|
|
The following are some suggestions on leading a successful backpacking trip:
-
You should have already participated in at least 3 prior backpacking trips,
one of which should have been a 3 day plus trip.
- You or someone else in your trip party should have recent first aid
certification in case of emergencies.
- You or someone else in your party should have received some sort of
formal hike leader, survival, outdoor, wilderness or similar training and/or
certification from a recognized group or organization.
- Plan your trip as far out in advance as possible. This way others can
make arrangements to make your outing. You won't get many responses if on
Wednesday you announce a week long backpacking trip starting on Thursday. 30
to 60 days in advance is the norm.
- Scout out the area where you are going to lead this trip. Make phone
calls to the government agency that oversees the area. Make "recon" trips to
the trailhead(s) so that you know how to get there and know at least a
little about the trail. Sometimes, you may need to make more than 1 trip in
order to gather all the data about the area.
- Get hold of all the maps and guidebooks that you can in order to become
an "expert" on the hike that you are going to lead.
- Find out where the nearest hospital, police department and/or ranger
station is located in case of an emergency.
- Use the
Feedback Form to notify
the webmaster of this
site that you want to lead a hike and to post it in the
future events and newsletter pages of the site.
- Send an email to the
Group Mailing List
announcing this trip. Talk up the trip and send subsequent messages telling
how long until the hike, how many people are signed up, etc.
- Post messages in the
Message Boards
area as well as the
Member's
Message Board area. announcing the hike. Be sure to "talk it up" and post
follow-ups with changes and/or additional information.
- Plan your strategy of how the hike will work in terms of shuttling cars,
where to camp, how far to hike each day, etc. Be sure to account for the
weather and stress in your announcements that the hike is cancelled or
postponed if the weather reaches a certain threshold.
- On the hike, make sure that either someone stays with the slowest hiker
or that you all stick together as a group.
- Make sure that you know where the nearest hospital is in case of an
emergency.
- Don't be discouraged if no one or not many people sign up for a given
hike. For a linear hike, you only need 1 other person and for a circuit
hike, you can always do it solo.
- Be positive about and during the trip. Give encouragement to others
that may be having a tough go of it.
- Have FUN on the hike!
- Send a followup email thanking all of those that participated in the hike
afterwards.
- Send a trip log and/or pictures of your hike to the webmaster of this
site so that they can be posted for all to see!
Give Us Feedback!
|
