Hard Learned Backpacking Lessons

Reflecting on some of my earliest backpacking adventures, I sometimes wonder how I managed to survive. For example, over the Christmas / New Year’s holiday during my senior year of high school, two friends and I embarked on our first multi-night winter backpacking trip. We were not only inexperienced but lacking in both knowledge and wool. Our primary attire was cotton: cotton blue jeans, cotton long johns, and probably cotton tops. If I was lucky, my socks were wool, but I really don’t remember. My toboggan was synthetic. I also wore a nylon (but not very waterproof) pull-over parka. I knew nothing about hypothermia, and my backpacking partners probably didn’t either.

Our first late December day began with frost on the grass, crisp air, and a bright shining sun in a clear blue sky that warmed us as we hiked. Since none of us had bothered to check the weather forecast, we had no idea what was in store. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

Current signage where Forbes Road intersects the LHHT

That day we hiked some back roads on the western slope of Pennsylvania’s Laurel Ridge until we could access the historic 1758 Forbes Road. Over two hundred years later, it was little more than a Jeep trail. We backpacked along this famous but unmarked route until it intersected the Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail on the eastern side of Laurel Ridge near the ridge line. Making it to one of the new Adirondack style trail shelters on this new trail, we camped for the night, safe and secure in our lack of knowledge and inexperience, still unaware of and unprepared for what we would face the following day.

The next morning we packed up and started hiking under overcast skies. Eventually a fine mist started falling, and with the falling moisture, the temperature started dropping as well. After we were damp from the mist, the precipitation eventually changed to a wet snow that started accumulating. As darkness approached, we found ourselves getting cold. Little did we know we were starting to experience the initial stages of hypothermia.

My backpacking partners on our second day

Growing increasingly confused, weak, and uncoordinated, we hiked on through the cold and snow, looking for the next shelter. We eventually become benighted, but about eight miles after setting out from the previous night’s shelter, we managed to locate the next one. Once inside, we built a roaring fire in the fireplace, warmed up, hung our wet cotton up to dry in the heat of the fire, and refueled with a warm meal and warm liquids. One of our sleeping bags had also become wet and we used the dry warmth from the fire to dry it as well.

Evaluating our predicament, we planned to hike the next day the few miles to the closest road, find a phone, and call to be picked up. Our third morning we found the trail covered with several inches of snow. The temperature was below freezing, but at least the snow had stopped falling and the there was little wind. We managed to hike out, arrange to be picked up, and lived to backpack another day.

That's me on our last day before we bugged out

That was over forty years ago, but it was not the last hard learned backpacking lesson I have encountered. I now know not to wear cotton when conditions can be cold and damp, to check the weather forecast before heading out on the trail, and to generally be better prepared. All those hard learned lessons have served me well but have not prevented me from experiencing additional hard lessons from the trail. For instance, a year after this ill-fated trip . . . 

An earlier and slightly different version of this post originally appeared on The Trek.