the other day and like you I'm deathly afraid of lightning. I was shivering though from how scared I was. Luckily I was with my girlfriend and she was there to kind of calm me down.
Glad you made it okay! Next time I need to bring a teddy bear 🐻
@@DanGoesHiking Sounds like we need a review on UL Teddy Bears!
Still waiting to go on my first trip, for now I guess Im just a gear collector lol
I was a gear collector for YEARS! You'll get there!