52 pieces of adventure advice

Drink before you feel thirsty

10. Don’t expect a great night of sleep while camping—expect a series of naps.

Reminds me of a friend who liked to say “I slept great many, many times last night.”

“Going one mile an hour with zero breaks is faster than going two miles an hour and stopping to catch your breath every five minutes.“

11. When you wake up wondering if you should get out of your sleeping bag/tent to pee or if you can get back to sleep without getting up to pee … just get up and go pee.

48. If you always eat your best food first, you’ll always be eating your best food.

Drink when thirsty may be true if someone is inactive vs active.    I’m pretty certain I’m putting away and releasing more than 8 glasses a day if I’m hiking.  1 liter every two hours as a general rule.  If I’m home, there’s no way I’m drinking before I’m thirsty, unless it’s beer perhaps.

I really like the advice, “Pick your goal first, then your partner.” That way you are less likely to get a mis-match with the partner/goal relationship.

Last week I backpacked the Grand Canyon, North Rim to South Rim, with a good partner who picked me after reading months of my backpacking comments on forums at his “Long Range Hunting” website.

And it worked. We balanced each other out, two experienced backpacking geezers, Len 71 and me 74. He was a bit slower on the down hill sections due to knee problems and a bit faster on the uphills due to better conditioning. But we both made accommodations to each other. So yes, a partner’s physical attributes are important but so are his/her personality traits.

I would change—

“The best place to keep extra batteries for your headlamp is in another headlamp.” — to

The best place to keep extra batteries is in your ditty bag.

And—“Ounces equal pounds, and pounds equal pain.”

I would change to:  ” . . . and pounds equal pain . . . Unless you want to stay out without interruption for 3 weeks and know that the 40 lbs of food will give you the freedom to do so.”

The more you know, the less you need. —Yvon Chouinard

I would change to:  The more you know, the more stuff you may want to take.

I carry a spare ditty bag because you can’t be too careful.

got to the wrong forum somehow