How to succeed in hiking trips

Spring breeze and even longer days, isn’t it a great feeling when the summer approaches. Well, summer is still several months away, so let’s enjoy the fresh cold air by nature. We collected a few tips and tricks for you to make life easier without tearing your boots and trousers.

The hike starts from the comfort of your couch

Like many other things the great hiking experience starts from your couch or wooden chair. Preparing is the key to succeed in anything that you do, also in hiking trips. Key questions are: Where are we going? How long is our trip? How many people are going on the trip? How do we get to the destination? What is the budget for the trip? Well, fact is everything affects everything so there is not right way to do – but the food and clothing helps a lot. Of cource the hikers can be divided into two category, those who carry everything useless from the bells and whistles and those who cut all unnecessary to keep weight down.

Food and snacks help keep bears away

Or not necessary. For those blood sucking vampires or wild animals you can give big fist pump to prevent them getting your hefty snacks. But if you are carrying some basic supermarket ready to eat meals even bears are not interested in those. In subfreezing temperatures you have to remember eat well enough or your inner wild animal wakes up. Especially with camping meals, you might run out of energy after a sweaty day hiking in woods. As we Finns usually like to carry lots of salty liquorice in hiking trips but you don’t have to.

Proper dressing – not the thing you put between hamburger

Of course when we are making Beef Jerkys we don’t know well latest clothing trends. However, as Finns we know something about cold weather and dressing in layers. The basic way to keep warm is getting dressed in layers and right for the environment, not so that the all heat goes for birds of prey. As humans we are walking radiators so we need energy from somewhere to function correctly. Sometimes some crazy Finns gets naked outside in subfreezing weather, but meaby the ”sisu” does the job?

Of course, the most important thing – the trip itself

Have you ever heard a really interesting story about when your friend went on a trip and everything was so wonderful and amazing? To be honest, good trips are memorable, but you won’t come up with famous campfire stories. The most memorable stories usually consist of terrible weather, fights with bears, wetting the sleeping bag or terrible diarrhea. Of course, over time, the best stories are mixed up memories and good storytelling.